US–China Decoupling Gains Irreversible Momentum 

Commentary

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to visit China in the coming weeks. It is widely seen as a trip focused more on crisis management than on securing any major or breakthrough agreements. In fact, since the start of his second term, U.S.–China decoupling has continued to deepen. This article examines the trend from three aspects.

US–China Goods Trade Posts Double-Digit Decline

Trade data show that during the four years of the Biden administration (2021–2024), bilateral goods trade fluctuated under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic but remained at relatively high levels. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, total trade stood at $655,685.7 million in 2021, $690,256.1 million in 2022, $574,882.1 million in 2023, and $581,968.7 million in 2024.

In 2025, the first year of Trump’s return to the White House, China’s goods trade surplus reached $1.18 trillion, which was described by China’s state-owned financial mouthpiece Caixin as “unprecedentedly” high. However, total U.S.–China trade ($414,688.1 million), China’s exports to the United States ($308,379.7 million), and China’s imports from the United States ($106,308.4 million) all recorded sharp double-digit declines—down by 28.74 percent, 25.78 percent, and 29.71 percent, respectively. This marks the steepest drop since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979, as observed by a Chinese think tank.

Entering 2026, the downward trend has continued. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, from January to February U.S. imports from China totaled $40,013.6 million and exports to China $16,275.7 million, representing year-on-year declines of 45.39 percent and 20.07 percent, respectively.

CFIUS Blocks Chinese Acquisitions

On April 17, Sanan Optoelectronics Co., based in Xiamen, China, reportedly announced that it would abandon its planned acquisition of Dutch firm Lumileds, a maker of high-end LED products for automotive and specialty lighting. The decision followed a determination by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that the deal posed “irresolvable U.S. national security risks.”

This marks the second time CFIUS has blocked a China-linked bid for Lumileds. In 2015, a consortium led by Chinese private equity firm GO Scale Capital sought to acquire an 80 percent stake in Lumileds from Philips for $3.3 billion. The deal was rejected by CFIUS in January 2016 on national security grounds.

Established in 1975, CFIUS is an interagency body led by the U.S. Treasury that reviews foreign investments for potential national security risks (executive order 11858).

Since the start of Trump’s second term, several high-profile cases involving Chinese firms have been blocked or forced into divestment:

1. TikTok restructuring (January 2026): The social media company will form a new American joint venture, a framework that allows TikTok to continue operating in the United States while addressing concerns over user data security and algorithm control.
2. HieFo divestment (January 2026): Delaware-based and controlled by a Chinese citizen, the company was ordered to divest semiconductor-related assets acquired from Emcore, including digital chip and wafer design, fabrication, and processing businesses.
3. Suirui Group/Jupiter Systems case (July 2025): U.S. authorities ordered Suirui Group and its Hong Kong subsidiary to divest their ownership of U.S. display technology firm Jupiter Systems. After missed deadlines, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit on Feb. 9, 2026, in federal court in Washington—the first time the U.S. government has sought to enforce a CFIUS presidential divestment order through litigation.
4. Gotion Inc. project termination (late 2025): Michigan state authorities formally canceled a battery plant project on grounds of default. The project was backed by Gotion, a manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries headquartered in China.

Chinese Student Numbers in the US Keep Falling, Back to Decade-Ago Levels

On April 16, 2026, China Consular Affairs said in a post on X that about 20 Chinese scholars traveling to the United States on valid visas to attend an academic conference were questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at a Seattle airport and denied entry. The incident is seen as a microcosm of the growing decoupling in education between the two countries.

In the final year of his first term, Trump signed a presidential proclamation barring Chinese students and scholars with F (student) and J (exchange visitor) visas who were deemed to have ties to China’s military from entering the United States. U.S. consular officers, acting under that order, denied visas to 1,964 and 1,764 Chinese students and scholars in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

According to China-based education platform Education Online, citing the U.S.-based Institute of International Education’s 2025 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, a record number of international students, more than 1.1 million, were in the United States in the 2024–2025 academic year. However, the number of Chinese students fell to 265,919, down by about 8 percent from 289,529 in 2022–2023, extending a marked decline since 2020. The total has now dropped to roughly the level of a decade ago—comparable to 2013–2014 (274,439)—and more than 100,000 below the 2019–2020 peak of 372,532.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, education decoupling has continued to deepen. In April 2025, China’s Ministry of Education issued a warning to students who planned to study in the United States. In May, the United States announced that it would “revoke visas of Chinese students,” including those “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party … or studying in critical fields,” particularly in science and engineering.

In addition, the U.S. Congress has been pushing forward the Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation Act of 2025 (SAFE Research Act), which aims to broadly prohibit U.S.-based researchers from collaborating with institutions in any country designated as “a foreign adversary country.”

Meanwhile, states such as Ohio and North Carolina have introduced legislation barring Chinese nationals from accessing laboratories involved in critical technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and robotics.

Conclusion

The Chinese Communist Party’s global ambitions and China’s development potential have compelled the United States to view Beijing as its principal strategic rival. Absent a fundamental change in the Chinese Communist Party, a rivalry status that is colder than the Cold War between the two countries is unlikely to shift in any meaningful way. Having already reshaped America’s China policy during his first term, Trump is expected in his second term to step up efforts both to counter the Chinese Communist Party and to promote a peaceful transformation of China.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.