Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping managed to keep US-China tensions contained in 2024, but when Donald Trump strides back into the White House later this month, he will break this fragile stability, driving an unmanaged decoupling of the world’s most important geopolitical relationship and increasing the risk of global economic disruption and crisis.

Trump will begin his second term as US president by announcing new tariffs on Chinese goods to force a new economic agreement on Beijing. These new tariffs won’t reach the 60% blanket tariff level he threatened during the election campaign, but the top rate on all Chinese imports is likely to double to about 25% by the end of 2025...

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