The global balance of power has shifted, and I believe this trend is irreversible. The parties were optimistic and collaborative, which makes a big difference from the previous US administration.
Trump took advantage of the APEC and ASEAN summits, where the US signed a series of agreements with countries in the Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia regions, to then meet with Xi Jinping in South Korea. At the heart of this meeting was the tariff war that he himself declared so vehemently at the beginning of the year, when he threatened half the world and shook the entire global trade architecture, of which the US itself is the head.
There was no final press conference, and neither side commented on the content of the 1:40 minute meeting. Both simply congratulated each other on the encouraging results they had achieved.
World hegemony is now shared
I very much doubt that Trump and his team will settle for a new shared paradigm. It should not be forgotten that the initial goal of Trump’s second term was clear: to destroy the BRICS and ensure that the global economy continues to gravitate around a dollar that is already naked and therefore needs creditors. I do not know if Trump understands that he has only one way out of the current decline of the US, which is to accept the emergence of a multipolar world, where they will continue to be an important power, but no longer hegemonic.
The sanctions on third parties that purchase energy from Russia’s Lukoil and Rosneft, announced by Trump shortly before meeting with Xi, were a clear sign of hostility not only towards Russia, but also towards buyers of Russian energy: China, India, and Central Asian countries in particular. Let us see what the real scope of this move is.
For his part, Xi stated in the run-up to the meeting that he wants to walk alongside the US and that he likes Trump’s idea of making America great again. ‘That’s what we’re doing here in China too; let’s make a deal,’ the Chinese leader seemed to want to say. Xi is betting on win-win agreements; he does not want chaos or destabilisation in the US, he wants predictability. The two largest economies are so interconnected that a decoupling does not lend itself to sudden coups.
Beijing does not want major changes, nor does it want barriers to global trade, from which it is the big winner.
It will continue on its path, but now at a different level. The PRC’s 15th five-year plan (2026-30) forecasts that the economy will grow at a more moderate pace than in the last 25 years and focuses on consolidating the middle class and the domestic market, global technological primacy, and achieving the ecological goals set by the UN. But it will certainly do everything it can to bring Asian economies together and make them tributaries of a parallel global economic system, centred on its BRICS, Belt & Road Initiative, SCO projects, and, predictably, a future gold-backed standard currency.
Rare earths and gold
At a time when gold is reaching historic highs amid falling confidence in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, the production and reserves of the precious metal are increasingly led by the BRICS countries and the Global South.
In short, China has reminded the US that it has the technology, industrial production, commercial dynamics, and sufficient gold reserves and production to support an alternative system to the current one. But it also accepts the present one and is part of the framework because it thrives within it.
The US replies that it also has all these tools and that it is still nominally the pole of the system it founded after World War II. China points out that all this is true, but that without its rare earths, Washington will have no industry, no technology, and no weapons for any of its grand plans. Welcome to reality: rare earths are the key and decisive factor in the turning point we are witnessing.
An iconic meeting, but…
It was a historic meeting because it is highly symbolic, but in the immediate term it is no more than a truce. Both sides have given themselves a year to ensure that there are no more hostilities in the form of new tariff threats from the US and their immediate reduction, that China resumes purchasing American agricultural products, that Beijing lifts restrictions on the export of rare earths, and that Washington lifts restrictions on the export of microchips to China. In November 2026, Trump will face midterm elections and will need to show achievements on the international stage.
It is a very sensitive period. The US has more than 800 bases around the world, a trillion-dollar military budget, and many voices around Trump calling for blood. A major purge in the Department of Defence, now irresponsibly and childishly renamed the ‘Department of War,’ would be a good start. Unfortunately, there are no signs of this happening.
Trump will use this period to dominate the American continent, in his renewed Monroe Doctrine of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But he also seems determined to increase provocations against China and Russia in the Pacific, notably through an arms race among the regional powers Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, and the Philippines, not to mention Taiwan, which was not mentioned after this meeting.
The global balance of power has shifted, and I believe this trend is irreversible. The parties were optimistic and collaborative, which makes a big difference from the previous US administration. This does not mean that a crisis cannot spark a conflict between the rising and declining powers. Much water will flow under the bridge.
The question of the Thucydides Trap, so well explained in ‘Destined for War’, will see developments over the next 12 months that will either corroborate or disprove the pessimistic title of Graham Allison’s seminal book, which warns of the risks, but not the inevitability, of war between the US and the PRC. The announcement of an official visit by Trump to China in April is a constructive sign for a new phase in the world. Let’s see.
And what about Europe in this scenario? The Old Continent will pay the bill, whether in the price of energy, the supplies it does not manufacture, the extremely costly warmongering escalation on which its leaders are betting, or the accentuated deindustrialisation, at least as long as these leaders are in the hands of agents determined to defend the transatlantic empire instead of working in the interests of their citizens.
Ricardo Nuno Costa—geopolitical expert, writer, columnist, and editor-in-chief of geopol.pt
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