2025 Redefined the U.S.-China Rivalry |
The year’s best stories
How might one begin to describe the year in U.S.-China relations? A roller coaster? A tightrope walk? A boxing match? A stormy sea? A high-stakes game of chess, tug-of-war, or poker?
Whatever it was, it sure kept the staff at Foreign Policy on our toes.
How might one begin to describe the year in U.S.-China relations? A roller coaster? A tightrope walk? A boxing match? A stormy sea? A high-stakes game of chess, tug-of-war, or poker?
Whatever it was, it sure kept the staff at Foreign Policy on our toes.
U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office in January promising to overhaul the United States’ trade system, and he wasted no time in getting to work. In early February, Trump imposed a new 10 percent tariff on all Chinese goods, which kicked off a monthslong cycle of escalations, retaliations, abatements, pauses, extensions, and negotiations.
Then, in late October, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a momentous face-to-face meeting in Busan, South Korea—their first since 2019—and agreed to a one-year pause on further trade hostilities. The two stopped short of a full agreement but dialed back some of their harshest mutual countermeasures.
Though trade ties have stabilized for now, this year’s saga has exposed just how much leverage China has over the United States, especially when it comes to agriculture and rare earths. And in areas where the United States has the upper hand, such as artificial intelligence (AI), China has redoubled its push for self-reliance—accelerating domestic semiconductor chip design and manufacturing and investing heavily in its own AI industry.
In other areas, the Trump administration proved willing to sabotage or outright cede U.S. dominance. In May, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged to aggressively revoke the........