Recently, we conducted a research trip to the United States, visiting about 
a dozen government agencies, think tanks and business organizations in an 
effort to better understand the country and its policies related to China.What 
struck us most was not a sense of American decline nor the emergence of 
any new consensus in Washington. Rather, it was a pervasive sense of uncertainty─
stretching from the streets to conference rooms, and from society at large 
to the policy community. Few people seemed able to clearly explain the current 
state of U.S. domestic or international affairs. At its core, this uncertainty 
reflects a broader condition: The U.S. is undergoing a profound transformation,
 and the ambiguity is a symptom of a country in transition.

To understand the changes unfolding in the U.S. today, one must begin not 
with its approach to the external world but with how it is managing its 
internal challenges. Many of the country's most pressing problems are domestic 
rather than international─immigration, deteriorating public security, economic 
anxiety, industrial hollowing-out, rising energy costs and the political 
and social tensions these issues have generated. Donald Trump is not the 
starting point of these changes, but rather a political outcome of the long-term 
accumulation of domestic contradictions, social challenges and governance 
pressures in the United States.

Domestic politics therefore constitute both the backdrop and the driving 
force of this transformation. Under mounting internal pressure, the Trump 
administration has sought to reorder national priorities. U.S. attention 
has increasingly shifted from maintaining the global order toward addressing 
domestic governance, and from grand strategic narratives toward the resolution 
of concrete problems. Changes in decision-making patterns within the Trump 
administration, growing divisions within the strategic community, the evolving 
role of the United States in the international order and adjustments in 
U.S. policy toward China are all rooted in this broader context.

Against this backdrop, the Trump administration's decision-making style 
differs markedly from that of previous U.S. governments. It relies less 
on traditional procedures─such as setting direction through grand strategy 
and doctrinal documents, building consensus through bureaucratic processes, 
coordinating across agencies and incorporating diverse inputs from think 
tanks and society. Instead, decision-making has increasingly taken on a 
“small group” character, in which a limited number of core actors determine 
key policies. The pace and direction of policy are more directly shaped 
by the president, with less reliance on complex procedures and broad-based 
consultation, and a greater willingness to bypass established processes.

For the United States, documents such as the National Security Strategy 
and National Defense Strategy remain important. Yet in practice, decision-making 
is now less determined by formal texts or strategic blueprints than by developments 
in the real world and by how the president interprets them. This approach 
may enhance pragmatism and efficiency, allowing policies to be more problem-oriented 
and less constrained by rigid strategic narratives. At the same time, it 
also makes U.S. actions more difficult to predict.

Perceptions of these changes within the U.S. strategic community are increasingly 
divided. Trump was, in many ways, the elephant in the room during our visit. 
In Washington, there exist two almost entirely different interpretations 
of what kind of president he is. Conservatives tend to view Trump as capable,
 pragmatic and efficiency-oriented─energetic, engaged, able to handle multiple 
issues simultaneously and possessing clear views on each. Liberals, by contrast,
 often see the Trump administration as abnormal─arbitrary in its actions, 
inconsistent in its policies and lacking strategic coherence.

This divergence is not merely a matter of partisanship or ideological preference; 
it is, more fundamentally, a contest between different interpretive frameworks.
 In the liberal view, a normal American president is one who formulates 
a clear strategy, ensures top-down coordination, advances policy through 
structured bureaucratic processes and draws broadly on societal input. By 
contrast, a president like Trump─highly personalized and opaque, focused 
on solving concrete problems rather than articulating grand strategy, dismissive 
of bureaucratic procedures and strongly transactional in orientation─is 
seen as abnormal.Conservatives, however, tend to focus less on whether Trump 
conforms to established governing norms and more on how he seeks to solve 
problems. In their view, Trump is intelligent and capable, and in their 
view much of the criticism directed at him stems from a failure to understand 
how he thinks and operates.

At the level of foreign policy, the United States has not withdrawn from 
global affairs; it has, instead, changed the way it engages with the world. 
It no longer seeks to shape history through the same methods as before, 
nor does it aspire to serve as a long-term, universal and institutional 
pillar of the international order.In the Trump administration's view, previous 
U.S. governments placed excessive emphasis on alliance-building, leadership 
in multilateral institutions and rule-making, all of which led to an overextension 
of national power and a misallocation of strategic resources. In contrast, 
tariffs, sanctions, deterrence, issue-based transactions and military capabilities 
have become central tools for sustaining U.S. global influence.In other 
words, the desire of the United States to maintain global influence has 
not diminished; what has declined is its patience with traditional modes 
of leadership. The Trump administration is less willing to bear the costs 
of endeavors that it perceives as misaligned with U.S. interests. For this 
reason, the changes underway in the United States cannot be simply characterized 
as either strategic retrenchment or expansion. Rather, they represent a 
restructuring of how the country participates in and shapes the global order.

More unexpectedly, perhaps, is that the importance of China within the U.S. 
political agenda appears to be declining─an indication that U.S. strategic 
competition with China may be entering a new phase. Although China remains 
one of the most important factors for the United States, the “China content”
 in the current U.S. political agenda is decreasing. It no longer dominates 
American foreign policy narratives to the same extent as in the past. This 
shift does not reflect a reduced importance of China, per se, but rather 
an internal redirection of political attention. For the Trump administration,
 issues such as Iran, domestic inflation, rising energy prices and the midterm 
elections are absorbing significant attention.

Notably, the relative decline in the prominence of China may not be a short-term 
phenomenon. One reason is that the Trump administration's approach toward 
China is more pragmatic. Unlike the Biden administration, it does not seek 
to construct an overarching “strategic competition” framework that integrates 
national capacity-building, economic de-risking, industrial policy and alliance 
coordination into a single narrative. Instead, it tends to manage China-U.S. 
relations on an issue-by-issue basis, preferring to address specific problems 
directly rather than embedding them within a broader strategic storyline. 
As a result, the model of organizing U.S. grand strategy and domestic political 
narratives around China─a defining feature of the past decade─appears 
to be loosening. If conservative leadership persists, this trend may continue.

Taken together, the uncertainty observed in Washington today should not 
be seen as a temporary phenomenon but rather as a symptom of of a transitional 
phase in the United States. It reflects a reordering of national priorities 
driven by social pressures, a concentration of presidential power that increases 
decision-making efficiency, a strategic community divided in its interpretive 
frameworks, a transformation in how the U.S. engages with the world and 
a gradual decline in the centrality of China within U.S. politics. These 
interconnected developments, unfolding from the domestic to the international 
level, together form the underlying logic of America's ongoing transformation.

For China, what matters is not whether the United States is in decline, 
but how to understand a country that still seeks to shape history while 
being no longer willing to bear the costs under previous rules. The United 
States today stands at a historic crossroads. To grasp many of the emerging 
dynamics in China-U.S. relations, one must begin with this fundamental reality.

    
  變革中的美國與中美關係)

  孙成昊（Sun Chenghao）李逸傑 (Li Yijie)
(清华大学战略与安全研究中心) 
  
近期，我们与美方官员、智库和企业人员集中交流，感受最深的不是美国正在衰落，
也不是华盛顿的某种新思想、新共识，而是无处不在的迷茫感，从社会层面到政策
层面，几乎没有人能说清当前的美国内外局势。究其原因，迷茫是一种“国家转型
期”的症状，当前的美国正经历一场深刻变革。

理解今天美国的变化，不能从其如何处理外部世界入手，而应从如何处理自身事务
入手。美国面对的许多问题不在海外，而在国内，包括移民问题、治安恶化、经济
焦虑、产业空心化、能源成本上升以及由此引发的种种政治和社会矛盾。特朗普不
是这场变化的起点，而是美国国内政治矛盾、社会问题与治理危机长期积累的政治
结果。

国内政治是美国转型的背景，也是转型的原因。在国内压力推动下，特朗普政府试
图对国家议程重新排序，美国注意力开始从传统的维护全球秩序转向国内治理，从
宏大的战略叙事转向解决具体的问题。而特朗普政府决策思维模式的变化、战略界
认知模式的撕裂、美国秩序角色的转变以及美国对华政策的调整都建立在这一背景
之上。

在这一背景下，特朗普政府决策思维模式与往届美国政府不同，不再依赖传统决策
程序，即依赖大战略和纲领性文本定调、官僚层层铺垫、跨部门协调和对接、智库
和社会多元化建议。相反，特朗普政府越来越趋向于“小集团”的决策模式，少数
核心人物决定关键事项，议题节奏由总统个人直接把握，停止繁杂的程序和多元协
商过程，超越固定章程执行。

对美国而言，《国家安全战略》《国防战略》等文件固然重要，但在实际决策中更
具决定意义的不再是文本、纲领或战略，而是现实世界正发生什么以及总统本人如
何理解这些变化。这种方式让特朗普政府更务实、更高效，且能够以问题导向避免
被战略叙事束缚，但也会导致美国的行动更难以被预测。

美国战略界对此的认知愈发撕裂。特朗普是我们此行“房间里的大象”，对于“特
朗普是怎样的总统”，华盛顿有着两套几乎完全不同的逻辑。保守派将特朗普视为
聪明、能干、务实且重视效率的人，精力旺盛，热爱自己的工作，能够同时处理多
项事务，且对每一件事都有自己的观点。而自由派则普遍认为，特朗普政府“不正
常”，随心所欲、政策混乱、毫无战略。

这种分歧不只是党派之争或立场之争，而是解释框架之争。在自由派眼中，那种美
国制定清晰战略、形成自上而下协调、采取组织化官僚程序推进政策、广泛听取社
会意见的总统才是“正常”的，而像特朗普这样高度个人化且不透明，专注于解决
问题而非制定宏大战略，拒绝官僚程序且重视交易的总统则是“不正常”的。保守
派将关注点放在“特朗普怎么解决问题”之上，认为特朗普智慧且有能力，外界对
特朗普批评是因为不了解特朗普的所思所想。

从外交层面看，美国并非全面退出世界事务，而是改变了参与方式。美国不再希望
用过去那样的方式塑造历史，不再愿意成为长期、普遍、制度化国际秩序的支撑者。
特朗普政府认为，过去美国政府将对外政策的重点放在发展同盟关系，提高多边机
制领导力，塑造国际规则，这些目标均导致美国国家实力过度消耗，战略资源配置
偏离正轨。关税、制裁、威慑、议题化交易和军事能力则成为特朗普政府提高美国
全球影响力的重要手段。换言之，美国提高全球影响力的欲望并没有下降，真正下
降的是对旧领导方式的耐心，特朗普政府不愿为与美国利益不符的事情买单。也正
因如此，今天美国之变不能简单概括为战略收缩或扩张，而是美国全球秩序参与方
式的一次重构。

更让我们意想不到的是，中国在美国政治议程中的重要性似乎正在降低，而这或许
意味着美国对华战略竞争将进入新阶段。虽然中国仍是美国最重要的议题之一，但
当前美国政治议程中的“中国含量正在减少”，不再像过去那样主导绝大部分的美
国外交叙事。主要原因不在于中国“不重要”，而是美国的政治聚光灯逐渐转向其
他位置。对特朗普政府而言，伊朗问题、国内经济通胀、能源价格上涨和中期选举
等都在分散其精力。

值得关注的是，中国议题在美国的重要性下降恐不是一个短期现象。原因在于，当
前特朗普政府对华态度更务实，不再像拜登政府那样把“战略竞争”编织成一个大
口袋，将美国国家能力建设、经济去风险、产业发展、联盟合作等议题都装进去。
特朗普政府更倾向于按照议题分类管理中美关系，更喜欢就事论事，而不像拜登政
府那样先创造一套对华叙事。因此，过去十年那种以中国为中心组织美国大战略和
国内政治叙事的模式正出现松动，如果未来保守派继续执政，这一趋势或将持续。

由此来看，今天华盛顿的迷茫并不是一个短期现象，而是美国转型期的“症状”，
它表现为社会压力正重排国家议程，总统权力集中正提高决策效率，战略界认知逻
辑在分裂中前进，美国参与国际事务的方式全面转变，中国重要性正逐步降低，这
五种变化环环相扣、从内而外，共同构成美国“转型期”的基本逻辑。

对中国而言，真正重要的不是争论美国是不是在走下坡路，而是看清一个仍然试图
塑造历史却不愿按旧规则付出代价的美国。今天的美国正站在历史的十字路口，而
要理解未来中美关系的许多新变化，恐怕也要从理解这一点开始。

(The source of the article comes from  chinausfocus.com)