China Flexed. Trump Hit Back. So Much for the Thaw.

 

News Analysis

China Flexed. Trump Hit Back. So Much for the Thaw.

 

Beijing’s trade curbs and President Trump’s tariff threats show how quickly calm can give way to confrontation between the two largest economies.

 

Vivian WangKeith Bradsher

By Vivian Wang and Keith Bradsher

Vivian Wang reported from Beijing, and Keith Bradsher from Shanghai.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/world/asia/china-trump-tariff-threat.html

Oct. 11, 2025, 4:04 a.m. ET

 

As the trade war between the United States and China kicked back into high gear after a period of tentative détente, it was clear just how vast the gulf of misunderstanding between the two superpowers had become.

 

President Trump said that he had been blindsided by China’s new controls on rare earth metals and products made from them, announced earlier in the week, amid what he had called a “very good” relationship in recent months. Chinese commentators insisted that Beijing was only responding to new attacks from the United States, and that Washington was the provocateur, because it had ramped up technological restrictions on China while professing good will.

 

Both sides also seemed convinced that they had the advantage and that the other side had overplayed its hand.

 

The blame game continued on Saturday, as China woke up to Mr. Trump’s announcement that he would impose new 100 percent tariffs on Chinese imports from Nov. 1. The move was criticized by Chinese analysts and commentators, although there was no immediate reaction from the Chinese government.

 

“What is Trump feeling wronged about?” Hu Xijin, the influential former editor of Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled newspaper, wrote on Weibo, a social media platform. “ What is he angry about? He should first understand what the U.S. has done to China!”

 

President Trump’s tariff threat highlighted the huge stakes involved in having control over the raw materials and technologies, such as rare earth metals and batteries, that will power the next generation of industry.

 

But if neither side backs down, the new hostilities seem all but certain to spill beyond trade. They could also affect other areas that the two countries had been hoping to make headway on in their relationship, such as military-to-military communication and the governance of artificial intelligence.

 

“The situation is quite surprising, considering that there have already been four rounds of China-U.S. trade negotiations,” Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University, said in an interview, referring to meetings between officials since May that had taken place in Geneva, London, Stockholm and Madrid.

 

President Trump said last month that he had also expected to meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in person in South Korea this month. But on Friday he said, “Now there seems to be no reason to do so.”

 

“This is a very stark reminder that the fragility in China-U.S. relations is deepening,” Professor Zhu said.

 

The new trade tensions showed that the United States and China defined the rivalry between them in fundamentally different ways. To Mr. Trump, issues such as trade and technology could be addressed separately — that is, the United States expects to be able to continue to escalate its technology restrictions on China while simultaneously seeking a big trade deal between the countries.

 

But to China, trade and technology are part of what Beijing perceives as an all-around effort by the United States to suppress China.

 

“If the trade talks fail, I’m deeply concerned that the all-fronts confrontation between the two sides will escalate,” Professor Zhu said.

 

While Mr. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, accused China of introducing its rare earths controls “out of nowhere,” Chinese commentators maintained that the escalation was Washington’s fault.

 

Mr. Hu, the former editor, suggested that China’s rare earth controls were merely a response to new measures from the United States targeting China, including expanding the list of Chinese companies to which it restricts exports. He said the country had grown more confident in its ability to endure intense pressure tactics from Washington.

 

“Chinese society is really not afraid of the United States now, and high U.S. tariffs and other levers have lost their deterrent effect on China,” he said by text message.

 

Our economics reporters — based in New York, London, Brussels, Berlin, Hong Kong and Seoul — are digging into every aspect of the tariffs causing global turmoil. They are joined by dozens of reporters writing about the effects on everyday people.

 

Still, the sweep of China’s new rare earths controls struck many observers as a dramatic escalation. They prohibit any shipments of critical materials to producers of military equipment in Europe and the United State and bar the transfer out of China of equipment or information that would help other countries establish their own production.

 

China’s boldness may have stemmed from an assessment that Mr. Trump is in a weak position. Mr. Trump’s trade negotiators proved willing earlier this summer to strike compromises on tariffs, and the president has expressed eagerness to visit China. China’s boycott of soybean purchases from the United States has badly hurt American farmers.

 

American domestic politics are in turmoil, with the government shut down. And despite promises by the United States to wean itself off its reliance on China for rare earth metals, that prospect remains distant.

 

China, on the other hand, is riding high from a large-scale military parade last month, at which it showcased advanced new weaponry and reaffirmed its ties with Russia and North Korea.

 

“China certainly knew Trump would react strongly, and it didn’t underestimate him,” said Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. “But there are several areas where China has the upper hand.”

 

China may be hoping to use its leverage to push Mr. Trump toward a bigger agreement on other issues in the U.S.-China relationship, beyond just trade, he said.

 

Beijing also wants the Trump administration to make concessions on its support for Taiwan, the island democracy Beijing claims as its territory, as well as on the controls it has imposed on advanced semiconductor chips, which China needs for the development of artificial intelligence, among other ambitions.

 

China’s tough measures may also be a signal to the domestic audience to have confidence, despite the country’s economic slowdown and the housing market crash. And it may be a message to other countries and regions, including the European Union, that have come under pressure from Washington to choose sides between the two superpowers that they should not underestimate China.

 

“This tells you that China is very confident and powerful,” Professor Wang said. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t sacrifice China to curry favor with the United States.”

 

But some experts warned that Beijing had overplayed its hand and that officials had miscalculated how aggressively Mr. Trump would respond.

 

Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said Beijing had cultivated a “dangerous new habit” of underestimating the American willingness and capability to retaliate.

 

China may have assumed that a summit between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi was locked in and that the U.S. was eager for a deal. The Trump administration backed down after first imposing additional tariffs in April of as much as 145 percent, leaving an extra tariff of 30 percent while China has retained an extra tariff of 10 percent on American goods.

 

“Where the U.S. was showing good will, China saw a manifestation of American weaknesses,” Dr. Sun wrote in an email.

 

Professor Zhu, of Nanjing University, acknowledged that even as China moved to defend its interests, it should be cautious about Mr. Trump’s unpredictability.

 

“If the trade war escalates further, that is definitely not in China’s interests,” he said.

 

Indeed, should Mr. Trump’s additional 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods take effect, they could batter the economy even more. Exports to the United States — either directly or through countries like Vietnam and Mexico — have helped keep the economy afloat.

 

Vivian Wang is a China correspondent based in Beijing, where she writes about how the country’s global rise and ambitions are shaping the daily lives of its people.

 

Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic.