After a whirlwind swing through Asia, US President Donald Trump leaves the region with greater uncertainty than ever about the future of America’s relationship with China — the central axis of global politics today. Trump’s own description of his summit with Xi Jinping as a “G-2” encounter will heighten anxiety among America’s allies and partners that Washington is drifting toward a “China-first” and “business-foremost” policy in Asia.
India, like the rest of the region, will now have to adapt to a new phase in US-China relations — a dynamic equilibrium between competition and cooperation between the world’s foremost economic and military powers. As Trump’s trade-driven strategy begins to reorder the region, Delhi must re-examine long-held assumptions about American purpose, Chinese ambition, and the strategic space available to middle powers such as India. Thinking through this evolving dynamic will demand a far more agile Indian discourse on foreign policy and national security.
Eight years ago, during his first presidential term, Trump’s 2017 Asian tour set the tone for a sharp balancing of China. He broke with four decades of bipartisan consensus at home on engagement with Beijing and launched an overt policy of confrontation — framing China, along with Russia, as a strategic rival.
In Asia, he sought to rally regional states into deeper bilateral alliances and promoted new coalitions such as the Quad to constrain Beijing’s assertiveness. Trump also articulated the Indo-Pacific framework that explicitly highlighted India’s role in stabilising Asia and its waters. That in fact had set the context for expanding India-US partnership in recent years.
This time, Trump’s focus was unmistakably commercial. His second-term agenda put trade at the centre of America’s foreign policy and aims to reset economic relations not only with China but also with allies that had good access to US markets.
Trump’s “business-first” approach has also been coupled with an extortonist impulse towards long-standing allies like Japan and South Korea–which have been compelled to promise investments worth $900 billion in the US. Despite the widespread determination in Asia to appease Trump for the moment, there is no denying the seething resentment among the allies at this coercion.
Yet over the past week, Trump declared his commitment to partnerships with ASEAN, Japan and South Korea. He appeared intent on walking a delicate tightrope — rebooting ties with Beijing without alienating America’s traditional partners. Whether that balancing act will hold remains to be seen. At home, Trump faces critics who accuse him of conceding too much to Xi, while allies abroad question the credibility and durability of US economic and security commitments under his leadership.
In his trademark hyperbole, Trump described his meeting with Xi as “amazing” and rated it “twelve out of ten.” Trump’s exuberance about the China ties summit contrasts with the measured coolth of Xi.
Trump highlighted an interim, one-year understanding: China would defer export controls on rare earth minerals, increase agricultural purchases from the United States, and curb the movement of precursor chemicals for the opioid fentanyl into America. In exchange, Washington would roll back part of the tariff wall imposed on Chinese imports since 2018.
While confirming a new consensus, Beijing urged the US side to “refine and finalise follow-up work as soon as possible” and to “deliver tangible results to reassure the economies of China, the US, and the world.”
At the opening of the summit, Xi told Trump that it was “natural for the world’s two leading economies not to always see eye to eye” and described occasional frictions as “normal.” He stressed the importance of “staying the right course and ensuring the steady forward movement of China-US relations.”
For Asia—and for India in particular—the fine print of this emerging arrangement will matter enormously. Asian governments will closely scrutinise the actual tariff rates and the extent of market access that follow, since these will shape export prospects to the US and the reconfiguration of industrial supply chains across the Indo-Pacific.
Trump’s assertion that Taiwan “did not figure” in his talks with Xi is unlikely to allay regional concerns that Washington may trade away its commitments to allies in pursuit of a G-2-style accommodation. While there is no mistaking Trump’s eagerness to stabilise relations with Beijing, he has also reaffirmed America’s enduring partnerships with Japan, South Korea, and ASEAN. What the region will now watch for are concrete expressions of those assurances — in sustained trade access, military cooperation, and credible deterrence in the contested Asian terrain.
For India, the task is to navigate this unstable US-China dynamic shaped by both rivalry and rapprochement. Delhi’s challenge is to remain nimble — engaging Washington where interests align, probing economic opportunities with Beijing where feasible, and strengthening partnerships across Asia and Europe to accelerate its own rise in the regional and global system–the best guarantee for India’s freedom of action in a world of few certitudes.
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