After 10 months of thawing relations and escalating threats, and on the verge of the two countries’ leaders potential meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, the Trump administration’s approach to China is in a strategic free fall. Beijing is entering the negotiations from a position of strength, having strategically squeezed Washington with export controls on essential rare earth minerals. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is entering with a chaotic mix of threats to cancel the leaders’ meeting that he was desperate to hold, while simultaneously threatening to impose a new 100 percent tariff.
But the real story isn’t the drama of this single summit; it’s what this moment reveals about the Trump administration’s profound inability to understand and exercise American leverage against a peer competitor. This is an administration whose entire playbook is based on bullying and bluster—tactics that are useless when brute force is ineffective. As a result, it has systematically undermined the true sources of U.S. competitive advantage, at the expense of Americans’ security and prosperity and to the benefit of China.
Abroad: Ceding U.S. global leadership and eroding American diplomacy
Since January, the administration’s foreign policy has been characterized by its systematic demolition of the relationships that have historically magnified American influence. In July, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority released a comprehensive catalog of harmful actions, which, since then, have only increased in scope and scale. It began with an assault on U.S. alliances, the bedrock of post-World War II security. By threatening to abandon allies who fail to meet his spending demands, Trump has jeopardized NATO’s Article 5 collective defense commitment—the foundational guarantee that has deterred aggression and anchored trans-Atlantic security for more than 75 years. This was followed by a punitive tariff war against partners and adversaries alike that has yet to result in new domestic manufacturing capacity, new export markets, or new manufacturing jobs. By unilaterally dismantling the global trading system, the Trump administration squandered an opportunity to modernize trade rules for the needs of the 21st century. This bullying, zero-sum approach has ironically made China, with its coordinated wooing of markets, appear to be the more reliable partner.
Throughout the year, the administration threatened key allies with tariffs and sanctions, alienating the very partners the United States needs to build a coordinated, effective China strategy. The United States and European Union, whose economies represent about a third of global gross domestic product (GDP), should be working in lockstep on shared China-related challenges, including overcapacity in sectors such as steel and aluminum, predatory export practices, and near-monopoly-level concentrations of many critical supply-chain components.
The Trump administration has also actively undermined key Indo-Pacific alliances with Japan and South Korea by treating them as transactional burdens, using the threat of punitive tariffs and troop withdrawals to extort massive defense payments and one-sided economic concessions. This approach has replaced decades of mutual security cooperation with deep uncertainty and distrust, forcing allies to question the reliability of American defense commitments. The administration’s approach toward Taiwan has also raised concerns that it could make concessions to China that challenge the island’s status. By holding up arms sales and accusing Taiwan of “stealing” U.S. semiconductor business, the Trump administration is charting a course that appears squarely in Beijing’s interests.
The real story isn’t the drama of this single summit; it’s what this moment reveals about the Trump administration’s profound inability to understand and exercise American leverage against a peer competitor.
At the heart of U.S.-China competition lies technology, where continued U.S. leadership is crucial for national security and a prosperous future; but the self-sabotage is stark. The administration closed the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which was crucial in the fight against foreign disinformation, leaving the U.S. information ecosystem less secure and more vulnerable to malign influence. After Congress passed a bipartisan divest-or-ban law over security and privacy concerns with TikTok, the administration illegally ignored it. Then, in exchange for relaxing crucial export controls on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor technology—the very tools China needs to modernize its military—the White House secured a flimsy deal on rare earth minerals that clearly did not hold. In July, House China Select Committee Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY) sent a letter to the administration stating that this concession undermines the core purpose of these tools: safeguarding U.S. national security. The deal demonstrates, yet again, that nothing is off-limits as a bargaining chip—not even U.S. security, technological leadership, or reputation—and that China continues to exert leverage to bend Trump to its will.
Simultaneously, the administration has gutted the tools of American statecraft. In addition to shuttering U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and freezing foreign aid, the State Department has seen its budget slashed, top ambassador posts left vacant, and plans to shutter embassies, all of which will sideline the United States from crucial conversations, decisions, and opportunities to promote American business. The attacks on democracy support institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy and U.S. global news outlets such as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia have done significant damage to U.S. power and influence abroad. This retreat is reflected in global opinion: Recent Pew polling shows that favorability toward the United States has plummeted in nearly every allied nation since the start of the year, while views of China have steadily improved. Since 2024, China has had more embassies and consulates than the United States, and Trump’s pullback only widens the gap.
This diplomatic void is also apparent in international institutions. By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, UNESCO, and the U.N. Human Rights Council, the administration has abandoned America’s seat at the table, effectively ceding its role in shaping global norms to Beijing. China has placed its nationals in key U.N. leadership roles and is already boosting its contributions to peacekeeping and global health. The contrast was on full display at the U.N. General Assembly in September. While President Trump launched a bizarre tirade against the organization, its teleprompters, and escalators, China’s leaders took the stage to roll out pledges on climate and trade, projecting an image of a reliable global partner and leader.
At home: Sabotaging the engines of American competitiveness
While ceding ground abroad, the administration is waging a parallel war on the domestic sources of American strength, including the country’s innovation ecosystem. By attacking universities, the administration has withdrawn and threatened to withdraw billions in federal research funding. It has also induced massive cuts to the research and development budgets of vital scientific institutions such as the National Institutes of Health and NASA. The message is clear: The administration is willing to sacrifice America’s long-term technological leadership to appease a narrow slice of Trump’s political base. China could not be happier.
The administration’s first target was the nation’s industrial strategy. The Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act were landmark policies designed to compete with China in the critical industries of the 21st century. By rescinding clean energy subsidies and delaying and renegotiating semiconductor manufacturing incentives, the administration has unilaterally hobbled America in the most important economic races of our time: clean energy and emerging technologies.
The message is clear: The administration is willing to sacrifice America’s long-term technological leadership to appease a narrow slice of Trump’s political base. China could not be happier.
Perhaps most damaging is the administration’s war on talent, perhaps America’s greatest strategic asset. For most of its history, the United States enjoyed an unparalleled ability to attract and retain the world’s brightest minds, multiplying its innovative power far beyond its population. Yet the administration treats this not as an advantage but as a threat to be contained. It has launched mass deportation operations targeting skilled workers, proposed a policy to “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students, and introduced a burdensome $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas. It is a policy of active discouragement, a sign posted on the door of the world’s leading innovation hub that reads, “You are no longer welcome.”
China, naturally, sees an opportunity. As Washington slams its doors, Beijing is rolling out what looks like a welcome mat. To be clear, this is not an invitation to build a new life in a free society; it is a calculated state effort to poach the world-class talent America is alienating. Beijing is setting a strategic trap. Its new “K visa” program is a targeted, transactional campaign to acquire specific expertise for state-directed goals. And this approach is bearing fruit: An Italian battery scientist recently left a top European post not for MIT or Stanford, but for a research facility at a university in Nanjing.
The Trump administration’s handling of American farmers shows a similar pattern. After Trump’s trade war cost farmers their largest export market, China, it hammered them with skyrocketing input costs, declining exports, and staggering debt. The result was a 56 percent spike in farm bankruptcies over the previous year.
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Conclusion
As President Trump heads to an anticipated meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit, he does so with a hand deliberately weakened by his own actions. The tragic irony is that his best-case scenario is now a deal that requires new American concessions simply to undo the damage of his own actions and policies. He has alienated allies, abandoned global leadership, gutted strategic investments, and rejected the world’s top talent. Each of these decisions has done more to advance China’s strategic goals than anything Beijing could have hoped to achieve on its own, and it leaves the United States less secure, less respected, more alone, and weak.