Singapore’s top diplomat said U.S.-China tensions seem to be in a “tactical pause” following a trade truce last month, warning of long-term partial decoupling if the economic giants fail to rebuild trust.

“The fundamental problem with the U.S. and China is almost complete lack of strategic trust,” Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said Wednesday in an interview with Stephanie Flanders, Bloomberg’s head of economics and government, at the New Economy Forum in Singapore.

“What you’ve seen so far is not a strategic realignment,” he continued. “Both sides have decided they need time. They need a tactical pause.”

The remarks underscore doubts over ties between the world’s two biggest economies despite Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump reaching a trade truce last month following a pivotal meeting in South Korea.

While the one-year deal may serve to stabilize relations for a time, fundamental differences between them remain unresolved, with the agreement seen lacking the type of structural changes that Trump has long promised to address in the U.S.-China trading relationship.

Like many nations in Southeast Asia, Singapore navigates a delicate relationship between China, its biggest trading partner, and the U.S., a key security partner and its largest source of foreign direct investment.

Balakrishnan reiterated Wednesday that the U.S.’s role in the world under Trump has shifted from being the system’s “underwriter and enforcer” to its “disruptor-in-chief,” a change driven by long-term domestic political pressures and the economic stagnation of America’s middle class.

To that end, he said, the U.S.’s role as a benign hegemon that underwrote the global rules-based order for eight decades was historically unique and unprecedented.

“It’s like an iceberg or a continental ice shelf falling,” Balakrishnan said. “This is real geopolitical climate change.”

Trump has imposed new levies on dozens of nations since returning to office, seeking to rebalance global trade. Singapore has so far been hit with only a 10% tariff. But with trade amounting to about three times its gross domestic product, the city-state remains highly exposed to any sustained slowdown in global commerce.

The “good news,” Balakrishnan said, is “the majority of global GDP that still wants to operate on supply chain efficiencies,” the U.S. and China aside. “So what you’re watching now, all that scurrying around by medium and small economies, is to keep globalization alive.”