"Can Trump Strike a Grand Deal With Beijing?" - by CWP alum Zongyuan Zoe Liu

January 30, 2025

Not long ago, Americans and Chinese mostly liked each other. In 2011, polls showed that most people in each country viewed the other favorably. Economically, the United States and China seemed inseparable. The term “Chimerica” captured this dynamic: China produced and saved; America consumed and borrowed. The relationship was celebrated as the engine of global growth, helping the world recover from the 2008 financial crisis.

Today, Chimerica is long forgotten. A 2024 Pew survey shows that 81 percent of Americans view China unfavorably, with 42 percent viewing it as an “enemy” of the United States. The turning point came in 2012, when presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney blamed China for job losses to court swing voters in Ohio.

China has lost America. U.S. President Donald Trump did not cause the rift between Washington and Beijing, but so far, he has shown little interest in fixing it.


Zongyuan Zoe Liu is a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her latest book is Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions (Harvard University Press, 2023).


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By Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.