Trump’s Irrational and Ineffective Policy Toward China

If we are in a new Cold War with China, we should learn and replicate our successes from competing with the Soviet Union in the 20th century. So far, Trump is doing the opposite.

In his first National Security Strategy, published in 2017, President Trump rightly described China as a “revisionist” power, alongside Russia, that seeks “to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” Some Trump administration officials, as well as independent analysts, back then exaggerated the China threat. His former national security advisor argued that “Party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef Stalin’s successor.” Trump’s then Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, claimed that “the CCP regime is a Marxist-Leninist regime. General Secretary Xi Jinping is a true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology. It’s this ideology that informs his decades-long desire for global hegemony of Chinese communism.” Trump’s former senior trade official, Robert Lighthizer, went even further to argue that “China is the greatest threat that the American nation and its systems of Western liberal democratic government have faced since the American Revolution.” These claims went too far, but a correction to complacency about the China threat was certainly needed.

In the analytic world during the first Trump term, an engaging debate ensued about whether the United States and China had entered a new Cold War. In the book I just finished writing, called Autocrats versus Democrats: China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder (you can already preorder it here or here!), I also engaged in this debate, arguing for a more nuanced, complex view. Some aspects of the US-China competition are similar to the Cold War; other dimensions have nothing to do with the Cold War. But I agree with the general assertion that we have entered a new era of great competition, not only with China but also with Russia. Therefore, we should study lessons from the Cold War—successes and mistakes—to help us devise successful policies in this new era of great competition.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump joins Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of China, at the start of their bilateral meeting Saturday, June 29, 2019, at the G20 Japan Summit in Osaka, Japan.

In his second term, the second Trump administration has signaled general continuity with the threat assessment from the first Trump term. Right before becoming Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio warned, “Communist China is the most powerful adversary the United States has faced in living memory.” Many media outlets often portray Trump’s National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, as “an outspoken China hawk.” In his second term, Trump personally has seemed less taken by framing US-China relations as Cold War II. Some observers now even see signs of a shift in Trump’s China policy—away from neo-Cold Warriors and toward “restrainers.” However, Trump’s recent decision to launch a major trade war with China suggests that the president still sees China as America’s biggest rival and is ready to compete combatively in this great power rivalry.

What then is so perplexing—I’d say downright irrational—is all of Trump’s moves to undermine America’s ability to compete with China. Trump and his team do not seem to have studied the successes of the Cold War. Many of their policies are the exact opposite of what American presidents did during the last century to win the Cold War.

Most irrational is Trump’s assault on American allies. During the Cold War, we had better allies—stronger, more prosperous, and more loyal—than our Soviet adversaries. Until a few months ago, the same was true regarding our allies compared to China’s. However, in just a few months, Trump has radically weakened this American strong suit. For no logical reason, Trump sparked significant tensions with Canada, a NATO ally, by suggesting that our northern neighbor should become the 51^st state of the United States. Equally irrationally, Trump triggered deep tensions with another NATO ally, Denmark, by suggesting that he wants to annex Greenland. Trump’s Vice President further exacerbated tensions with NATO allies by lecturing them about the bad democratic practices in a speech he delivered to the Munich Security Conference in February 2025. I attended that conference and can report that our European allies were deeply offended by the speech, especially when American democracy is under so much duress right now. Trump’s pivot to support Putin and undermine Ukraine has further fueled tensions within NATO. And hints from the Trump team that they plan to withdraw American soldiers from Europe have sparked a new debate about the future of the NATO alliance. Getting European countries to support confrontational polices toward China just got much harder.

In trying to end the war in Ukraine, Trump has adopted a strange strategy of giving Putin everything he wants and pressuring President Zelenskyy to accept Putin’s demands. In helping Putin, Trump is helping China. Putin is Xi’s closest friend and partner in the world. Trump’s efforts to accommodate Putin are strengthening Russia’s position, fomenting division among America’s allies in Europe, and more generally weakening the taboo against annexation. All these outcomes are gifts to Xi. Some in the Trump world claim they aim to peel Putin away from Xi. That will never happen, as political scientist Evan Medeiros and I recently wrote about in Foreign Affairs. (You can read the article here.) Deep divisions between Europe and the United States create new opportunities for Beijing to cultivate ties with European partners.

U.S. security relations with allies in Asia are more stable so far. Still, behind closed doors, our Asian friends also worry that Trump will come after them next, with requests for payments for security, threats of drawdowns of American soldiers, and calls for allies to choose between trading with the United States or China—a choice that even our closest allies in Asia, like Japan and South Korea, do not want to make. Recent polls show that citizens of Taiwan and South Korea see the United States under Trump as a less trustworthy partner. Anecdotally, I heard a lot of anxiety about Trump’s commitment to Taiwan’s security when visiting Taipei for ten days last month. In particular, the erosion of the international norm against annexation, exacerbated by Trump’s aspiration to annex Greenland, will make a future Chinese invasion and annexation of Taiwan less costly to China. How many world leaders are going to sanction Xi, let alone fight his invading armed forces, in the name of defending sovereignty or democracy, if the United States recognizes Russia’s annexation of Crimea or seeks to annex Greenland by coercion? The fact that the Trump team does not realize how their actions in Europe undermine their goals in Asia is perplexing to me.

In addition, Trump’s imposition of tariffs on almost all countries in the world, including our allies, is weakening the United States and strengthening China in several ways. Most obviously, countries do not like being punished by American tariffs or bullied by Trump into making concessions to lower these tariffs. Smaller countries have to play along—they have no choice—but they don’t do so with great enthusiasm. Trump’s tariffs are also creating undesirable economic challenges to many American allies. Germany, for instance, is bracing for a third year of no growth in part because of these American tariffs. Trump’s tactic of economic coercion creates opportunities for Beijing to nurture better economic relations with disgruntled American partners, especially in Asia. As security analyst James Crabtree wrote recently in the New York Times, “No part of the world will be hit harder by President Trump’s barrages of ‘reciprocal’ tariffs than the Asia-Pacific region.” The exceptionally high tariffs on China could, in the long run, be very counterproductive to America’s economic posture in the world. If Trump’s tariffs force countries to choose sides, we cannot assume the majority will side with us. The United States will become increasingly disconnected from the global trading world, while China will maintain, if not expand, its already dominant position. As China expert Elizabeth Economy assessed, “This game of chicken [with China] has done nothing but enable Xi Jinping to boost his standing in and outside China while the United States appears unformed and unmoored.” That is not a winning strategy in this new era of great power competition.

Trump and his team have also been aggressive in dismantling many tools of American soft power that played an essential role in America’s victory during the Cold War. The organizations that have been radically restructured and defunded include the US Agency for International Development, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, and even student exchanges. These instruments of American diplomacy allowed us to support democratic ideas worldwide and court partnerships with countries and societies, especially in the developing world, during the Cold War and after. Judges have issued injunctions to stop some of this destruction temporarily, so there may be an opportunity to resurrect these organizations. I certainly hope so. Like the Cold War, today, our competition with China has an ideological component—autocracy versus democracy. Polls show that most people in the world prefer democracy to other forms of government. As the leader of the free world, this global support for democratic values—for American values—gives the United States a great advantage. However, Trump is now giving up this advantage as well. Trump has never demonstrated an interest in promoting democracy. He seems to prefer autocrats to democrats. Giving up on democracy promotion is another gift to the Chinese Communist Party. That, too, is an irrational strategy if your goal is to compete effectively with China.

In parallel, Trump is undermining American democracy at home. As democracy expert Larry Diamond assessed in February 2025, “Less than a month into his second term as president, Donald Trump and his loyalists in government are already posing grave risks to the legal, constitutional, and normative foundations of American democracy.” Since then, it has gotten worse, including most egregiously terminating visas of, or even arresting, international students without cause, or sending residents of the United States to prisons abroad without due process, as well as a series of executive orders strengthening presidential power and weakening judicial power. Trump’s assault on the practice of democracy at home is doing severe damage to America’s reputation as a leader of the free world. In our competition with the Soviet Union, our example of a successful democratic system of governance—a “shining city upon a hill” as Ronald Reagan frequently proclaimed, quoting John Winthrop—was a huge advantage. It should be our advantage today, too, in our new superpower rivalry with autocratic China. Trump’s actions to weaken democracy are another gift to China.

Moreover, Trump is weakening America’s diplomatic reach, with plans to slash budgets for the State Department and even close some embassies. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “Today America confronts a new era of great power competition … with a State Department that stifles creativity, lacks accountability, and occasionally veers into outright hostility to American interests.” Rubio’s reorganization proposal includes weakening the part of the State Department responsible for promoting democracy and human rights and closing down completely the Global Engagement Center that was tasked with combating disinformation, including content propagated by the Communist Party of China. In making these cuts, Rubio claimed, without providing evidence to support his hypothesis, that the “Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists”… yet this very bureau, DRL, often spearheaded efforts within the State Department to criticize human rights abuses inside China. And while Trump plans to close embassies, the PRC is opening more of them. Amazingly, Beijing now has more embassies worldwide than the United States.

Finally, the damage that Trump is doing at home to our economy may be the most significant gift of all to China. In the Cold War, our economy outperformed the Soviet economy. That advantage helped us win the Cold War. As mentioned, Trump’s tariffs are already threatening to damage the US economy significantly. Trump inherited one of the best-performing economies in the developed world, but his irrational, ideological attachment to tariffs has already slowed economic momentum and could trigger a recession in the coming months. This is another gift to Xi. In response to Trump’s tariffs, Xi raised reciprocal tariffs and stopped the export of critical minerals desperately needed for American high-tech firms, including military enterprises.

Other Trump policies also inflict long-term damage to America’s economy, which may only become apparent years or decades from now. For instance, during the Cold War, our economy raced ahead of the Soviet system because we made significant investments in research and development, often through our universities. The Soviet Union could not keep up with American technological innovation. Today’s competition with China in this domain is much more intense, but the US still has had major advantages, at least until recently. For instance, according to the Times Higher Education’s World University Ranks 2025, the United States is home to 22 American universities in the Top 50 compared to six in China (and two are in Hong Kong). But now Trump is dramatically cutting budgets for our research universities, while Beijing is increasing those R&D budgets. These irrational cuts, allegedly in the name of fighting antisemitism, are another gift to China.

To make matters worse, the Trump administration revoked visas for over 1,800 international students with little explanation. Trump’s team then reversed this policy, at least temporarily, but the damage has already been done. There is no better way to chase talent away from our country than to make students feel unsafe in the United States.

The Chinese economy is the second largest in the world, first by some metrics, and its success extends well beyond manufacturing cheap goods. China is increasingly a global leader in high-tech innovation, exporting advanced products and achieving technological breakthroughs in AI, quantum computing, and hypersonic missile technology. To keep ahead of China, we must do everything we can as a nation to run faster. Instead, Trump is doing the opposite.

Defense spending is the one domain in which Trump and his administration are pursuing the right course for containing China. Tragically but necessarily, U.S. defense spending must return to Cold War levels to compete effectively with China. However, we cannot sustain these bigger budgets without stimulating a growing economy. Again, Trump is doing the exact opposite, reducing our ability to spend more on defense. That’s irrational.

It's not too late to reverse course. However, doing so will require a more sustained public debate about whether Trump’s strategy toward China is advancing American national interests. If China constitutes a national security threat to the United States similar to or greater than the Soviet Union did during the Cold War, why is President Trump pursuing policies that weaken our ability to compete with the PRC? As a nation, we need to have this debate. Perhaps Trump does not see the threat from China like I do, and therefore does not want to compete with China. With greater scrutiny by Congress and the American public, this could be uncovered regarding Trump’s strategy toward China. Or maybe Trump and his agent of state “reform,” Elon Musk, do not see the causal relationship between cutting funding to USAID and losing influence around the world to China? That could be established with more public debate about Trump’s China policy. The faster the American public invests in interrogating the logic of Trump’s approach to China, the better.