The National Security Strategy Document dated November 2025, which sealed Donald Trump’s second presidential term,[i] is the final nail in the coffin of that naive dream of transformation through integration that had echoed in Washington corridors for decades. The thesis written in the euphoria of the Cold War victory, based on the assumption that “China will liberalize if we open our markets to Beijing”, has now collapsed, becoming not a minor footnote but a painful confession at the center of American strategic thinking. The anger that echoes between the lines of the document is not directed only at the Beijing leadership.
However, it also carries a strong accusation against the established elites in Washington who moved American industry to Asia over the past thirty years. The picture in front of us is actually very clear: America slept, China grew, and now Washington must confront the massive power it helped create with its own hands. There is no longer a Beijing that is invited to be a “responsible stakeholder.” Instead, there is an “existential threat” that is seen as necessary to contain and push back on every front.
The balance sheet of the trade wars launched by the Trump team in 2017 is presented in the document through a clever critique of statistical illusion. On paper, U.S. imports from China may appear to have decreased, since the numbers show a decline from 4% of GDP to around 2%. However, the realist wing in Washington has already uncovered Beijing’s backdoor strategy. Chinese-made goods no longer arrive directly from the Port of Shanghai to Los Angeles; instead, they enter the American market by changing labels through intermediary countries such as Vietnam, Mexico, or Malaysia. The Trump doctrine appears determined to put an end to this “mole tunnel” game.
According to this strategy document, Beijing is not the only target. The third countries mentioned above, those integrated into China’s supply chain, will also be affected by this anger. What is happening is not simply a rewriting of global trade rules, but the transformation of those very rules into a weapon aligned with American interests. The war of the next decade will be fought not with missiles, but first at customs checkpoints and at the control points of global supply chains.
Washington’s economic war plan is built on three main pillars. However, there are serious questions about how feasible this plan will be in practice. The first pillar aims to shield the American economy from some of China’s “countermeasure” tactics. The second pillar, Allied Mobilization, is the most fragile part of the strategy. Washington hopes to rally the $35 trillion allied economies to its side and form a massive bloc against Beijing.
However, for the automotive giants in Berlin or the chip manufacturers in Seoul, the Chinese market is not a preference but almost a life-support system. Trump’s “you are either with us or against us” approach pushes U.S. allies into an impossible equation. Expecting Germany or Japan to sign their own economic suicide for the sake of American strategic interests is a form of optimism detached from geopolitical reality. Capital does not recognize nationality, and the gravitational pull of the Chinese market is far more tangible than Washington’s promises.
Military deterrence and the technology war form the other, and much darker, side of the equation. The document does not view the Taiwan issue merely as the defense of a democratic island. It frames Taiwan as the key to global semiconductor dominance and as the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” of the First Island Chain. The possibility that Beijing could control the South China Sea as if it were a toll gate is described as a nightmare scenario for American hegemony. The striking paradox here is that the Trump doctrine promises to avoid endless wars, yet at the same time flexes its military muscles to deter China.
This strategic schizophrenia raises the question of whether it will truly be enough to stop Beijing’s advances in the gray zones. Xi Jinping’s historical revisionism regarding Taiwan may even draw confidence from Washington’s ambiguous posture. On top of this, the United States is trying to shift the burden of deterrence onto its allies in Asia. Asking Japan and South Korea to raise their defense budgets to 5% of their GDP is more than a financial demand, it is a dangerous gamble that could trigger the region’s historical fault lines. The ghosts of World War II would begin to hover over Asia’s skies with Tokyo’s rearmament.
The situation in the field of technological competition is far more complex and asymmetric than the cliché “Data is the new oil.” The United States wants to maintain leadership in artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and autonomous systems. But China holds a tremendous advantage: a state-capitalist model that processes the data of 1.4 billion people without ethical constraints. While Washington focuses on innovation in laboratories, Beijing tests these technologies on a massive surveillance society, collecting priceless real-world data. Even though the recent artificial intelligence agreements with Gulf countries are presented as a victory for Washington, China’s model of “technology partnerships without questions” will always remain a more attractive option on the table. As the Western world debates ethics committees, the East’s data extraction continues quietly, stockpiling the ammunition of algorithmic warfare.
There is a deep gap between Washington’s assumptions and the realities on the ground in the Indo-Pacific equation. The countries of the region, the Global South, have no intention of being crushed between two competing giants. India, Indonesia, and Vietnam may look to Washington for a security umbrella, yet they depend on Beijing for prosperity and development. The Trump administration’s call to these states to “side with us” often remains rhetorical when compared to China’s concrete infrastructure projects and financial resources. India’s strategic autonomy does not make it a loyal soldier of the U.S. strategy to contain China. New Delhi plays its own game and uses Washington as a balancing force against Beijing. Although the Trump administration seeks to classify these countries as preferred partners and bring them closer, the physical and financial networks China has built through the Belt and Road Initiative have wrapped around the region like vines that are very difficult to remove.
Energy geopolitics is one of the most critical fronts of this great power struggle. The document’s rejection of climate change ideology and its signal of a return to fossil fuels is more than just an economic choice; it is a strategic move. Washington aims to reestablish energy dominance, free its allies from dependence on Russian and Gulf sources and position itself in a way that could threaten China’s energy security. The U.S. decision to increase LNG and oil production seeks to push global energy prices down, damaging the Russian and Iranian economies, while at the same time providing cheap energy to American industry and fueling a new wave of reindustrialization. However, this will bring new and tense competition with energy-producing countries in Africa and the Middle East. The United States is no longer a customer importing oil but an aggressive competitor seeking market share.
In the end, the 2025 National Security Strategy marks the moment when the United States removed its gloves of diplomatic courtesy and put on brass knuckles in its struggle with China. Washington’s decision to throw away the mask of “guardian of the liberal order” and transform into a Realpolitik actor driven by “naked interest” and the motto “America First” undermines its credibility among its allies. Against China’s state capitalism and massive market pull, will Trump’s mix of tariff walls and military threats be enough? Or will this strategy become a catalyst that accelerates the transition to a multipolar world? As the waters of the Pacific heat up, the only certain truth is that Washington now declares to the whole world, friend and foe alike, that it will no longer play by the rules and will overturn the table if necessary. In this new order, the luxury of staying neutral has vanished from the stage of history for weaker states.
[i] “National Security Strategy of the United States of America”, White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf, (Accessed: 05.12.2025).
