President Donald Trump leaves following a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 6, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump has a "fatal" obsession with easy "short-term" wins, according to one foreign policy expert, and it is about to be exposed by China, which has committed heavily to long-term strategies that could help it win the coming century.
James Rogers is a co-founder of the British think tank, the Council on Geostrategy, and on Wednesday, he published a new breakdown of Trump's impending visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping for The i Paper. Despite his efforts to "project an aura of U.S. power" at the meeting, with a military motorcade and entourage of leading tech moguls, Rogers argued that these efforts will only "mask the major challenges" that the country is grappling with in the face of China.
"Trump arrives in a China that has spent years making itself more resilient to US influence and pressure, leaving Trump attempting to secure rapid, transactional victories with a weakened hand," Rogers wrote.
He continued: "One challenge for the White House is its diminishing economic leverage. For the past year, Trump’s administration has pushed its sweeping tariff measures, including global duties and triple-digit levies on Chinese goods. These were seen as the ultimate tool to force Beijing’s co-operation. Yet this strategy is unraveling at home. A string of US court rulings... has dismantled the legal architecture of Trump’s approach, striking down his unprecedented use of Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The US delegation arrives in Beijing with its primary economic weapon heavily restricted."
China, meanwhile, has retained its own economic leverages, particularly its "near-monopoly" on rare earth minerals that are critical for many modern technologies. In the face of American pressures, it has not hesitated to use the flow of these minerals to the U.S., creating a tough situation for military hardware at a time when the military is in dire need of it.
"This raises a critical question for Washington: who is hurting more?" Rogers continued. "While China has undoubtedly felt the sting of restrictions placed on US semiconductor exports, America’s defence industry and technology sector are feeling the squeeze of China’s mineral chokehold. Those materials are critical to modern munitions and advanced manufacturing."
This meeting, he argued, will be defined by "playing the long game," something which Trump is notably weak on. While Trump heavily favors "quick victories" that can be used "to boost his domestic position," China is making long-term plans to exert "control over the supply chains, minerals and diplomatic relationships that will define the mid-21st century."
"If the White House trades long-term economic statecraft for short-term political gains, it will validate the exact narrative that China is attempting to project around the world: that US leverage is quietly but steadily waning, as its own grows," Rogers concluded.
