China Still Has What America Needs
The Trump administration entered an October 2025 summit with Xi Jinping believing it held leverage, but China has escalation dominance over the United States. Washington has already conceded on tariffs, technology controls, and visa policies to ease Chinese restrictions on rare-earth elements. The article argues the United States should build short-term inventories of strategic goods sourced from China and seek increased imports and Chinese foreign direct investment.
Why it matters: This illustrates the theme of decoupling: the United States cannot quickly decouple from Chinese supply chains and must manage strategic dependencies through bargaining rather than confrontation.