During the Biden administration, Donald J. Trump would sit in his mirrored and gold-trimmed salon at Mar-a-Lago where he had once hosted China’s leader, Xi Jinping, brooding to visitors about the outcome of the trade agreement he signed with China in 2020.
Mr. Trump would castigate “stupid people” in the White House for failing to honor “my trade agreement,” and muse about how, if he won a second term, he could strike the deal of a century with Mr. Xi.
Now back in the Oval Office, President Trump is eyeing the possibility of a new trade deal with China.
More than half a dozen current and former advisers and others familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking say that, although there would be significant hurdles to reaching any agreement, the president would like to strike a wide-ranging deal with Mr. Xi, one that goes beyond just reworking the trading relationship.
Mr. Trump has expressed interest in a deal that would include substantial investments and commitments from the Chinese to buy more American products (despite China’s failure to buy an additional $200 billion of goods and services under the 2020 agreement). He would like an agreement to also include issues like nuclear weapons security, which he envisions ironing out man to man with Mr. Xi, his advisers say.
Mr. Trump is already following a familiar playbook of tariffs and other threats as he looks to negotiate a deal. On Feb. 1, he hit Beijing with 10 percent tariffs on all Chinese imports — what the president called an “opening salvo” — quickly resulting in retaliation from the Chinese. He has also floated the idea of revoking the permanent normal trading relations the United States extended to China more than 20 years ago.
China is one of the United States’ biggest national security threats, but it is also a major trading partner and a pivotal actor on a range of issues, including nuclear security, technology and pandemic preparedness.
Whether the United States and China attain closer ties, or spiral into conflict, may come down largely to the mercurial inclinations of Mr. Trump as he pressures Beijing to give more ground to the United States.
Michael Pillsbury, a China expert who advised Mr. Trump as he negotiated a trade deal in his first term, said the president told him “a few months ago that he wants to make a deal with Xi Jinping that benefits both sides.”
Mr. Pillsbury said that the Trump team was discussing issues like who would take charge of the talks, what elements of the 2020 trade deal the Chinese had failed to honor and how best to bring China back to the negotiating table.
“The internal debate has started,” he said.
Matthew Turpin, a White House official during the first Trump administration who is now a fellow at the Hoover Institute, said it was not surprising that Mr. Trump — who has advertised himself to American voters as a deal maker — wanted to seek a new arrangement with China, one that was favorable to the United States.
“If the day ends in a ‘y,’ it’s a day that’s good for a deal,” Mr. Turpin said. But he added, “Donald Trump doesn’t want to do what he would perceive as bad deals.”
Advisers and analysts say the governments would have to overcome many obstacles to reach a deal, and that the Trump administration has not yet settled on what it wants from China. The two sides have been floating proposals to bring Mr. Xi to Mar-a-Lago, or Mr. Trump to Beijing, but no official visit is yet planned.
Advisers like Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; and the billionaire Elon Musk have been encouraging the president’s instincts, telling him he is in a position to strike a significant agreement, a former official and another person familiar with the conversations said.
The president and his advisers blame the Chinese for not keeping to the terms of the 2020 agreement, as well as the Biden administration for failing to enforce it. Throughout Mr. Trump’s first term, he held trade talks with the Chinese, ultimately imposing tariffs on more than $300 billion of their products in an effort to force them into an agreement, levies that Mr. Biden chose to maintain.
In their 2020 pact, Chinese officials had pledged to open certain markets to foreign companies, better protect technology secrets and buy American crops and energy. But they never came close to meeting the purchasing targets, which Beijing said was because of the Covid pandemic.
In an executive order signed his first day, Mr. Trump ordered his advisers to review China’s compliance with the deal and decide whether to impose tariffs or other penalties by April. During his confirmation hearing in January, Mr. Bessent suggested Beijing could make “catch up” purchases to fulfill those commitments.
Some U.S. analysts have suggested that recent weakness in the Chinese economy might make Mr. Xi more willing to strike a deal. But the U.S.-China relationship has become even more challenging in ways that could make arriving at a new pact harder.
Weakness in its property market has forced Beijing to lean even more heavily on exports. China is flooding the world with cars, solar panels and other products, putting factories in other countries out of business.
Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator who is now a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said any arrangement must address these thorny issues. “Even if you wanted to start a negotiation with China, it’s going to be very difficult,” she said.
The view from Beijing
Chinese officials seem to view Mr. Trump warily, expecting relations to remain contentious. They are aware that Mr. Trump is unafraid of imposing stiff tariffs and other penalties, but think the president’s desire to rework trade relations could bring him back to the negotiating table.
In a recent paper, Zhu Min, a former senior Chinese official and deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and two co-authors argued that Mr. Trump will feel compelled to make good on promises to voters by promoting economic and job growth and expanding exports. On the other hand, they said, Mr. Trump “has an arrogant and self-righteous personality,” and will wield power in a “random, crude fashion.”
“China must understand Trump’s dual character, closely observe his behavior, negotiate with him based on his fundamental political goals as the bottom line, and exploit his erratic and volatile personality to play on that bottom line,” they wrote.
Some Chinese analysts have downplayed the likelihood of a deal, given the increasingly antagonistic relationship. But Chinese officials and think tank experts have been working on a proposal to attract Mr. Trump’s interest, and running the idea by business people and other experts.
According to a former diplomat, who declined to be named to discuss private conversations, one Chinese offer could include investments in the United States that would create an estimated half a million jobs in industries like solar, electric vehicles and batteries. Chinese companies are willing to discuss taking minority stakes in joint ventures or licensing their technology to American partners, the diplomat said.
The proposal could also include substantial Chinese purchases of American exports, as well as cooperation on maintaining peace with North Korea and rebuilding Ukraine. It may also include promises to maintain the dollar as the pre-eminent global currency. (China and Russia’s efforts to develop an alternative have rankled Mr. Trump.)
It’s not clear what the Chinese would ask for in return, though many analysts believe Mr. Xi would try to get relief from some of the tariffs Mr. Trump has imposed on the country, as well as export controls that have limited China’s access to advanced technology.
Chinese officials and others with government ties have also been trying to develop unofficial back channels, through which leaders have historically passed information back and forth while Beijing and Washington negotiate.
The Chinese have particularly been probing the role that Mr. Musk — who has extensive business interests in China through Tesla — will play in the Trump administration. Han Zheng, China’s vice president, who was sent to attend Mr. Trump’s inauguration in lieu of Mr. Xi, met with Mr. Musk in January, as well as Vice President JD Vance.
It’s not clear how much Mr. Musk has discussed China with Mr. Trump. But a former official familiar with the conversations said Mr. Musk had expressed confidence that deals could be made, and that it was important for the United States to find ways to work with China to avoid heightened tensions.
The question of investment
Mr. Bessent and Mr. Lutnick — who may end up leading any negotiations with China — are considering proposals that they believe could rebalance trade, people familiar with the discussions said.
That includes significant Chinese investments in the United States; substantial purchases of U.S. crops, airplanes and other goods; and potentially some arrangement to address Chinese manufacturing overcapacity.
Mr. Lutnick declined to comment. Mr. Bessent, Mr. Musk and a spokesman for the White House did not respond to a request for comment. A person familiar with Mr. Bessent’s views, who requested anonymity to discuss his thinking, said Mr. Bessent was primarily focused on enforcement of China’s prior trade commitments at this point, not future demands.
Welcoming Chinese factory investment in the United States could be particularly divisive within the Trump administration, given that several officials — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Mike Waltz, the national security adviser; and Peter Navarro, senior trade counselor — see Chinese investment as a security threat.
Federal and state governments, as well as Congress, have also taken a stricter stance on Chinese purchases of technology companies and real estate in recent years.
But Mr. Trump has considered deals where others would not, like supporting an investment by Japan’s Nippon Steel in U.S. Steel, and finding an acquirer to rescue TikTok. While campaigning, Mr. Trump said he would welcome Chinese companies to build auto plants in the United States, as long as they hired locally.
One person familiar with meetings Mr. Trump attended during his first term to review incoming investments for national security issues said that the president had dismissed intelligence community assessments about the risks and argued for selling assets to the Chinese, as long as the price was right.
Unlike other officials, Mr. Trump does not appear to have a strong ideological stance on U.S. technology restrictions on China or Taiwanese democracy, instead viewing them as another source of leverage over Beijing.
Mr. Trump also sees the relationship with China in personal terms, as an issue to iron out between himself and the Chinese leader. In his first month in office, Mr. Trump has taken an aggressive approach to the foreign leaders of Canada, Colombia, Denmark and Panama, but has had positive words for Mr. Xi.
In January, Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he and Mr. Xi would cooperate to make the world more peaceful and safe.
“It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately,” he said.
Chris Buckley and Alan Rappeport contributed reporting.
