Trump’s ‘G-2’ Moment: A Tactical Truce or Strategic Shift?

On 30th October 2025, President Donald Trump and the Chinese Head of State Xi Jinping met for the first time in 6 years at Gimhae Air Base in Busan, South Korea. The meeting lasted approximately 1 hour 40 minutes where the two leaders secured, what could be termed as a truce in the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.
As key takeaways from the summit, the U.S. agreed to waive 10 per cent fentanyl tariffs which previously stood at 20 per cent on Chinese goods including 24 per cent equitable tariffs from Hongkong and Macao. Secondly, in return for Chinese suspension of export control measures on 5 rare earth minerals crucial to the U.S. defence sector, the U.S. will append the implementation of export-control (50 per cent) rule for a year.
The U.S. also suspended investigation of China’s maritime, logistics and ship building sectors under Section 301. Beijing will import soyabeans and other farm products from the U.S.. China showed willingness to help mediate the Ukraine war, hinting at a plausible geopolitical concession on China’s part.
Ahead of the meeting, President Trump posted on X ‘THE G2 WILL BE CONVENING SHORTLY!’, framing the summit as a meeting between the two dominant powers of the world which caught the attention of many in geopolitical sphere.
Historically, the economist C. Fred Bergsten came up with the concept of ‘G-2’ publicised widely in his work (‘A Partnership of Equals,’ July/August 2008). Under the G-2 framework, he advocated that the U.S. should establish a genuine partnership with Beijing to jointly lead the global economic order. In 2007, Zbigniew Brzezinski and later Niall Ferguson also expanded on G-2 framework for joint stewardship of the U.S. and China in global financial stability and climate governance. The concept emerged in the backdrop of global financial crisis of 2008-2009, when compared to the world, China’s economy was relatively stable and Obama administration sought to engage with China by striking a balance between confrontation and coexistence.
However, G-2 has faced outright opposition from both sides since its emergence. For China, G2 meant an unwanted bipolar entrapment; for the U.S., it meant a managed hierarchy. China viewed it as a ‘flattering’ tool to push the country into prematurely taking on burden of providing public goods to the globe. As China was rising at that time and was sceptical that this could risk China’s domestic development.
Since then, the world has evolved into a complex constellation of power clusters—G7, G20, BRICS+, SCO, QUAD, AUKUS, and RCEP—each reflecting differentiated forms of regional or thematic multipolarity. China has always vouched for such a multipolar configuration of the world as in China–EU Summit in 2009, when Premier Wen Jiabao rejected the term and more recently in 2025 SCO meeting, President Xi also professed to multipolarity, asserting that ‘world affairs should not be decided by just two countries.’
Whereas, in the U.S., G-2 was an effort to curb China from ‘U.S. Rebalance to Asia’ strategy to trade wars under President Trump. The ‘China threat’ was further consolidated under President Xi where China’s magnanimous rise, with a distinct system of governance, marked by its USD 18 trillion GDP, technological dominance in 5G and AI, patents and institutional influence via the BRI and AIIB confirmed that it functions as a central pole in global affairs. China’s military expansion in Asia-Pacific and beyond, disputes in the East and South China Sea and clear stance over Taiwan, intensify U.S. efforts.
The Busan summit, which is a recent case in point for G-2, reveals that the U.S. and China might converge on selective areas but the confrontational nature of their relations would not change. For instance, just 45 minutes prior to the meeting, President Trump stated that the U.S. would carry out nuclear testing. Also, the location of the meeting (former US base during Korean war) was another statement of power showcasing that president Trump is on home turf. There were no joint statements after the meeting. Core issues such as Taiwan were not discussed at all. Interestingly, Trump sought concessions at a time when the U.S. is facing myriads of challenges at home and abroad as compared to China.
President Xi on the other hand, has a history of taking stringent measures against the U.S. actions (trade war). When President Trump imposed tariffs during his second term, President Xi ceased the purchase of soya beans, directly targeting farmers (Trump’s largest Republican voter base).
China also imposed export control on rare earth minerals; critical to the U.S. defence infrastructure. It was a critical move by China and quite strategic in nature. Rare earths are called as such not because they are scarce but because their refining and processing is extremely difficult; an area where China holds the largest leverage. It subjugated President Trump to lower the sharpest weapon in his economic arsenal.
Therefore, G-2 can be understood as an informal functional reality born from interdependence in key sectors such as trade, technology, and critical minerals, rather than a normative partnership which coexists with persistent confrontation in defence, digital governance, and alliance politics.
Despite the concessions, both nations continue to militarise their peripheries, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, and weaponise technology through export controls, highlighting that while bipolarity might define strategic structure, pluralism defines political reality. Therefore, G-2 can be considered a tactical truce and not a strategic shift. However, it retains the plausibility of issue-based engagements in future given each other’s relative strength and influence.
The writer is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies (CASS), Islamabad. She can be reached at: [email protected]