US Foreign Policy toward China and Sino-US Relations since the First Trump Administration

The first Trump administration's China policy represented a radical change in US policy since the 1970s. US policymakers began to label China and Russia "revisionist competitors," arguing that strategic competition between the US and China has become a primary concern for US national security. These assessments constitute a new bipartisan American domestic consensus on China. In the US government’s eyes, national security competition has been permeating the economy and business, with high technology being the most crucial area of competition between the two countries. Trump's anti-globalization and "America First" approach to addressing America's current problems have changed US domestic and foreign policy, have considerably narrowed the scope of Sino-US cooperation and sharply increased competition, even confrontation. The subsequent Biden administration has largely continued Trump's China policy, but in contrast with the Trump administration, the Biden administration has made efforts to build an international alliance based on values, mobilizing allies and partners to isolate and contain China. This has made values-based diplomacy a prominent feature of the Biden administration's China policy. The second Trump administration has begun by threatening to impose unprecedented tariffs on China, adding more Chinese companies and organizations to the "Entity Lists," and further tightening the embargo on chips exported to Chinese. However, Trump's tough tariff policy has been somewhat eased after the Geneva tariff negotiations between China and the United States in August 2025, but It remains too early to see how Trump will handle relations with China in the future.

About the Speaker

Zhou Qi is a full professor, and the Director of Institute of Global Governance and Development, Renmin University in Beijing. Her fields of research are US politics and foreign policies, and international relations. She holds a Ph. D. from School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS）of the Johns Hopkins University in the US, and a B.A. and M.A. from Fudan University in Shanghai. She was as a senior researcher (full professor) and the Director of Department of American Politics at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing, and the Executive Director of National Strategy Institute, Tsinghua University. She is now also the Vice President of Pacific Society of China (PSC). Zhou Qi has taught in Pomona College as Frank M. Johnson Visiting Professor (1998-99), has been twice visiting scholar to Harvard University (1990-1991, 2001-2002), and a visiting fellow of Brookings Institution (Dec. 2013-Feb. 2014). She has published 12 books, over 100 academic articles, and more than 170 other articles. Her six books have been awarded the Prize in “Excellent Scientific Research Products” by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2006, 2010, 2013, 2018, 2021 and 2023, respectively.