Washington and Beijing are on a “creeping path towards some kind of a deal”, former US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said on Tuesday, while offering some rare support for US President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy towards China. Burns, who served as envoy to Beijing under former president Joe Biden from 2022 until this year, told a crowd at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado that both sides had strong economic incentives to reach a trade agreement. He also pushed back against the argument made by some critics of Trump’s trade policy that China had the upper hand in negotiations. “It’s a symbiotic relationship,” Burns said, pointing to the presence of more than 10,000 American companies in China and the US’ role as China’s largest export market. “Logic and self-interest will lead both of them towards the deal.” Burns’ remarks at the high-profile national security conference came as the two countries are in the middle of a 90-day trade truce, with an August deadline to reach a more durable deal. Earlier in the year, the Trump administration had hiked tariffs to as high as 145 per cent on Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to respond with its own steep levies on US imports. Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Malaysia on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit, with both sides later describing the meeting as “constructive”. Burns praised US negotiators on Tuesday, calling Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent “impressive” in his discussions with Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng. As for why Trump was, in Burns’ words, “right to be tough-minded” towards China, the former ambassador pointed to what he characterised as Chinese dumping practices. “We’ve got to drive a hard bargain, because, as [former Treasury secretary Janet] Yellen said publicly, China is producing two to three times domestic demand in steel, robotics, EVs, lithium batteries, solar panels [and] dumping them in the rest of the world,” he said. Burns also highlighted China’s growing ambitions. “The will and ambition and increasing strength of China – technologically, economically, through their intelligence apparatus, and certainly through the [People’s Liberation Army] – it’s not just a wake-up call,” he said. “We’ve got to be ready. We’ve got to up our own game.” He further drew parallels between the approaches of Biden and Trump to trade, noting that while both had ruled out full economic decoupling, they agreed on protecting critical US supply chains and restricting China’s access to sensitive technologies. One example, Burns said, was the Biden administration’s 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles – ones he did not expect to be rolled back in a future deal. Still, while acknowledging he became more hawkish on China during his time as ambassador, Burns said he probably would not have advised hiking tariffs on China to 145 per cent as Trump did in April. Burns, now a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, also took issue with the Trump administration’s posture towards allies – highlighting the president’s rhetoric towards Denmark, Canada and Nato members. Since his second term began in January, Trump has floated the idea of taking over Canada and Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, and has sharply rebuked allies for not spending more on defence. America’s network of alliances, Burns argued, was a strategic advantage that set it apart from China. The Chinese, he said, saw the Biden administration’s strengthening of ties with Australia, Europe, Japan, South Korea, India and Thailand as a threat – one he felt “in [his] bones” in conversations with counterparts in recent years. Burns added that unlike the US-Europe relationship, which he called a “forever” alliance, China’s strategic alignment with Russia was not likely to last beyond 15 years. Burns’ remarks opened the four-day forum, coming a day after the US Defence Department abruptly withdrew its participation, including that of Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, who was scheduled to speak on Thursday. The annual conference in Aspen is known for featuring senior officials from the sitting administration, including top civilian leaders at the Pentagon and military commanders. In a statement on Monday, forum organisers said they would “miss the participation of the Pentagon” but that their “invitations remain open” – a sentiment that Burns, a co-chair of the Aspen Strategy Group, echoed on Tuesday. The Pentagon said on Monday that the forum’s values did not align with its own, with spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson calling it an event that “promotes the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States”. This year’s forum still includes some Trump administration officials on its agenda, including Adam Boehler, the US special envoy for hostage response, and Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria.