John Mearsheimer, a noted political scientist at the University of Chicago, has long believed that China’s rise will not be peaceful. Tensions with the United States will simmer as the Asian giant expands its influence.

“Containment is an alternative to war against a rising China,” Professor Mearsheimer proposed in his book “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.” “Nevertheless, war is always a possibility.”

On Nov. 8, the odds of war with China got shorter.

From his provocative phone call with Taiwan’s president that infuriated Beijing — which considers Taiwan a rogue, breakaway province — to his heated claims that China steals American jobs, President Trump “seems to be pursuing policies that raise the risk of an actual shooting war,” Mr. Mearsheimer said.

By promising to raise a 45 percent wall of tariffs against imports from China, Mr. Trump seems set to undercut the one solid counterargument used over the years against the professor’s grim outlook: that the United States and China would become too economically interdependent to risk a conflagration.