For the first time in its modern history, the United States faces a rival — China — that has greater scale in most of the critical dimensions of power, and American national capacity alone may not be enough to rise to the challenge.
We are entering an era where the true measure of American primacy will be whether Washington can build what we call allied scale: the power to compete globally in tandem with other countries across economic, technological and military domains.
President Trump appears to be moving in the opposite direction. His go-it-alone, tariff-centric diplomacy has alienated allies and left openings for Beijing to build its own coalitions. Mr. Trump’s recent imposition of high tariffs on India are just one example. The United States spent three decades courting India as a geopolitical counterweight to China. But after the tariffs were applied on India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week visited China for the first time in seven years, where he and President Xi Jinping agreed to move past a recent history of tense relations and work as partners, not rivals.
Mr. Trump is playing with fire.
Throughout the 20th century, America outproduced and out-innovated Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union. But China is different. On the metrics that matter most in strategic competition, it has already surpassed the United States.
Its economy, while slowing, is still nearly 30 percent larger than America’s when one accounts for purchasing power. China has twice the manufacturing capacity, producing vastly more cars, ships, steel and solar panels than the United States and more than 70 percent of the world’s batteries, electric vehicles and critical minerals. In science and technology, China produces more active patents and top-cited publications than the United States. And militarily, it has the world’s largest naval fleet, a shipbuilding capacity estimated to be more than 230 times as great as America’s and is fast establishing itself as a leader in hypersonic weapons, drones and quantum communications.
China has its problems, such as a shrinking and aging population, excess industrial capacity, rickety state finances and high debt. But any serious U.S. strategy toward China must reckon with the Cold War aphorism “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
The rise and fall of great powers has often turned on scale — the size, resources and capacity that make a nation formidable. Once countries reach similar levels of economic productivity, those with larger populations and continental size eventually surge ahead. Britain’s first-mover advantage in the Industrial Revolution gave way once larger countries like the United States and Russia caught up. In the 20th century, America awed its enemies: Hitler called it a “giant state with unimaginable productive capacities,” and Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, admitted he could run wild in the Pacific Ocean for only so long before American industry overwhelmed Japan.
Today, that sense of daunting scale describes China. America’s best hope for matching that lies in maximizing its own strength through alliances. That means no longer treating U.S. allies as dependents under our protection, but as partners in building power jointly by pooling markets, technology, military capability and industrial capacity. Investments in American renewal are necessary, but insufficient by themselves.
Alone, the United States will be smaller compared with China by many important metrics. But together with economies such as Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan and others, there is no competition. This coalition would be more than twice China’s G.D.P. when adjusted for purchasing power, more than double its military spending, the top trading partner of most countries in the world, and would represent half of global manufacturing to China’s one-third. It would possess deeper talent pools, create more patents and top-cited research, and wield a degree of market power that could deter Chinese coercion. Allied scale would win the future.
The aim is not to contain China — an impossible goal — but to balance it. Only through partnerships can we protect our shared industrial bases, technological edge and the ability to deter China.
The Biden administration favored persuasion in winning over other countries. It helped create the Trade and Technology Council with Europe; elevated the so-called Quad grouping that combines the United States, India, Japan and Australia to balance China’s growing influence; reached a nuclear submarine deal with Australia and Britain; and struck new export control and trade arrangements.
Mr. Trump is not entirely allergic to this approach. In his first term, he pursued initiatives such as the Abraham Accords in the Middle East, signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, and it was he who initially revived a previously dormant Quad. But he was often more comfortable with bilateral coercion, which alienated allies.
This is true once again. Mr. Trump’s hardball tactics target the very economies that the United States should be pulling closer. Even his handshake trade deals with Japan, South Korea and Europe focus narrowly on reducing bilateral trade deficits, raising tariff revenue and securing vague investment pledges rather than balancing China. U.S. allies have publicly likened his approach to a “landlord seeking rent.” America’s global popularity has plummeted, even falling behind China’s in many countries.
A Trumpian path to achieving allied scale, if it exists, is likely to lean on more coercion. That might generate short-term concessions from desperate partners, but it would deplete trust over the long term. Mr. Trump is not wrong to seek more from allies. But he is squandering America’s precious leverage on the wrong objectives. Instead of settling for vague pledges from trade partners, he should push them for significant and specific long-term investment in sectors that will spark American reindustrialization. Instead of focusing on trivial disputes — like trying to sell more American rice to Japan — he should press them to commit to building a multilateral tariff and regulatory wall that protects the industrial bases of the countries behind it from being hollowed out by China’s mercantilism.
The destination is visible. If Japan and South Korea follow through on pledges to help build American ships, Taiwan builds more semiconductor plants in America and the United States sells some of its best military technology to allies — all under better trade terms than each of them offers to China — this would be consistent with Mr. Trump’s preferences and serve as templates for future deals. These two-way flows of capacity could garner bipartisan support and buy-in from our international partners. It is a path to allied scale that might work.
What won’t work is punishing our friends while courting Beijing. Offering China tariff relief or access to U.S. semiconductors in exchange for hazy promises to buy American goods would offer fleeting benefits but permanent damage to America’s position. It could alienate potential partners and lead them to embrace China, as India appears to be doing.
America’s singular advantage in the global power landscape is its allies and partners. Many of these, fearing abandonment, are prepared to accommodate Mr. Trump in ways few would have expected. Under U.S. pressure, South Korea has offered major investments in shipbuilding, Vietnam announced it would drop all tariffs on U.S. goods, and Europe is increasing military spending. Countries like these are willing to do more than those that Mr. Trump chases after, like Russia and China, ever would.
It’s not too late for Washington to build allied scale, even through Mr. Trump’s coercive style. But unless the president redirects his leverage toward the goal of balancing China’s overwhelming capacity, he will leave America smaller and more isolated.
The next century, then, will be China’s to lose.
Kurt Campbell is a veteran diplomat who helped craft U.S. policy toward Asia during the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations. He is chairman of The Asia Group, a strategic advisory firm he co-founded.
Rush Doshi was the deputy senior director for China and Taiwan affairs in President Biden’s National Security Council. He is an assistant professor at Georgetown University, and the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of “The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order.”
Graphic by Bhabna Banerjee.
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