Now that we are past the six-month mark of Donald Trump’s presidency, his administration is more aggressively addressing the transpacific issues raised during the presidential campaign. Two developments stand out in their approach to China and the East Asia region. First, contrary to early expectations, they have not deviated much from President Barack Obama’s policies, though Trump is less enamored with multilateralism and less concerned with human rights than was his predecessor. Second, the Trump administration’s prioritization of the North Korea nuclear issue has informed their other regional actions, including their strengthening of ties with Japan and South Korea and their heretofore limited efforts in the South China Sea and in U.S.-China economic relations.

However, in recent weeks the administration has diversified their approach, and they have been far more assertive in their dealings with China. Trump may yet touch off a Sino-American trade war, and he might employ brinkmanship on the Korean Peninsula or in maritime Asia. A war of “values” between his administration and Beijing, however, still seems highly unlikely.

Campaign Promises and Current Realities

Since the election, there has been much debate about what a Trump presidency will mean for transpacific affairs. One school of thought suggests that Trump’s victory heralded the end of America as the dominant Pacific power. This perspective took shape during the presidential campaign, when Trump presented himself as a neoisolationist, “America first” nationalist who would avoid costly foreign engagements, reduce the nation’s international obligations and force allies to bear more of the defense burden. In the months after his win, supporters and detractors alike seemed to agree that he was recasting the postwar liberal order and perhaps even rejecting the notion of an American imperium. True to form, he proposed cuts to the State Department and foreign aid budgets; unsigned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); announced America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord; and expressed indifference to international human rights norms. While Trump’s backers have applauded the potential shifting of resources toward domestic priorities, his critics predict a gradual American retreat from the Western Pacific and a slow-burn handover of regional hegemony to China.

Other signs point in a different direction. Trump’s desire to challenge China may in fact mean a more muscular American presence in the region. Not only did he promise to take on Beijing’s trade practices, but his administration seems committed to strengthening the Pacific alliances, and he has already proposed a robust defense budget increase and a long-term naval expansion from 272 operational ships to 350. These proposals face formidable political and financial hurdles, yet even the smaller-scale naval enlargement suggested by his FY 2018 budget proposal would allow for greater power projection in the Pacific. In short, Trump may not be denying American exceptionalism after all, but rather proposing an amped-up, militaristic variant of it.

The contrast between Trump’s campaign rhetoric and his presidential actions (to say nothing of his anarchic public statements) has added another layer of confusion. Candidate Trump ran on a largely domestic, populist, economic nationalist platform—a broadly realist program which emphasized economics more than security. He showed little foreign policy depth, and a clear Asia policy vision eluded him. His regional references rarely went beyond trade, and his security outlook consisted of a few unpolished statements about North Korea and China’s island-building. Yet China was a consistent target of his foreign policy broadsides. He promised to challenge Beijing on trade and currency, and he declared that Japan and South Korea would pay more for their own defense, even if this meant that they might develop nuclear weapons. (“South Korea’s going to have to start ponying up, OK?”)

Trump seemed to be living up to these positions after the election. He broke decades of protocol by accepting a congratulatory call from the president of Taiwan and publicly questioning the “One China” policy, and within days of his inauguration he scuttled the TPP. He also welcomed some prominent hawks into his advisory circle. (We might call them the “anti-China hands.”) Last year, White House strategist Steve Bannon predicted that America and China would fight a war in the next five to ten years. Trump’s U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, has asserted that the United States should get much tougher over China’s World Trade Organization (WTO) practices. Most hawkish of all is the National Trade Council director, Peter Navarro, who has long proclaimed China to be an adversary of the United States, as evidenced by the title of his book, Death by China. Even the relative moderates heading the Department of State and Commerce, Rex Tillerson and Wilbur Ross, hopped onto the bandwagon. Tillerson suggested during his confirmation hearings that China be blocked from access to artificial islands in the South China Sea, while the otherwise Sinophilic Ross has called China the “most protectionist country.”

But once the top positions were filled, there were signs of moderation, if not exactly clarity. Trump walked back his earlier comments on the “One China” policy, and he had a productive tête-à-tête with President Xi Jinping in Mar-a-Lago. Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated that he saw no need for dramatic American military moves in the South China Sea. Tillerson, also had a positive meeting with Xi in Beijing in which he endorsed the Chinese government’s phrasing that Sino-American ties are built on “non-confrontation, no conflict, mutual respect, and . . . win-win solutions.”

Clearly the president and his team had learned something about the delicate nature of the Sino-American relationship, the importance of certain shared interests and the many potential pitfalls of rash decisions. Moreover, other perspectives were offsetting the aggressive nationalism of the Navarro/Bannon wing. Tillerson is a businessman with plenty of international experience. National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster is well aware of Beijing’s strategic capabilities but is not particularly China-obsessed. Trump’s ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, is a free-trade advocate who has known President Xi for three decades. National Economic Council director Gary Cohn has emerged as a major influence on the administration’s trade outlook. And the Hawaii-based commander of the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), Admiral Harry Harris, has been working hard to shore up the Pacific alliances from the front lines. Of course, much depends on who wins the ear of this capricious president, and North Korea’s increasingly provocative missile tests may tilt the balance toward confrontation. But at least Trump can now draw on a broad array of opinions.

Trump’s Regional Posture at the Six-Month Mark

On the regional security front, Trump’s prioritization of the North Korean nuclear issue has impelled his administration to stand firmly behind the alliances with Japan and South Korea. He is particularly bullish on Japan: He and President Shinzo Abe appeared thick as thieves during the latter’s February visit to America, and the two sides have repeatedly reaffirmed their joint stand against North Korea. Mattis praised Japanese contributions to the alliance, calling it “a model of cost sharing and burden sharing,” and reiterated U.S. recognition of Japan’s claim to the Senkaku Islands, a position that has caused friction with Beijing. In recent months, Japan has even sent its largest warship, the Izumo helicopter carrier, to conduct drills with the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal—Japan’s most significant naval ventures since 1945.

The Trump administration has also shored up ties with South Korea, though this alliance has been tested by leadership changes in both countries and some minor political disagreements. While the two governments have publicly reiterated their stand against North Korea and have gone forward with their previously planned joint military maneuvers and THAAD missile defense deployment, the latter has been controversial among Koreans. The new president, Moon Jae-in, spoke out against THAAD during his campaign, but since assuming office has taken a tough public line against Pyongyang. More recently, the administration’s decision to amend the KORUS free trade agreement has become a possible source of tension.

Trump may yet live up to his campaign promises and pressure Seoul and Tokyo to pay more for their defense, as he has done with NATO, but the quest for a unified front against Pyongyang has thus far put off any major moves in this direction. (Trump did assert that Seoul should pay for THAAD, but his advisers quickly clarified that this was not the original agreement.) Moreover, Japan and South Korea already cover about half the cost of the U.S. bases they host, and South Korea’s defense spending is above the global average. Constitutional constraints limit Tokyo’s defense spending to only about 1 percent of GDP, but in the last few years Japan’s leaders have interpreted the rules liberally, including hiking the budget to a record $44 billion in December.

During the Trump administration’s first few months, their interest in North Korea spurred relatively tough public statements about China. Trump repeated his longstanding claim that China was standing by while North Korea was “playing” the United States, and shortly before the Mar-a-Lago summit he ominously stated, “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.” Meanwhile, Tillerson announced that the United States would not hold direct talks with Pyongyang until the regime gave up its WMDs, and he suggested that the administration would penalize Chinese companies and banks doing business with North Korea.

Yet the administration put on a cooperative face at the summit in pursuit of a common front against North Korea. After all, China does not benefit from a dangerous, nuclear-armed neighbor, and Beijing and Pyongyang have been estranged since Kim Jong-un’s accession. The summit went so well, in fact, that afterward Trump even professed his “great confidence” that “China will properly deal with North Korea.” In the ensuing weeks, it looked as though the administration was being passive in exchange for Chinese help on North Korea. Contrary to Trump’s campaign promises, they did not label China a currency manipulator, nor did they levy unilateral sanctions, order U.S. ships into the South China Sea, or greenlight an arms sale to Taiwan.

But more recently, observers have declared an end to the Trump-Xi “honeymoon” due to American dissatisfaction with the lack of progress and China’s differing priorities. The conventional wisdom in Washington holds that since Beijing provides 90 percent of North Korea’s trade and nearly all of its commodities, it should take the lead in halting the nuclear program. Beijing counters that they have little real leverage against this quasi-autarkic regime. China agreed to multilateral sanctions and stopped buying North Korean coal, and Xi himself has refused even to meet with Kim. Yet, Pyongyang’s nuclear program continues apace. The regime has conducted twelve missile tests since February, including ICBMs on July 4 and 28.

Thus far, the United States and its partners have not persuaded Beijing that North Korea’s ventures are more dangerous than the current path, even though Kim’s saber-rattling has fueled nationalistic, defensive responses in South Korea and Japan. Some voices within China have offered alternative perspectives, but Beijing has preferred multilateral sanctions (that is to say, the status quo) over the unforeseen consequences of a bold move against North Korea. China’s leaders fear that too much pressure on Pyongyang will spur a regime collapse, a violent civil struggle, a refugee crisis and ultimately the unification of the peninsula under U.S.-allied Seoul.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has taken a more insistent line of “official disappointment” over alleged Chinese inaction. On June 20, Trump was conciliatory but firm: “While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi and China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!” Two weeks later, he upbraided Beijing for the rise in exports to North Korea: “Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40 percent in the first quarter. So much for China working with us.” At the end of June, the administration permitted a $1.42 billion arms delivery to Taiwan, and the United States announced secondary sanctions against the Bank of Dandong, a shipping company, and two individuals for doing business with North Korea. Beijing protested both the sanctions and the weapons, though neither was unexpected or unprecedented.

Following North Korea’s July 28 test, the earlier disappointment grew into an administration-wide, full-court press of frustration aimed at both North Korea and China. “I am very disappointed in China,” Trump tweeted. “They do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!” Vice-President Mike Pence stated somewhat more diplomatically that China “should do more,” while Secretary Tillerson insisted that China and Russia “bear unique and special responsibility” as “the principal economic enablers” of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile programs. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley paired her official statement—that “China must decide whether it is finally willing” to challenge the North Korean regime—with a less-refined tweet: “Done talking about NKorea. China is aware they must act.”

Given this shift in public diplomacy, the administration is all but sure to continue levying secondary sanctions on Chinese entities doing business with Pyongyang (the acting assistant secretary of state has said as much to a congressional committee), though it remains to be seen whether they will use punitive sanctions against Beijing, as doing so would reduce Trump’s ability to work with China on other issues.

The administration has also begun to pursue somewhat tougher measures in Sino-American economic relations. Trump made many promises in this arena, but he has been cautious so far. He has initiated studies of the trade deficit and of steel and aluminum imports, and executive branch agencies and American companies continue to file antidumping and countervailing duty cases against Chinese manufacturers. By and large, these actions have been consistent with Obama’s approach, which included many cases against China in the WTO and elsewhere. The Trump administration has also inked a quid-pro-quo beef and poultry agreement that will bring American beef to China for the first time since 2003. Trump has touted the deal as a boon to American agriculture, though it has raised concerns over the quality of Chinese chicken that will appear in American stores.

Considering Trump’s longstanding fixation on the trade deficit, we can expect the administration to do more in the coming months. As recently as the July 19 U.S.-China economic dialogue, Commerce Secretary Ross reiterated the administration's position that “the fundamental asymmetry in our trade relationship and unequal market access must be addressed.” Steel, aluminum and automobiles are the most likely targets. Among Trump’s options, he can levy short-term tariffs across all imports or target a specific industry by deeming it a matter of national security or a “wartime” necessity. Of course, this firmer direction would not just help Trump fulfill campaign promises; it would also fit into the administration’s current stance on China and North Korea. In his July 29 tweet, he tied his disappointment with Beijing and Pyongyang to his oft-repeated line that China has made “hundreds of billions of dollars” in trade. Beijing, meanwhile, has rejected Trump’s not-so-casual linkage of bilateral trade to the North Korean issue, with one Chinese minister saying that these issues “are in two completely different domains. They aren’t related. They should not be discussed together.”

The administration has also been a bit more forceful in Southeast Asia. Disputes in the region center on the South China Sea (SCS), where multiple nations have competing claims to islands, reefs, the seabed, and exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Beijing claims nearly the entire SCS—represented as a “nine-dash line” on Chinese maps—and its efforts to craft habitable islands from reefs has angered others in the region. The United States has no territorial or maritime claims, but asserts navigation rights to defend its Western Pacific interests. Long-term strategists fear that if China establishes a territorial dominion over the SCS, then Beijing could someday blackmail trading nations. Many American policymakers and naval tacticians see China’s actions as provocative and destabilizing, while Beijing counters that American naval actions have exacerbated tensions.

Both during the presidential campaign and after the election, Trump spoke of the “massive military complex” in the SCS, while Mattis similarly criticized Chinese maritime expansion. In February, the U.S. Navy deployed the San Diego-based USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to the Western Pacific (ostensibly due to concerns over North Korea), making it the second such American carrier group in the region. The administration laid off these themes after Mar-a-Lago, but have embraced them once again. Speaking to an international audience in Singapore in June, Mattis fell back on a surprisingly liberal, multilateral argument to challenge the island-building and island-militarizing operation: “We cannot accept Chinese actions that impinge on the interests of the international community, undermining the rules-based order that has benefited all countries represented here today. . . . We cannot and will not accept unilateral coercive changes to the status quo.” A few weeks later, he and Tillerson reiterated this position with two top Chinese officials.

The United States has also boosted its naval presence through training exercises and freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPS). Late in May, the destroyer USS Dewey sailed a few miles from one of China’s artificial islands in the Spratlys—the first FONOP since October—and just over a month later the destroyer USS Stethem sailed close to Triton Island in the Paracels. In June, U.S. Air Force Lancer supersonic bombers and the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Sterett conducted an exercise over the SCS.

Finally, the administration has even made a few human rights statements, which is an area that President Trump has otherwise disregarded. The latest State Department Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, released at the end of June, downgrades China to the lowest level on the scale, a move which may justify future sanctions. Also late in June, Ambassador Branstad publicly petitioned Beijing to allow imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo to seek medical treatment overseas. After Liu’s death, Branstad paid him a public tribute and even called on China “to release all prisoners of conscience and to respect the fundamental freedoms of all.” These were quite provocative statements considering Beijing’s sensitivity in this case.

All of this hardly comprises a new grand strategy, but these recent moves signal a greater willingness to address the transpacific issues that Trump raised during the presidential campaign. If this administration is to succeed in such difficult areas as the trade deficit and Northeast Asian security, it will have to be willing to forgo short-term political victories and instead put in the work to seek out viable, long-term solutions.

Joe Renouard teaches at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Nanjing, China. He is the author of Human Rights in American Foreign Policy: From the 1960s to the Soviet Collapse.

Image: U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and China's President Xi Jinping walk along the front patio of the Mar-a-Lago estate after a bilateral meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria.