The Trump administration is full of China hawks who have spent their first 15 months in office pushing for a hard break with Beijing. But what President Donald Trump wants from his trip to China next month isn’t confrontation — it’s victory.
It’s such an important goal for the president that administration officials are under orders not to rock the boat with China, especially before the trip. Two officials are carrying out the order: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to a former Trump official and another person familiar with the power, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, according to a China analyst and person close to the White House, both of whom were not known to discuss the matter publicly.
The idea is to give Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who have led talks with China, more room to build on the existing peace between the two countries.
“The bureaucracy of the United States is under orders from the president not to disrupt this agreement that they are in” since Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea in late October, the former Trump official said. “They’re all walking on eggshells. Bessent is the one who has to enforce the agreement.”
Besent has focused on economic success, including offering Beijing a path to a “grand plan” if it agrees to balance its economy — unlike top officials like White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and Deputy Defense Secretary Elbridge Colby, who have historically pushed for a tougher and faster posture toward China.
Bessent’s allies position the Treasury secretary as a dedicated hawk, but one who believes impatience is his own form of strategic failure. Resolving decades of economic dependency, they say, requires patience, not speed.
“We’re not ushering in a generation of outsourcing and product dependency quickly. I mean, you can’t without so much disruption that it’s not worth it at all. You’re killing the patient you’re trying to save — the American worker,” said a second person close to Besent and the White House, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share real views.
White House aides say each part of the administration is self-policing China policy to “maintain stability and discipline.” They also place Bessent as one of many key figures, including Greer, with an important role in China policy.
“Each administration official plays from the same playbook, President Trump’s playbook, to carefully execute their specific role in carrying out the President’s agenda,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “President Trump has repeatedly called for putting Americans and America First, and the administration has never wavered from this commitment in our dealings with any country, including China.”
The president’s mid-May trip to China, which was delayed by nearly five weeks because of the Iran war, comes at a critical time.
The US attacked Iran and arrested the leader of Venezuela – both countries with close ties to Beijing. The so-called Donroe Doctrine, Trump’s updated version of the Monroe Doctrine aimed at restoring American dominance in the Western Hemisphere, is about countering Chinese influence in the region as a show of American power.
“Obviously there is a policy of tough talk – maybe even aggressive talk – but avoid confrontation,” said one of the people familiar with the matter. “It is important at a time when the economy has other problems.”
“We’re still engaging China, not letting them continue their imperialist ambitions across Asia, but we’re doing it in a smart and thoughtful way, and it’s all part of this precautionary deterrence,” the person added. “The president is the architect. Besent is the builder of that barrier – which is important for both countries right now.”
Bessent’s senior role reflects the president’s desire to have a “money chess match with Beijing,” said a third person close to the White House, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss administration moves. “You have to solve the dollars and cents problem first, so send your dollars and cents man.”
The China office being handled by the Treasury secretary and not the national security chief “tells you something about how the president views the relationship. Basically about trade,” a fourth person close to the White House said.
Bessent’s central role on China is important to Trump’s long-term vision, allies say — one that favors reaching a deal with Beijing now as the United States improves its global standing, while the United States strengthens its military and industrial base for a long-term struggle. That way, they say, buys time without leaving land.
“The president has a very clear vision that China is a long-term threat, but in the short-term, we have to find a way to achieve some kind of trade balance with them that protects our interests and also gives us time to work on being more resilient so that we can resist their economic pressures, and, frankly, also when getting our military and industrial base, former head of the National Security Council, Alexander Gray,” said Trump.
Greer, a trade lawyer by training, has provided a mental map of how to deal with China economically in the long term, a policy known as managed trade. The idea is to set strategies to remove the United States from relying on China for resources important to national security.
Bessent recently met in France with the Vice Premier of China, He Lifeng to set the scene for the trip to Beijing, while Greer recently met with China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao on the sidelines of the WTO meeting in Cameroon last week.
The administration’s economic outlook, however, does not sit well with everyone, especially those who see Beijing as an enemy that takes advantage of any opportunity presented.
“I don’t think the United States is doing everything it should. The dynamic that they seem to fail to understand is that when Beijing sees an open door, it keeps pushing,” the former Trump official said. “And so if it senses a lack of resolve and gentleness on the part of America, it says, that’s an opportunity, and it continues to push.”
Top Trump officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and Colby, all, before being officially sworn into the administration, said China was an imminent threat to the United States.
That kind of rhetoric reflects the evolution of the Republican Party that sees China as an ideology that wants to destroy the United States, and the White House is full of those who see it that way.
The president “clearly appointed a lot of high-level people who care deeply about China,” said American Compass founder Oren Cass, whose economic policy has influenced Vance.
Beyond the top ranks, Cass continued, “you have a much broader cadre of young workers who want that policy, who are more naive than would have been imagined in 2016 and Trump is still where he was before.”
Victoria Guida and Dasha Burns contributed to this article.
