Beijing wants to extend what it sees as Trump’s de-escalatory approach through the rest of his term. It has escalated in some cases: issuing new State Council directives that effectively criminalize decisions by firms to move production out of China, throttling supplies of rare earths despite the Busan deal, detaining U.S. citizens, and, reportedly, providing satellite imagery to Iran used in a strike that caused American fatalities. Washington has taken some steps of its own, including de facto bans on Chinese drones and robots, an advisory accusing Chinese firms of distilling American AI models, and a new law authorizing tariffs of up to 100 percent on the largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, China among them.
