Trump’s NSS Signals Strategic Openings for China

The Trump administration has released its first National Security Strategy (NSS) nearly a year after its inauguration. At the outset, the document asserts that not every “region or nation” deserved America’s attention; in short, it critiques previous United States (US) Presidents for overstretching themselves. Additionally, it emphasised that US foreign policy focuses on protecting its national interests. America’s re-industrialisation, economic revival, immigration, and the Western Hemisphere are the prime focus of the strategy.

The document signals a fundamental shift in the US diplomatic and strategic outlook towards China, and allies and partners. In China, the strategy sees the competition as economic, and the Washington-Beijing commercial ties as ‘fundamentally unbalanced’. There is a grudging admiration of China, which the NSS notes has transformed from one of the poorest nations to a “near-peer” of the US.

There is a grudging admiration of China, which the NSS notes has transformed from one of the poorest nations to a “near-peer” of the US.

The strategy seeks to rebalance America’s economic relationship with China. In the document, there is an allusion to China, without specifically naming it. For example, the US says that it seeks to align its economic capabilities with those of allies and partners to counter ‘predatory economic practices’.  Additionally, the US will work to deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to ‘position forces’ or ‘threatening capabilities’, or to ‘own or control’ strategically critical assets in the Western Hemisphere. To further this aim, America seeks to restructure its military presence and commit more military resources to the Western Hemisphere.

The document criticises allies and partners for placing the onus of their defence on America, which dragged the country into conflicts that were marginal to its own interests. On the issue of ‘burden-sharing’, Trump’s national security outlook boldly declares an end to the US “propping up the entire world order like Atlas”. Trump exhorts America’s allies and partners to assume ‘primary responsibility’ for their neighbourhood. Here, the US wants to improve commercial relations with India to encourage New Delhi to contribute to security in the Indo-Pacific region through the Quad. Beijing’s strategists have pored over the document and are interpreting it in their own way. Shen Yi from Fudan University assesses the NSS as a “balancing act” between the US holding on to its great power status, acknowledging the need for strategic retrenchment, and making adjustments to achieve a strategic withdrawal. Second, he gauges that the Trumpian tendency to settle through one-sided deals is written into the document, and there is emphasis on transactionalism, meaning that the US will use bilateral deals and pressure tactics to secure its own interests, with economic levers such as tariffs and energy exports to achieve favourable deals. Lastly, Shen postulates that the US is giving the false impression of a “retrenchment”, but is actually seeking time for economic regeneration and to re-emerge stronger later on the world stage.

Trump’s national security outlook boldly declares an end to the US “propping up the entire world order like Atlas”.

Chinese scholars such as Mao Keji perceive a major change in Trump’s policy towards India only in part due to Trump’s ‘mercurial’ temperament or inconsistent stand on China. Mao points to America’s own shift in its strategic focus from prioritising external geopolitical competition to assuaging its own internal anxieties as the main factor for the disenchantment. This shift in America’s focus has led Washington to become circumspect towards “traditional rivals”, including China and Russia, to avoid its own attrition. This has prompted Trump 2.0 to recast America’s allies and partners not as ‘strategic pawns’ to contain rivals but more as ‘lifelines’ that can provide economic benefits and replenish US strength, say Chinese strategists.  

In the case of India, American scholars such as Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis had argued that the foundation of Washington-New Delhi dynamics was ‘strategic altruism’. The reason for Washington’s strategic bet on New Delhi was partly due to its large population, strategic location, its developing economy, and its ideological perspective that made it a counterweight to “authoritarian rivals”, say Beijing’s strategists. The US calculation of its strategic altruism was that an economically and militarily stronger India could not only benefit Washington’s interests but also help contain a rising China. Chinese writers posit that, as the US faced geopolitical pressure in recent times to counterbalance China, it built closer ties with India in scientific, industrial, and technological spheres. The writings cite Biden administration’s efforts such as the ‘Critical and Emerging Technologies Initiative (iCET)’ and the ‘Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity’, and say these relaxed technology transfer restrictions and export control and gave India access to range of technologies from semiconductors to nuclear energy, and pushed the notion of ‘supply-chain resilience’ that helped New Delhi attempt to try and replace Beijing’s manufacturing capability through ‘friend-shoring’.

This has prompted Trump 2.0 to recast America’s allies and partners not as ‘strategic pawns’ to contain rivals but more as ‘lifelines’ that can provide economic benefits and replenish US strength, say Chinese strategists.  

Beijing's strategic community believes that under Trump's second term, concerns about a decline in the United States overshadow worries about external geopolitical threats, resulting in a more pronounced inward-looking tendency. This worry of the sun setting on the US has led Trump to dismantle the traditional logic of the ‘enemy-friend’ binary. Mao perceives the US under Trump 2.0 as pivoting away from the notion of strategic altruism and argues that this shift has caused relations between the two to “dramatically deteriorate”. There is a sentiment among the Chinese scholarly community that the NSS-2025 indicates that the US is reviewing its support to India. India’s “lack of salience” in the US strategic order is being attributed to its “independent foreign policy” and “unwillingness to blindly follow orders of foreign powers” by Chinese scholars. Since its “independent approach” precludes it from making major concessions to the US, Trump 2.0 in its strategic balance sheet has downgraded New Delhi from an “invested stock” to a “liability”, say Chinese observers.  

Another factor in the US-India rupture is being attributed to Washington’s own anxiety about its decline. A section in the US NSS believes that “India’s rise” is coming at the expense of the US, and that has fuelled resentment. There is a prognosis that if China consolidates its position by augmenting its defence, industrial, and technological strength, then it will intensify competition between the US and India.

In the NSS, Chinese scholars see an American retrenchment from the global stage and an estrangement between Washington and New Delhi.

If the assessment of Chinese scholars can colour the views of its official establishment, then India will have to be alert to the security implications. In the NSS, Chinese scholars see an American retrenchment from the global stage and an estrangement between Washington and New Delhi. The US has already broached the ‘G2’ construct with China. A combination of all these factors may lead it to shape its own ‘sphere of influence’ that the US is seeking to carve out in the Western Hemisphere.

This ambition may cause it to adopt a more belligerent posture on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The issue of the primacy of the border in the relations between India and China has come to the fore. Reports have surfaced of an Indian traveller from Arunachal Pradesh being harassed during travel to the mainland. Earlier this year, China announced the formation of two counties in Xinjiang province’s Hotan prefecture that subsumes territory of Ladakh that has been under its occupation. New Delhi must thus take note of Beijing’s renewed strategic confidence.

Kalpit A. Mankikar is a Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation.

• Great Power Dynamics
• China
• India
• USA and Canada
• transactional diplomacy
• trump national security strategy
• US retrenchment
• US–China competition
• US–India relations

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