The first Trump administration reshaped US policy toward China, solidifying a bipartisan shift toward “great-power competition.” In contrast, a year into Trump 2.0, the administration’s approach appears far less settled, mixing elements of strategic rivalry with more accommodating signals in other areas.
January’s Reimagining US Grand Strategy roundtable brought members of the foreign policy community together to evaluate the Trump administration’s approach to China in its first year and what to expect going forward. Two guest speakers provided opening remarks examining the direction of Washington’s China policy and how US-China relations may evolve in the coming years. The group then discussed the merits of the Trump administration’s policy toward China — including whether it has articulated a coherent strategy — and debated how the United States can craft a more effective approach to Beijing.
Yun Sun, Senior Fellow and Director of the China Program, Stimson Center
The China policy of the second Trump administration is subject to much debate. The most striking distinction in comparison to the past eight years is the complete disappearance of great power competition as the primary lens through which China is viewed. Perhaps it means that Making America Great Again does not have to be at China’s expense, as American greatness could be entirely relative to itself, rather than supremacy relative to all other powers. Or, the logic could be that if the US seeks to eventually win in the great power competition, it must conserve resources, prioritize its focus, and first and foremost bolster its own internal strength. If that is the case, then the MAGA strategy is a means to an end, and the US strategic endgame vis-a-vis China has not changed.
The tariff war of 2025 reveals that China is a more complex and stronger adversary than seven years ago. China prepared for another trade war with the US through two ways: domestic investment to improve resilience and alternative resources; and backdoor channels into the US market to evade tariffs. In comparison, the US has not prepared itself in terms of an alternative source of consumer goods, or critical supplies such as rare earth minerals. That partially explains the US having to be conciliatory and climb down the escalation ladder in the trade war. Unless and until the US secures alternative sources to Chinese supplies, China will have some effective hold over US chokepoints.
Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” also has significant implications for US-China relations. China has no problem with US dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Beijing has no ability to assert a military presence in Latin America. Nor does China have critical interests that would necessitate such a presence. But for China, the biggest question is whether Chinese respect of a US sphere of influence would necessarily imply reciprocity — that the US also respects a Chinese sphere of influence, first and foremost on the issue of Taiwan. A sphere of influence does not equate to exclusivity, but it does imply which power dictates the rules of engagement.
Renanah Joyce, Assistant Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
The Trump administration’s recent National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy signal new foreign policy priorities — elevating the Western Hemisphere to top priority and recasting US-China relations from great power competition to what the NDS calls a “decent peace.” The administration has invoked geopolitical spheres of influence to justify increasing military intervention in the Caribbean and Venezuela, prompting criticism from Beijing.
These actions have sparked renewed debate over spheres of influence as an ordering concept in international affairs: what is their normative value? Are they stabilizing or destabilizing (and relative to what alternatives)? Is Trump interested in accommodating other spheres, or just extending an American one? When it comes to US policy toward China, if China accepts US domination in the Western Hemisphere, will the United States reciprocate in Asia? Three observations from history can help sharpen, though not answer, this question.
First, spheres reflect underlying distributions of power and interests. They reflect power, not power-sharing. As Emma Ashford puts it, a sphere is “a simple fact: the place where one great power is unwilling or unable to commit the necessary resources to force another state to submit.” Great powers recognize other spheres when they can’t prevent them or when it’s in their interest to do so. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which asserted a US claim to a sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere, did not endure because other powers recognized that claim as fair, right, or legitimate. It endured because Britain shared an interest in open access to markets and, for much of the 19th century, enforced that outcome through naval power.
When states cannot or will not enforce spheres, they tend to collapse. Rivals may fill this void. The collapse of Soviet influence after the Cold War opened the door for NATO expansion, which unfolded with active participation from Central and Eastern European states.
This point shifts the question from whether Trump will accommodate a Chinese sphere of influence to whether Washington is able and willing to limit one. A Chinese sphere of influence is unlikely to grow because it’s in US interest to support — US economic and security interests, combined with allies in the crosshairs, point in the opposite direction. A Chinese sphere may be more likely to grow across key theaters in Asia because the US lacks the capacity or resolve to stop it, which is a different proposition than accommodation and a far riskier one because it would represent clear shifts in relative power, with serious implications for US interests.
Second, spheres can be stable without being peaceful. Recognizing other states’ spheres does not mean supporting them. The US and the Soviet Union maintained spheres of influence in Europe during the Cold War but, as Stephen Walt points out, “neither side fully accepted the other’s ‘right’ to exercise predominant influence in its sphere.”
Even when Washington and Moscow refrained from overt military intervention in each other’s spheres, they continuously probed boundaries. Some scholars have argued that spheres made red lines clearer by clarifying interests, but efforts to probe limits — notably, in Berlin and Cuba — brought the two sides to the brink of nuclear war. In Korea, China’s red lines were only clearly recognized after Chinese forces crossed the Yalu River to support North Korea. Spheres may have kept the Cold War cold, but this view glosses over substantial contingency.
Moreover, spheres can invite adventurism, especially in contested spaces beyond established spheres. The US the Soviet Union, and China competed fiercely for influence in Africa during the Cold War. Although dynamics of competition are unlikely to look the same today, the desire to keep a competitor out of a region can still pull great powers in. Despite the Trump administration’s relegation of Africa to lowest foreign policy priority, the desire to keep Chinese troops from establishing bases along the Atlantic coast — in Equatorial Guinea, for example — could present a strong temptation to act.
Third, spheres are expensive to maintain. Exercising control over smaller states incurs costs. The more control a great power seeks, the higher these costs tend to become. Rivals can also attempt to raise these costs. Moscow and Washington used covert action and propaganda to delegitimize each other’s influence, while Soviet efforts to expand influence contributed to the global expansion of US military presence.
The less that small states want to be part of a sphere, the more likely they are to resist domination, increasing governance costs. The Soviet Union faced higher governance costs with the Warsaw Pact, often relying on coercion to keep control, than the US did in NATO.
Perhaps counterintuitively, some of the most durable spheres have used rules and international institutions to defray these costs. The Concert of Europe — 19th century Europe’s spheres bargain that helped preserve great-power peace for much of the century — rested on an elaborate system of norms and rules. The US sphere of influence in Western Europe during the Cold War coincided with the design of institutions that created the “liberal” or “rules-based” international order and gave smaller states a stake in participation. The idea that US-led international institutions make it cheaper to exert influence is not lost on critics of American power. Institutions and spheres, then, may be less alternatives than connected choices that structure competition rather than escape it.
Tedford Tyler, Program Officer, Foreign Policy, Stand Together Trust
A recent interview with former Trump official David Feith reinforced what many people have already intuited about US policy toward China: the president is “a lot less hawkish” than the rest of Washington, DC. While Trump has strong views on “areas that motivate him most,” such as tariffs, fentanyl, and diplomacy with Xi Jinping, the field remains open to convince him on courses of action, particularly in the economic realm.
His navigation of China policy issues comes from a genuine openness and a desire to talk to anyone and everyone, sometimes leading to rapid policy swings. Trump speaks with cabinet members, political appointees, business leaders, policy intellectuals, and personal acquaintances vying for opportunities to voice their opinions and offer their counsel.
The “court society” was coined by sociologist Norbert Elias and draws from his study of early modern European royal courts. In court societies, a member’s political power is primarily relational and requires both access to and closeness with the monarch. But there are also other relationships among members, sparking both social competition and cooperation.
While the US is not a monarchy, the court society framework can still provide relevant insights in explaining US economic policy toward China. The central puzzle it can help explain is why the economic leg of China policy sometimes appears to be at cross-purposes. It suggests that power and status begin from where someone resides within the “Mar-a-Lago Court Society.” Individuals then pitch the president or other more influential members and make the strongest case for their economic ideas. Analysts would be wise to focus on courtiers, understanding their views, relationships, and influence. Several vignettes illustrate features of the court society.
Take the issue of semiconductor sales. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued that Nvidia can securely sell H200 semiconductors to Chinese firms. He tried to sell more advanced Blackwell chips, but Steve Bannon and others offered arguments against those sales, worried that the security risks outweighed the economic gains. While a US State Department review is still pending, it appears that H200s are likely to be greenlighted for the Chinese market. What seems to have emerged (for now) is a policy approach that indexes slightly more towards commercial exchange with China. Part of the court society story is that Nvidia sales are viewed as important for continued advancement in artificial intelligence, which explains the support of other individuals like White House AI Czar David Sacks. Policy moves by connecting to larger administration priorities outside of US-China relations.
Sometimes, members of the court society find ways to work together, combining their efforts to pursue shared interests. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer have been leading negotiations with the Chinese side. Their economic approach appears to coalesce in what Bessent calls “Parallel Prosperity.” At its simplest explanation, he calls it “an era of economic expansion where Wall Street and Main Street grow together. By “Wall Street,” Bessent means investors and markets, and “Main Street” includes wage-earners and small businesses. He clearly brings the perspective of “Wall Street,” while Greer is “Main Street.”
The overall “Parallel Prosperity” concept bridges these approaches together, rather than casting them as opposing aims. Look no further than the efforts to drive investment from US allies and partners in Asia, which aim to bolster American manufacturing and secure critical supply chains. It suggests that the US is “derisking” parts of the economy, though not cutting off commercial exchange with China.
The court society can help explain why part of the economic approach is difficult to parse. The issue of Chinese drones saw the US Commerce Department withdraw proposed restrictions on Chinese-made drones, but the Federal Communications Commission retained its ban on new models being sold or operated domestically. This could be classic bureaucratic rivalry, it could be an unfinished policy argument, or it could be a calculation that one entity needs to be the face of a ban, while the other negotiates increased commerce. Time will tell.
At the end of the day, President Trump will remain the most active and decisive figure, leaning on his personal relationship with Xi, seeking ways to improve US economic positioning relative to China as cooperation and competition are both undertaken. While he does that, members of the court will garner for audiences and wait for their moment. No one person or idea should be written off, as long as they remain inside the court.
Those who wish to encourage a more realistic approach to China should operate within the court system, having arguments, policy options, and relational connections to promote more restraint in how the US conducts its China policy. The foundation for a stable US-China relations can start in the economic domain and then expand and move to security policy.
Sahar Khan, Non-resident Fellow, Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group
Talk of “spheres of influence” has returned to US foreign-policy discourse, not as a historical metaphor but as a practical framework for managing great-power competition. The 2025 US National Security Strategy (NSS) reflects this shift clearly: it emphasizes geographic prioritization, economic statecraft, and competitive boundaries — especially in the Indo-Pacific — while casting China as a systemic challenger to US interests and influence. Within this worldview, middle powers are often treated as strategic terrain rather than as autonomous actors.
The recent US-India trade deal complicates that assumption. Far from illustrating India’s absorption into a US sphere of influence, the negotiations reveal a middle power exercising meaningful agency by resisting external pressure, avoiding being eclipsed by the US-China competition, and prioritizing domestic demands. The agreement’s significance lies not merely in tariff adjustments or purchase commitments, but in what the negotiating process itself reveals about how middle powers operate in the currently contested global order.
The trade deal has been in the making for over a year. Beginning in 2025, Washington imposed steep tariffs on Indian exports, framed in part as “reciprocal” measures and later linked to broader US concerns about trade imbalances and strategic alignment. New Delhi interpreted the 50% tariffs as an attempt to leverage economic pressure to accelerate concessions. Yet, rather than rushing to accommodate US demands, Indian officials publicly criticized the tariffs as unfair and economically counterproductive, emphasizing that trade and energy policy would be determined by domestic needs rather than external coercion. Crucially, Indian exports to the US continued to grow despite the tariffs, undercutting US leverage and buying New Delhi time at the negotiating table.
India-watchers in Washington warned that the high tariffs, harsh rhetoric, and stalled negotiations would not shift New Delhi toward Washington but would instead raise the opportunity costs of alignment and create diplomatic, security, and economic space for Moscow and Beijing to remain relevant partners despite India’s broader Indo-Pacific tilt. They were partly correct: India is committed to improving ties with China and, in January 2026, announced plans to ease restrictions on Chinese firms, thereby paving the way for them to bid on government projects. India’s relationship with Russia also appears to be on a solid footing, as Russia remains India’s largest supplier of military equipment and both countries are invested in joint production.
Domestic politics, often overlooked in great-power frameworks, are a critical source of middle-power agency, especially in democracies, where external commitments must survive a degree of internal scrutiny — and India is no exception to this rule. During negotiations, opposition parties, farmer groups, and civil society organizations voiced concerns regarding market access, agricultural livelihoods, and asymmetric liberalization. Indian policymakers leveraged this reality, signaling that excessive concessions risked domestic backlash and electoral consequences for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won a third term in 2024 but with a narrower margin than the BJP would have liked. This dynamic limited external pressure while strengthening New Delhi’s bargaining position.
From Washington’s perspective, the trade deal fits into a broader effort to strengthen economic and strategic ties with India as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy and to counter China, even though India’s usefulness in countering China is not as clear as Washington would like. From New Delhi’s perspective, the deal is a welcome change as India needs a smoother relationship with the US to increase its technological and defense capabilities. Days before the announcement of a US-India trade agreement, India signed one with the European Union, and some analysts now believe that the “twin” agreements may signal a thaw in the China-India relationship. Yet, specifics of both deals indicate otherwise. New Delhi also remains committed to “strategic autonomy,” and maintains that it will prioritize diversifying its energy sources to meet domestic demand, while Washington continues to claim that it secured a promise from India to stop buying Russian oil.
Even though the joint statement clarifies the parameters of the trade deal (to some extent), the negotiation process, along with the characteristics of the US-India trade deal itself, underscores why Cold War analogies — and sphere-based thinking more broadly — are imperfect guides to today’s order. Unlike the bipolar blocs of the twentieth century, the contemporary system is characterized by deep economic interdependence, issue-specific alignment, and more powerful middle powers. While academics and analysts will no doubt debate the type of world we’re living in (e.g., bipolar vs. multipolar), one thing is clear: “spheres of influence” won’t help us understand it.
“Adults in a Room” is a series in collaboration with The Stimson Center’s Reimagining US Grand Strategy program. The series stems from the group’s monthly networking events that call on analysts to gather virtually and hash out a salient topic. It aims to give you a peek into their Zoom room and a deep understanding of the issue at hand in less than the time it takes to sip your morning coffee without the jargon, acronyms, and stuffiness that often come with expertise.
