“The U.S. bureaucracy is very much under orders from the president not to disrupt this truce that they’re 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 effectively the one who has to enforce the truce.”
Bessent has focused on notching economic wins, including offering Beijing a path to a “big deal” if it agreed to rebalance its economy — in contrast to top officials like White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, who have historically pushed for a more aggressive and urgent posture toward China.
Bessent’s allies frame the Treasury secretary as a committed hawk, but one who believes impatience is its own kind of strategic failure. Untangling decades of economic dependence, they say, requires patience, not speed.
“We don’t unwind a generation of outsourcing and product dependency quickly. I mean, you just can’t without such massive disruptions that it’s really not worth it. You’re killing the patient you’re trying to save — the American worker,” said a second person close to Bessent and the White House, granted anonymity to share candid views.
White House aides say each part of the administration is self-enforcing on China policy in order to “maintain consistency and discipline.” They also frame Bessent as one among many top figures, including Greer, with a key role on China policy.
“Every administration official plays from one playbook, President Trump’s playbook, to carefully play their specific role in the implementation of the President’s agenda,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “President Trump has consistently called to put 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 roughly five weeks because of the Iran war, comes at a precarious moment.
The United States attacked Iran and captured 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 reasserting American dominance in the Western Hemisphere, is as much about countering Chinese influence in the region as projecting American strength.
“There is clearly a policy of tough negotiation — maybe even aggressive negotiation — but avoid confrontation,” one of the people familiar said. “It’s essential at a time when the economy has other stressors.”’
“We’re still engaging China, not letting them continue their imperialist goals around Asia, but we’re doing it in a prudent and thoughtful way, and it’s all part of this cautious detente,” the person added. “The president is the architect. Bessent is the builder of that detente — which is essential to both countries right now.”
Bessent’s leading role points to the president’s desire to have a “financial chess match with Beijing,” said a third person close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss administration dynamics. “You’ve got to solve the dollars-and-cents problem first, so you send your dollars-and-cents guy.”
The China portfolio being handled by the Treasury secretary and not a national security head “tells you something about how the president sees the relationship. Primarily about trade,” a fourth person close to the White House said.
Bessent’s leading role on China is key to Trump’s longer-term vision, allies say — one that favors coming to a deal with Beijing now as the U.S. improves its global position, while the U.S. strengthens its military and industrial base for a longer-term fight. That approach, they argue, buys time without ceding ground.
“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 reach some sort of trade equilibrium with them that protects our interests and also gives us time to harden ourselves and to become more resilient so we can resist their economic coercion, and, frankly, also time to get our military and industrial base house in order,” said Alexander Gray, Trump’s former National Security Council chief of staff.
Greer, a trade lawyer by training, has provided an intellectual roadmap by which to counter China economically in the long term, a policy known as managed trade. The idea is to strategically wean the U.S. from depending on China for resources critical to national security.
Bessent recently met in France with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng to set the stage for the Beijing trip, while Greer recently met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao on the sidelines of the WTO meeting in Cameroon last week.
The administration’s economic approach doesn’t, however, sit well with everyone, particularly those who see Beijing as an adversary that exploits any opening it’s given.
“I don’t think the U.S. is doing everything it should. The dynamic that it seems like they’re failing to grasp 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 a softness on the side of the U.S., it says, that’s an opportunity, and it continues to push.”
Trump’s top officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and Colby, have all, before being officially sworn in into the administration, said China poses an imminent threat to the U.S.
That type of rhetoric reflects an evolution of the Republican Party that views China as an ideological specter that wants to destroy the U.S., and the White House is filled with those who see it that way.
The president “obviously made a lot of very high-profile appointments of people who are much more broadly concerned about China,” said American Compass founder Oren Cass, whose economic policy has influenced Vance.
Beyond the top echelons, Cass continued, “you have a much broader cadre of younger staffers who want the policy, who are far more hawkish than would have been imaginable in 2016 and Trump is still right where he was before.”
Victoria Guida and Dasha Burns contributed to this article.