Beneath the surface, the U.S. is hard at work on building military capacity and industrial resilience.
Beneath the surface, the U.S. is hard at work on building military capacity and industrial resilience.
W hen President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, the world was spiraling toward a global conflict. America’s adversaries were on the march during four years of the Biden administration, a costly reminder that American weakness is provocative. American deterrence collapsed first in Afghanistan, then in Ukraine, then across the Middle East, while at home, upwards of 10 million illegal immigrants — many from hostile nations — flooded across our southern border. Beijing began large-scale drills to blockade and invade Taiwan in August 2022, continuing those drills through the remaining two-and-a-half years of Biden’s presidency. And despite global supply chains being choked by China during the Covid-19 pandemic, America and its allies remained alarmingly dependent upon the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
As the two leaders prepare to meet this week, Trump’s mix of sparring and summits with CCP Chairman Xi Jinping should be understood relative to the strategic backdrop against which Trump returned to office. On the surface, both sides project stability and congeniality, but beneath the surface, the Trump administration is arming allies and racing for resilience to restore the American deterrence necessary to prevent a catastrophic global conflict.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth describes this approach with the mantra “speak softly and carry a big stick.” America’s military alliances, supply chains, hemispheric security, and positioning near global chokepoints are being reinvigorated to ensure American strength.
Trump’s National Defense Strategy identifies the “simultaneity problem” — the possibility of large-scale conflicts breaking out in multiple regions at the same time — as America’s central strategic concern. Trump is pushing NATO allies to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense and lead on the conventional defense of Europe to prepare for such a contingency. American weapons and expertise continue to flow to Ukraine, with Trump rightly requiring Europe to pay for them. Defense coordination and production with Japan and Australia are accelerating, as are weapons sales to Taiwan.
The Trump administration notified Congress of an $11.1 billion weapons package for Taiwan in 2025, the largest such package in history and 30 percent more than the Biden administration approved across its entire four years. While Trump faces criticism for delaying the timing of an additional $14 billion weapons package, no president comes close to Trump’s weapons approvals for Taiwan.
Trump’s April 2025 “Liberation Day” tariffs began the painful but necessary work of rewiring global trade to reconnect critical U.S. supply chains to the American homeland and military allies rather than adversaries. Critical production is reshoring, allies are incentivized to jointly eliminate Chinese control over essential inputs, and duty-free de minimus and transshipment trade loopholes in America’s tariff wall against China are being closed. Meanwhile, America’s corporate tax code was rewritten for reshoring with immediate write-off for capital investments, rounding out a necessary restructuring to secure the supply chains, manufacturing base, and infrastructure needed to sustain, and preferably deter, a prolonged fight.
Last year, China responded to America’s economic hardball by playing their economic sword of Damocles — a chokehold on rare-earth magnets. Trump’s State Department launched Pax Silica in response, bringing together trusted countries across the technology supply chain, from critical minerals and energy to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics, all aimed at curtailing Chinese control. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s tariff brinkmanship, it unlocked swift action to unwind fundamental points of Chinese economic leverage that have bedeviled policymakers for decades. And it did so ahead of any potential conflict, rather than in the depths of a geopolitical crisis.
Simultaneously, the “Donroe Doctrine” is deepening U.S. hemispheric dominance, while America secures global chokepoints and energy resources. Venezuela will no longer serve as a staging point for CCP ambitions in the Americas, nor will its vast energy resources supply Beijing. Chinese control is being removed from the Panama Canal, and China’s illicit drug networks are being dismantled across Latin America. A new generation of leaders like Javier Milei in Argentina and “El Tigre” in Colombia tilts decisively toward the U.S., and a transformational new security deal with Denmark and Greenland undermines China’s plans for “Polar Silk Road” dominance.
Additional American security deals at the Straits of Malacca and Gibraltar enhance American strategic positioning. And even the ongoing conflict with Iran, though aimed at preventing Iranian nuclear weapons, will force energy supplies to bypass the Strait of Hormuz — a critical preparation to deter future conflict.
At home, unprecedented steps are underway to purge high-risk Chinese power transformers from the U.S. power grid. The Federal Communications Commission has also banned Chinese power inverters, drones, routers, robots, and test labs. Federal agencies are writing new rules to protect federally funded university research from dangerous Chinese institutions.
Predictably, America’s media are fixated on diplomatic gestures, corporate complaints, and even promoting Chinese narratives. But the fundamental work of arming allies and striving for resilience is happening at an unprecedented pace away from the cameras. Summit promises alone do not create deterrence. Military capacity and industrial resilience do.