Is Trump sending his allies towards China?

Sunday 25 January 2026

The return of Donald Trump to the White House has revived a familiar diplomatic style: transactional, abrasive and sceptical of alliances for their own sake. During his first presidency this approach unsettled Washington’s traditional partners; in his second, it risks accelerating a structural shift in global alignment. The question is not whether America’s allies are displeased. It is whether sustained antagonisation by the US President is pushing them into deeper, more pragmatic relationships with China, Washington’s principal strategic adversary.

At the centre of this dynamic stands Donald Trump himself. His rhetoric towards allies has again emphasised burden-sharing and loyalty tests rather than shared values. NATO partners are publicly chastised for defence spending shortfalls. The European Union is treated less as a community of democratic states than as a trade rival. Longstanding security commitments are framed as contingent, renegotiable arrangements rather than durable pillars of order. This posture is not merely abrasive in tone; it injects uncertainty into the assumptions that have underpinned allied strategic planning for decades.

Allies respond to uncertainty not with sentiment, but with hedging. In Europe this has meant an intensified debate about strategic autonomy. While the United States remains the indispensable military actor on the continent, doubts about Washington’s reliability have encouraged European governments to diversify diplomatic and economic partnerships. China enters this space not as a replacement security guarantor but as an alternative pole of power with which engagement can mitigate exposure to American volatility.

The relationship between Europe and China is therefore evolving less out of ideological convergence than out of risk management. Beijing presents herself as predictable, patient and commercially focused, in sharp contrast to the episodic diplomacy emanating from Washington. For European leaders facing electorates weary of trade wars and diplomatic drama, engagement with China offers stability of a particular kind: long-term contracts, infrastructure investment and access to vast markets. This is not trust in China’s intentions, but a calculation that engagement is preferable to exclusion.

Germany illustrates this logic clearly. Despite growing awareness of Chinese industrial policy and human rights abuses, Berlin has continued to deepen economic ties with Beijing, particularly in manufacturing and green technologies. French diplomacy, meanwhile, has emphasised the need for Europe to avoid being drawn into a binary confrontation between Washington and Beijing. These positions are not expressions of pro-Chinese sentiment, but reflections of discomfort with American unpredictability under Trump.

Beyond Europe, the effect is even more pronounced. In East Asia, allies such as South Korea and Japan live with the immediate consequences of American ambiguity. When US security guarantees appear subject to presidential whim, regional states increase their diplomatic engagement with China as a stabilising necessity, even while strengthening their own military capabilities. Southeast Asian states, long accustomed to balancing between great powers, find Trump’s approach reinforces the logic of non-alignment and regional autonomy, often at Washington’s expense.

China has been adept at exploiting these openings. Under Xi Jinping, Beijing has refined a diplomatic style that contrasts deliberately with Trump’s confrontationalism. Chinese diplomacy emphasises respect for sovereignty, non-interference and continuity. While these claims often sit uneasily with China’s behaviour in her near abroad, they resonate with states unsettled by American moralising coupled with transactional threats. Beijing’s message is simple: China may be demanding, but she is consistent.

Yet there are limits to this realignment. Antagonisation does not automatically translate into allegiance. America’s allies remain deeply wary of China’s political system, her use of economic leverage and her revisionist ambitions. European security still depends overwhelmingly on the United States. Asian allies continue to see American power as the ultimate counterweight to Chinese military dominance. What is changing is not the fundamental orientation of these states, but the elasticity of their foreign policies.

In this sense, Trump’s behaviour accelerates a trend already under way rather than creating it. The unipolar moment has passed, and allies are adapting to a world in which dependence on a single patron appears increasingly risky. By antagonising partners publicly and repeatedly, the US President lowers the political cost of diversification. Engagement with China becomes not a betrayal of the Atlantic order, but an insurance policy against American caprice.

The geopolitical consequence is subtle but profound. As allies cultivate closer economic and diplomatic ties with Beijing, Washington’s ability to mobilise cohesive coalitions weakens. Sanctions regimes become harder to enforce. Technology controls fray. Diplomatic pressure loses potency when partners have alternative relationships to protect. China does not need formal alliances to benefit from this fragmentation; she profits simply from the erosion of American centrality.

Trump’s approach rests on the assumption that allies have nowhere else to go. China’s rise, however, ensures that this is no longer true. Antagonisation may extract short-term concessions, but over time it incentivises strategic diversification. In a multipolar world, allies will not choose between Washington and Beijing in absolute terms. They will instead seek room for manoeuvre. By narrowing that room through hostility, the United States risks driving her partners, cautiously but steadily, closer to China.