Trump Is Pandering to China as Beijing Threatens U.S. Allies

Trump’s reticence is not accidental. Beyond a narrow set of economic issues, the U.S. president has evinced little interest in China’s profound challenge to the United States, much less how that is playing out in the Indo-Pacific. In a sharp departure from bipartisan policy over the past decade, including Trump’s first term, the new administration has spent the past several months in a coordinated effort to curry favor with Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of Trump’s planned trip to Beijing in April.

For the sake of what will be, at best, a lavish welcome and a modest trade deal, Trump has softened the United States’ China policy across the board, including by rolling back essential export controls on sensitive semiconductors and scrapping plans to levy sanctions on China for large-scale cyber intrusions in the United States. And that’s all in addition to leaving U.S. allies in the lurch.

Trump may see little downside in abandoning allies in the cold, but senior officials in his administration and China watchers on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill surely know better. Unfortunately, they are running out of time. To avoid lasting damage to the United States’ position in Asia, leaders in the administration (however unlikely) and Congress must step up to prevent a quiet surrender to Xi.

It’s not just European partners who are struggling. Washington’s Indo-Pacific allies have good reason to worry. Xi has already manipulated Trump into showing the region that the United States will slink away from long-standing interests at Beijing’s behest. China is not just isolating and intimidating close American partners—it is also demonstrating to the rest of Asia that U.S. commitments are up for negotiation if the price is right.

That applies even for countries that have courted Trump. By any measure, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s first encounter with the U.S. president was a smashing success. Takaichi, on the conservative wing of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has often been compared to Trump by the Japanese press, and the two leaders displayed an instant rapport at their late October summit in Tokyo, announcing major initiatives on shipbuilding and critical minerals. The prime minister heralded “a new golden age” in bilateral ties and, before departing Tokyo, Trump pledged, “Anything I can do to help Japan, we will be there.”

Yet within a week, the president had already abandoned his new ally. Appearing before Japan’s parliament in early November, Takaichi was asked about the implications of a conflict over Taiwan. She offered a sober assessment: a Chinese assault on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” under Japanese law, thereby permitting military intervention.

While Takaichi’s statement was more frank than any past Japanese prime minister’s, it was an accurate description of Japan’s Taiwan conundrum. Nearly all of Japan’s sea lanes, critical energy supplies, and commercial traffic pass near Taiwan. A Chinese invasion there would almost certainly spill into waters and airspace surrounding Japan’s southern archipelago. Acknowledging these realities is not saber-rattling; it is basic strategic candor. What’s more, for many months, Trump administration officials had been pressing U.S. allies, including Japan, to take a bigger stake in a possible Taiwan crisis as part of its push to share the burdens of defense.

Beijing responded with a swift, if characteristic, temper tantrum. A senior Chinese diplomat in Osaka posted on social media that Takaichi’s “dirty neck” should be “cut off.” (The post was later deleted.) State media launched a propaganda barrage questioning Japanese sovereignty over its outlying islands. Beijing issued travel advisories warning citizens against visiting Japan, banned Japanese seafood imports, and blocked Japanese artists from performing in China. Washington’s response? Deafening silence.

More than a week passed before the Trump administration even acknowledged that any of this was happening. When it did, the message came not from the secretary of defense or national security advisor, but in the form of a vague tweet by a deputy spokesperson at the State Department.

Days later, Trump held a phone call with Xi, who took the opportunity to impress the fundamental importance of Taiwan to China. By contrast, Trump’s own account of the call ignored the issue entirely, instead touting the United States’ relationship with China as “extremely strong!”

According to reports, Trump then reached out to Takaichi and asked her to tone down the rhetoric on Taiwan in an extraordinary instance of the United States representing China’s position to aU.S. ally. No senior U.S. official mentioned Washington’s alliance commitments or warned China against economic coercion. Nor did the United States rally other partners, such as the Group of Seven, to stand beside Japan and push back against Beijing.

A patrol plane of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force flies over the disputed islets known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and Diaoyu Islands in China in the East China Sea on Oct. 13, 2011. AFP via Getty Images

Contrast Trump’s silence with one of Xi’s boldest moves early in his tenure, when Beijing unilaterally declared an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in November 2013 over parts of the East China Sea that are contested with Japan—a move widely seen as an attempt to assert China’s territorial claims. In that instance, the U.S. secretaries of defense and state both issued statements decrying the action on the same day as China’s announcement. Two days later, a pair of U.S. B-52 bombers flew through the area without notifying Chinese authorities, thereby defying Beijing and providing a strong and visible signal of support for Tokyo. China has still never fully enforced the ADIZ.

Fast forward to 2025, and we have seen nothing of the sort from the Trump administration. Instead, in the face of Washington’s silence, China then undertook a dangerous provocation: People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets locked their fire-control radars—signals used to prepare a missile launch—onto Japanese aircraft operating in international airspace. When reports of this emerged—behavior that any prior U.S. administration would have repudiated immediately—the Trump team again delayed and punted its response to a mid-level spokesperson.

Even the requisite visible military reaction, in the form of a U.S. bomber mission with the Japanese air force, came more than a month after the dispute kicked off, fitting the pattern of too little, too late. With few signs of concern from Washington, Beijing has continued to ratchet up its economic coercion of Tokyo, taking steps to ban some dual use exports to Japan, including rare earths and electronics. And while Takaichi is staying steady, the question is how long she can do so if China continues to escalate and Washington remains on the sidelines.

Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers fire a rocket into the air during military drills on Pingtan Island, in eastern China’s Fujian province, the closest point to Taiwan, on Dec. 30, 2025. Adek Berry/AFP via Getty Images

Japan isn’t the only partner receiving the silent treatment from the Trump administration. In late December 2025, Taiwan announced a record $11.1 billion U.S. arms package, giving Beijing just the pretext it was looking for to demonstrate that such cooperation comes with a cost. The PLA responded with its largest exercise in the area since 2022, firing rockets into Taiwan’s contiguous zone for the first time and explicitly rehearsing how to block foreign forces from coming to the island’s aid.

A threatening PLA pattern is now unmistakable: Each major exercise compresses the buffer zones around the island, normalizes operations closer to Taiwan’s shores, and raises the baseline for what Beijing treats as routine—gradually eroding the geographic and psychological space around Taiwan that has kept the peace for decades.

A Taiwanese reconnaissance soldier controls a surveillance drone during a deep battle exercise simulating how to curb invading forces from pushing forward on the outskirts in Taichung, Taiwan, on July 16, 2025. Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty Images

You’d think that this would be alarming to the Trump administration, which only weeks earlier published a National Security Strategy that reaffirmed the long-standing position that “the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.”

Instead, Trump brushed off concerns about the PLA’s rehearsal to blockade Taiwan, telling reporters, “They’ve been doing naval exercises for 20 years in that area.” This was in sharp contrast to democracies around the world that called out China’s dangerous activities. In a remarkable social media post, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry went on to thank the European Union and six partner nations for their support, with the notable absence of the United States. Only after all this did the Trump administration muster a public response, once again in the form of a mealy mouthed statement from the deputy spokesperson at the State Department. Since then, the Pentagon released its new National Defense Strategy without a single mention of Taiwan.

The message to the world is unmistakable: Even allies that are increasing defense spending, taking on more responsibility for their own defense, and standing firm against Beijing’s coercion are being left by the United States to fend for themselves.

If this is allowed to continue, there will be consequences for Washington. The Trump team’s silence reverberates through each ally’s domestic politics, emboldening anti-alliance voices and those who are more in favor of accommodation with China. This risks a parade of U.S. allies streaming through Beijing. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deferential visit to China in mid-January should serve as a wake-up call to Washington. If the United States is no longer the partner that it once was, the criticism goes, then we have to be prepared to cut deals with Xi.

Second, while the Trump administration keeps up its pressure on Japan and Taiwan to spend more on defense, this negligence from Washington only increases the likelihood that allies will pursue greater autonomy in ways that aren’t aligned with the interests of the United States.

They will be more capable, perhaps, but not necessarily in ways that accrue to the United States’ benefit. That kind of power without influence could take many forms, including lower levels of defense industrial base cooperation in which allies pursue self-sufficiency and invest in major platforms that are redundant—rather than complementary—to U.S. capabilities.  The result would be a reduced collective might of Washington’s alliances, despite its partners getting stronger individually.

Finally, and perhaps more subtly, alongside greater skepticism in regional capitals, allies will take far less risk to invest in major alliance initiatives than they have in the past several years—at a time when China’s rapid military buildup demands more than business as usual. This will constitute a crisis of omission even if there were a perception of continuity. This conflation of trends could severely undercut U.S. influence in Asia.

Beijing’s success at playing Trump has been as impressive as it is dangerous. China is charging ahead with its strategy to divide the United States from its Asian allies while playing to the president’s ego and dangling just enough economic carrots to keep the administration wanting more. Trump is set to visit China this spring, touting his “great relationship” with Xi and increasingly speaking of a “G2” great-power condominium in which the United States and China cut deals without others’ participation.

As part of his upcoming visit to Beijing, Trump’s trade deal is unlikely to address any fundamental issues related to China’s problematic economic practices. Instead, Xi will likely get what he wants by committing to additional agricultural purchases in exchange for lower U.S. tariffs and possibly further concessions on export controls. Reportedly, the Trump administration is even considering changing the United States’ declaratory policy on Taiwan to further satisfy Beijing. In the semantically tangled world of Taiwan policy, every word matters, and this kind of giveaway could have far-reaching consequences.

Doing so will risk a series of effects that are categorically counter to U.S. interests, including those espoused by the Trump administration. Further acts of accommodation to Beijing—even in the form of seemingly small changes to long-held policy, such as adopting language that the United States “opposes” (rather than “does not support”) Taiwan independence—will signal to Taipei that Washington is no longer as reliable an ally, and that no one should expect support from the U.S. military if push comes to shove. Taiwan’s politics will be further shaped by this poisonous skepticism, weakening support for defense spending and bolstering leaders who advocate for capitulation to China’s pressure.

The message is equally clear to allies such as Japan: U.S. commitments are transitory, and complying with its exhortations is foolhardy. Is anyone surprised that there is now talk in Tokyo—once unimaginable—about the need for Japan’s own nuclear weapons? This reflects a growing sentiment in Japan that mirrors the call for greater sovereignty in European defense circles. This does not mean the outright death of the U.S.-Japan alliance, but a centrifugal force that augurs a more autonomous Japan at precisely the time when the United States needs to drive greater integration and interoperability with its top allies in Asia.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands following a meeting in Busan, South Korea, on Oct. 30, 2025.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Fortunately, with Trump set to travel to China in April, the U.S. Congress still has time to act. Leaders on Capitol Hill should begin by formally reaffirming on a bipartisan basis the Taiwan Relations Act and other key elements of current Taiwan policy. It was, after all, Congress that introduced the Taiwan Relations Act after the United States switched its diplomatic recognition to China, giving Capitol Hill leadership a significant stake both in Taiwan’s status and the stability of the region.

Second, when Takaichi visits Washington in March, congressional leaders from both parties should meet with her together, pass a resolution decrying China’s coercion, and release a statement calling on Trump do the same when he visits Beijing. Behind the scenes, Congress should also be pushing the administration to do more to help Japan manage the economic consequences of Beijing’s pressure. A steady pace of congressional delegations to Tokyo, Taipei, and other key capitals in Asia should be a priority for 2026, even amid the many foreign-policy crises brewing globally.

Third, leaders on the Hill should assume that the president will continue to flirt with the idea of selling out Taiwan and other allies. They should build upon the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act by requiring that the administration report on the full implementation of its obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act and broader Taiwan policy, including by holding regular defense dialogues, maintaining and expanding existing training programs, and periodically offering new large-scale arms sales packages fit to Taiwan’s needs. The Senate and House Armed Services Committees should also hold regular hearings to provide consistent oversight.

Finally, congressional leaders must ensure that the United States returns to an “all of the above” approach to security assistance in the Indo-Pacific. Last fall, the administration refused to spend presidential drawdown authority funds that Congress had allocated, amounting to a $400 million cut in support for Taiwan. Congress should continue to fund these initiatives and make clear that failing to deliver is unacceptable, especially given that strengthening Taiwan’s military is imperative for protecting U.S. soldiers and interests.

Trump’s comfort with abandoning U.S. partners in Asia should be a clarion call for Congress to assert itself. There’s still time to get U.S. policy back on the rails, but it will require urgency and a bipartisan appetite to assert long-standing American objectives. Without a swift change, China is on track to rack up historic victories in 2026. That’s in nobody’s interest but Beijing’s.