October 30, 2025

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What the Trump–Xi Meeting Means for the Future of U.S.–China Relations

(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

On October 30, U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea. This highly anticipated meeting—the first one between the two leaders since 2019—has been touted as charting the course for the future of U.S.-People’s Republic of China (PRC) relations. Trump’s first term fundamentally shifted U.S. policy on China from engagement to competition, notably by imposing sweeping tariffs, tightening technology controls, and framing the PRC as a geopolitical rival—something that the Biden administration built on with multilateral coalitions and alliances. Trump’s return to power has thrust the U.S. and PRC into another tit-for-tat trade war where supply chains have been weaponized. The rest of the world is closely watching the outcome of the Trump-Xi meeting to seize upon potential opportunities and manage consequences—with many hoping that it can serve as a reset of the relationship and stabilize the global economy. The outcome of the meeting yielded expected results: Beijing agreed to defer export controls on rare earth elements for one year, increase efforts to curb the export of chemicals used to make fentanyl, and resume its purchase of American soybeans--in exchange for reduced U.S. tariffs. Trump described the meeting as "amazing" and said he plans to visit China in April.

Although trade measures such as tariffs and export controls continue to remain atop the list of priorities when analyzing frictions in the U.S.-PRC relationship, these issues reflect only the tactical dimension of a much broader strategic competition between Beijing and Washington. Core areas of rivalry—including supply chain control and access to critical minerals, technological leadership, and military superiority—remain unchanged. Any near-term easing of tensions would likely be temporary and would not alter the long-term trajectory of the U.S.-PRC relationship, or what many in the U.S. Department of Defense describe as the “pacing threat.” The meeting reinforces that Asia—especially East and Southeast Asia—will serve as a primary theater in which the U.S.–PRC rivalry will play out over the next decade or longer. 

As the U.S.-PRC rivalry has intensified, countries in East and Southeast Asia have been forced to balance their strategic interests. On the one hand, working with Beijing is, in many ways, a byproduct of sheer geographical necessity, required for economic and trade benefits. While historical animosity and territorial disputes continue to strain the PRC’s relationship with some of its neighbors, Beijing is the largest trading partner for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), South Korea, and Japan (the U.S. is a close second). On the other hand, many countries — such as Japan and South Korea, which host large U.S. military bases — opt to remain within or continue to benefit from the U.S.-led security framework as a bulwark against the PRC’s military buildup, economic and diplomatic coercion, and quest for technological and supply-chain dominance in the region.  

Under Trump’s second term, long-standing allies, such as Japan and South Korea, have had to adjust to Washington’s deeply transactional approach. Trump has sought to ensure immediate economic returns—that can translate into domestic political wins—and also signal strength (economically and militarily) vis-à-vis Beijing. Since Trump took office, both Japan and South Korea have announced new investment deals to reach trade agreements. During Trump’s visit to Japan on October 28, an agreement to support the supply of critical minerals and rare earths was announced. This follows similar agreements and frameworks announced this past week between the U.S. and other key allies in the Indo-Pacific, such as Thailand and Australia—seen as an attempt to break Beijing’s strategic dominance of the supply chain. On October 29, Trump and South Korea’s leader, Lee Jae Myung, met to finalize the details of a trade agreement between the two countries—with the U.S. easing tariffs in exchange for a $350 billion investment package. Trump noted that the deal was “pretty much finalized.”  

Xi, on the other hand, seeks to capitalize on Washington’s departure from multilateral institutions, the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and global tariffs on friends and foes alike to present the PRC as the more stable trading partner and responsible global power. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) views the region as its natural sphere of influence and is seeking to build economic and technological dependency while offering a stable alternative to a U.S.-led system. The CCP aims to portray the PRC as an inevitable regional hegemon, not a disruptor, even as Beijing remains a norm-challenging state in its own right.  

For countries like Japan and South Korea, the ongoing balancing, however, is not without its costs. As global innovators with strong high-tech and advanced manufacturing sectors, both South Korea and Japan have been impacted by U.S.-led export restrictions on semiconductors aimed at curbing the PRC’s technological advancement. Beijing’s threat of weaponizing the rare earth elements supply chain in turn, would hurt both Seoul and Tokyo’s manufacturing industries. Amid tit-for-tat escalations in the U.S.-PRC trade war, on October 14, the PRC Ministry of Commerce sanctioned five U.S. subsidiaries of Hanwha Ocean, a South Korean shipbuilder. 

Beyond the immediate agreements that have been generated as a result of Trump’s Asia tour and Xi’s regional diplomatic outreach, developments this week underscore two long-term geopolitical trends with significant implications for global economic and security dynamics. First, the Trump–Xi meeting signals a continued shift away from multilateral approaches to international governance. The international system is increasingly characterized by great power competition in which influence is exercised through bilateral negotiations, transactional partnerships, and leader-level engagement, rather than through collective or institution-based mechanisms. Second, East and Southeast Asia will likely be the main theater where the consequences of the U.S.-PRC rivalry will be most acutely felt—across trade, diplomacy, technological advancement, and military buildup. The next decade will witness actions taken by and forced upon the region that will indicate if the twenty-first century will be marked by conflict or coexistence.