Brahma Chellaney, Nikkei Asia

U.S. President Donald Trump’s most consequential legacy may be his strategic pivot to confront China. For decades, successive American administrations pursued a policy of integrating China into the global economy, believing that economic liberalization would gradually lead to political reform. That gamble failed. Trump, during his first term, was the first U.S. president to openly acknowledge this failure and recalibrate policy accordingly.

Now, in his second term, Trump has launched a full-spectrum pushback against China’s expansionism and global ambitions. From curbing tech transfers to pressuring allies to reduce their reliance on Chinese supply chains, his administration has made confronting the communist behemoth the cornerstone of its foreign and economic policy.

By contrast, Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, maintained a more cautious or conciliatory approach, often prioritizing competition over confrontation with the People’s Republic of China. His Indo-Pacific strategy was to “manage competition with the PRC responsibly.” And in his last State of the Union address, while likening Russia’s actions to Hitler’s, Biden declared, “I want competition with China, not conflict.”

Trump has shifted decisively from managing China to countering it — economically, militarily and ideologically.

A hallmark of this new posture is Trump’s effort to redefine the global trading system. His push to link trade agreements to “market-economy” status directly targets China’s state-capitalist model.

Washington now insists that allies consult with it before signing trade deals with “nonmarket economies” like China. This move aims to align allied trade policies with U.S. interests and isolate Beijing by spotlighting its economic practices that rely on heavy state subsidies, forced technology transfers and market manipulation.

This push to bind trade deals to market-economy status could reshape the rules of international commerce.

Trump has also signed a sweeping memorandum targeting Chinese investments in U.S. companies. Citing national security concerns, the policy identifies China as a foreign adversary attempting to access America’s “crown jewels,” from cutting-edge technologies and critical minerals to farmland and port infrastructure. It proposes stringent curbs on Chinese investment in strategic sectors and restricts U.S. capital from flowing into Chinese industries that support Beijing’s military-civil fusion strategy.

The administration, meanwhile, has further tightened export controls, especially in advanced sectors such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence. By blocking exports of cutting-edge chips to Beijing, Washington aims to slow China’s AI advances and blunt its military modernization.

Such weaponization of trade is designed not only to protect U.S. innovation but also to catalyze a broader global shift toward resilient and diversified supply chains.

Trump’s policies have spurred democracies worldwide to reassess their dependence on China, particularly in pharmaceuticals, critical minerals and electronics. If the world moves toward more robust and secure supply networks, it will be due in large part to Washington’s leadership.

Trump’s second-term strategy builds upon his first term’s actions, which included reversing a four-decade U.S. policy of aiding China’s economic rise that helped create the greatest strategic adversary America has ever faced.

His first-term actions extended to imposing tariffs on over $360 billion in Chinese goods, banning business with Chinese tech giants like Huawei and ZTE, and ramping up scrutiny of Chinese investments in the U.S. His administration also sanctioned several Chinese research institutions and tech companies involved in espionage or military-linked activities.

Strategically, Trump in 2017 unveiled the U.S. strategy for a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and resurrected the long-dormant Quad. And, signaling a break from decades of U.S. caution over the Taiwan question, he dramatically increased arms sales to Taiwan and elevated diplomatic engagement with Taipei through high-level visits.

Now, his administration is reorienting U.S. military architecture toward the Indo-Pacific to prepare for and, if necessary, prevail in a conflict with China.

A leaked “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance” memorandum signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth identifies China as the Department of Defense’s “sole pacing threat.” The Pentagon is not only boosting deterrence in the Taiwan Strait but also reinforcing its forward military presence and alliance cooperation across the Indo-Pacific.

Washington’s pressure is also nudging Europe to take greater responsibility for its own defense by boosting military spending. A more self-reliant Europe, one that cooperates with the U.S. but is not dependent on it for its security, would enable Washington to redirect its focus to the Indo-Pacific. A stronger transatlantic alliance, anchored in mutual responsibility, not one-sided reliance of Europe on America, would better serve Western interests.

In challenging China’s ambitions to displace the U.S. as the preeminent global power, Trump is employing a comprehensive, multipronged strategy. It includes deploying tariffs as a political tool to extract economic concessions, the possible revocation of China’s most-favored nation trade status, expanded export restrictions and an ideological offensive that portrays the Chinese Communist Party as predatory, authoritarian and illegitimate.

But Trump views himself as a dealmaker, and he is open to cutting deals with Beijing that help reduce China’s huge trade surplus with America. This explains the U.S. agreement with China in Geneva to suspend most tariffs on each other’s goods pending further negotiations.

Importantly, Trump is reinforcing strategic partnerships with key Indo-Pacific powers, especially Japan and India, to counterbalance China’s regional clout. His administration’s actions have helped solidify a de facto coalition of democracies determined to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.

By reversing decades of accommodationist U.S. policy, Trump has reset the terms of engagement with China. His second-term agenda makes clear that the era of hoping for China’s peaceful rise is over. Instead, his administration sees Beijing as the central challenge to global order and is determined to confront it with strength, coherence and resolve.

Containing China’s aggressive rise is no longer a peripheral issue in U.S. policy; it is the central axis around which Trump’s trade, technology, military and diplomatic strategies revolve. If this effort proves enduring, it may well define not just Trump’s legacy, but the trajectory of global geopolitics for decades to come.

Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the independent New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research and fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including “Water: Asia’s New Battleground” (Georgetown University Press), which won the Bernard Schwartz Book Award.