The Conditional Centrality of China: The Configurational Politics of Trade in Trump’s Foreign Policy

Unlike during Donald Trump’s first term, when China occupied a central position in U.S. trade policy, China has been incorporated into a broader and more systematic global tariff framework during his second term. This article argues that individual international relations theories tend to privilege particular levels of analysis or causal mechanisms and therefore cannot fully account for this variation. It introduces a configurational perspective on politics as an operational approach to theoretical eclecticism and examines the combinations of conditions under which China becomes a primary target of Trump’s trade policy. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), the study examines 20 cases of trade policy practice across Trump’s two terms. Within the scope conditions of this study, the necessary-condition analysis shows that no single condition is necessary for China to occupy a central position in U.S. trade policy. Instead, such centrality emerges from configurations of strategic competition, negotiation practices, domestic politics, and threat construction. The sufficiency analysis further identifies threat construction and negotiation practices as core conditions across multiple sufficient pathways. When either of these conditions combines with strategic competition or domestic political mobilization, China is more likely to become a primary target of U.S. trade policy. By contrast, when Washington prioritizes domestic political considerations and technological security, while clear bilateral U.S.–China mechanisms and a dominant China-threat discourse are absent, China is more likely to be incorporated into a global tariff framework rather than singled out as the central target of trade policy.