Trump’s China tariff strategy is part of broader push to secure America

President Donald Trump is in an all-out trade war with China, whose leaders accused the U.S. of “economic bullying” and declared Beijing’s readiness to “fight to the end” in “any type” of war” with America. Predictably, pundits, experts of all stripes and assorted members of the Washington commentariat are viciously attacking the president, predicting global economic Armageddon.

What they don’t understand is that the tariff war is part of Trump’s sophisticated multipronged strategy aimed at reducing a much bigger threat that China poses to America. To execute this strategy, the self-proclaimed master of the art of the deal will be personally involved in trade negotiations, according to Trump’s right-hand man on economic deals, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.

Trump is fighting a non-kinetic war with Beijing to avoid a kinetic one, which would surely be catastrophic for both the U.S. and China. Here’s what Trump understands about China and his rationale for the “strategic decoupling” doctrine Team Trump developed to tame our most dangerous adversary.

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China has been at war with the United States for years, using the “unrestricted warfare” doctrine developed by Chinese military strategists from the PLA in 1999. The goal is to fulfill China’s declared grand plan, which includes two parts – first, to become the dominant world power, replacing the United States, militarily and economically, and second, to secure control over Taiwan, through integration or by force, as part of its “One China” policy – all by 2049. 

“Unrestricted warfare” is designed to prevent the U.S. from interfering with China’s grand plan, by weakening America through various means – weaponizing fentanyl that kills Americans, eroding our industrial base, and developing our dependence on China in critical areas that underpin our civilian life and defense capabilities, among other things.

Thus far, China has employed non-kinetic measures against our homeland. But Xi Jinping gave orders to his armed forces “to be ready by 2027,” to conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan. China regularly conducts live-fire war-games, involving its army, navy and air force, practicing for an invasion. The most recent ones took place on April 1 and 2. The bold statement, that came from China’s embassy on March 3, demonstrates that Beijing feels ready for a kinetic confrontation today. “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” it said.

Trump wants to avoid getting dragged into a kinetic war with China that we cannot win. Should China invade Taiwan tomorrow, the U.S. would likely fail at an intervention, according to the 2024 Commission on the National Defense Strategy. Our military “lacks both the capabilities and the capacity” to deter or win such a war, and we would run out of armaments in three to four weeks – or even just a few days – depending on the particular weapon system.

Through his tariff war, Trump likely aims to weaken China’s economy and delay the invasion of Taiwan, buying time for U.S. industries to retool, re-establish new supply chains and rebuild our manufacturing capacity, which has been almost erased thanks to Washington’s decades-long misguided China policies.

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Trump is also working to reverse U.S. dependence on China, which Beijing has been cultivating deliberately for years, probably aiming to change Xi’s decision calculus to start the invasion of the island. Today, the U.S. relies on China in key industries, including in pharmaceutical drugs and four manufacturing areas: electronics, clothing and textiles, plastics products, medical products, and healthcare supplies. These supplies include anesthesia instruments, needles, syringes, blood pressure monitors, fingertip pulse oximeters, respirators and life-saving medical devices, among many others.

A large portion of over-the-counter drugs in America are imported from China. Ninety-one percent of prescriptions filled in the U.S. are generic drugs – 95% of ibuprofen supply and 45% of penicillin supply come from China.

Our critical and dangerous reliance on China in the medical industry was clearly demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we experienced massive shortages of basic products like masks and hand sanitizers. Can you imagine if you couldn’t buy a box of aspirin at the CVS? The U.S. imports most of its aspirin from China, which produces 120 billion tablets per year.

Trump is also working to reverse our reliance on China for critical minerals, which has reached crisis proportions, presenting a grave national security risk to the homeland. These minerals serve as an essential function in manufacturing vital products, including our most sensitive weapon systems. 

A recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a lead federal science agency responsible for mineral resources research and analysis, reveals that the United States was 100% net import-reliant for 12 of the 50 critical minerals on the 2022 critical minerals list and more than 50% net import-reliant for an additional 29. China and Canada are the leading exporters of these minerals to the U.S., according to USGS.

A congressional hearing held in February revealed that our supply chain for critical minerals is vulnerable. China is acutely aware of this vulnerability, having banned last December U.S. exports of critical minerals gallium, germanium and antimony. They are part of a group of 50 “critical” minerals that also include aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barite and beryllium, and are essential for energy, electronics and modern technology, and military applications. 

On April 4, China announced strict export controls of seven rare earth elements to the United States – samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium. These seven are part of the 17 “rare” earth minerals, a subset of the critical 50 minerals, and are essential in the production of both commercial products, such as smartphones, electric vehicles and military hardware such as missiles, rockets, fighter jets and satellites. 

China produces 90% of the world’s rare earths and is likely capable of de-stabilizing global supply chains at will. De-coupling from China drives Trump’s efforts to conclude a minerals deal with Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The same rationale underpins his pursuit to acquire Greenland, which has large reserves of critical minerals and the world’s biggest deposits of rare earths, both mostly untapped.

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Ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, in his seminal work “The Art of War,” declared that the most practical way of winning is by breaking the opponent’s will to fight, thus avoiding the actual war. 

Consistent with his campaign promise not to send U.S. service men and women to fight foreign wars, Trump’s China strategy centers on making business deals with adversaries, rather than waging war with them. And that is Trump’s version of the Art of War.

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