This is how Trump is destroying America by isolating us, so we cannot win a war with China alone, and helping them by giving them technology like Nvidia chips, and giving intelligence secrets to Russia.
And the US has become a danger to western democracies.
And why a consortium of western Democracies, and especially Europe and Japan, needs to step up to confront Trump and China, et al-e.g.Russia.
And IMO, that is what the western nations are doing with great leaders like Carney, Ursula Von der Leyen head of the EU, and other western leaders like the head of NATO, and the Nordic Arctic alliance , and why Canada is the key to their winning by giving their industries the affordable reliable energy, oil and LNG, and needed minerals, especially nickel, copper,, uranium, potash, aluminum, cobalt, lithium, rare earths, etc.
And why Canada, Europe and the Nordic countries are stepping up defense, and why Carney is both stepping up defense, but also building new pipelines to send oil and gas to our allies in Europe and Asia e.g Japan and South Korea.
Anyway here is the New York Times editorial speaking to that subject.
Opinion
The Editorial Board
America
Cannot
Win Alone
By The Editorial BoardThe editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
One of the most important weapons in the American arsenal is the Tomahawk cruise missile, which can travel over 1,000 miles to deliver 1,000 pounds of explosives within just feet of a target. In June, the military fired 30 of them to destroy parts of Iran’s nuclear facilities without putting a single American soldier in danger. With threats growing in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the United States and its allies can’t get enough of them. In a protracted war, we would run out of Tomahawks for our own forces, let alone for those of our allies.
Last year, a solution seemed to present itself. The United States was close to a deal to co-produce Tomahawks at a factory in Japan, potentially doubling production of the missiles. The negotiations had been hard. The Americans had to convince Japan to agree to a long list of limits on how it could manufacture and use the weapons, and to whom it could sell them.
It wasn’t the Japanese who scuttled the partnership, however. It was opposition from within. Some State and Defense Department officials argued that expanding production abroad would damage the U.S. economy and put our technological edge at risk. An executive at RTX (formerly Raytheon), which makes the Tomahawk, sided with the opponents and argued for waiting until after the election in November, according to a former senior official involved in the negotiations. (RTX denies it tried to slow things down.) In the chaotic first months of the second Trump administration, the deal went cold.
More than 2,300 Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired in combat since their first use in 1991, during Operation Desert Storm.
The Tomahawk episode points to a central problem for American national security: By itself the United States cannot keep up with China’s soaring industrial capacity, which translates directly into military might. China has close to a 28 percent share of global manufacturing, while the United States has around 17 percent. By one count, it is acquiring advanced weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than America is. One Chinese shipyard can build more than all American builders combined.
The United States now risks finding itself in the position of Britain in the late 19th century and Germany and Japan in the 20th: overtaken militarily by a rising industrial powerhouse. History shows such competitions between rising powers and established ones often end in catastrophic wars. China’s gaming of international trade, rising hostility to neighbors and especially its accelerating military buildup show the urgent need for credible deterrence.
There is a ready solution to the problem. While the United States can’t match China on its own, when joined by its closest allies, including Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia and the European Union, it can match China’s manufacturing capacity. For the sake of global security and freedom, the world’s democracies need to collaborate far more fully than they do now.
This is an installment of Overmatched,
a series from the Editorial Board on why the
U.S. military needs to reinvent itself.
For too long, many allies have outsourced their own protection to the United States — “free riding,” as President Barack Obama put it. They have spent small shares of their economic output on the military, relying on the United States instead. That is no longer tenable, given China’s increasing aggression in Asia and Russia’s warmongering in Europe.
The United States is also at fault, as the failed Tomahawk case shows. We need to rethink our approach to alliances for a world where America is no longer the dominant superpower. We need to put more trust in steadfast allies, such as Australia, South Korea and Japan, and be open to collaborating with a wider range of partners. We must build alliances that are about more than just military cooperation but also about competing economically and technologically to match China’s industrial capacity.
American presidents have long pushed NATO members to increase military spending, but it wasn’t until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 that funding soared.
Instead, in real time, Americans are watching as our president undermines the foundations of our alliances.
Following President Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, Denmark said it would buy missile defense systems from European makers rather than American ones. After Mr. Trump temporarily suspended military and intelligence aid to Ukraine early this year, some allies said they would reconsider using the F-35 for fear the United States could cut off support for the aircraft.
Mr. Trump is similarly damaging the relationships America needs in Asia. He has focused negotiations with Japan not on military production but on rice, of all things. Pressuring South Korea over trade, he has suggested he would withdraw U.S. troops. He undermined 25 years of efforts to forge an alliance with India against China by slapping the country with tariffs after Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to credit Mr. Trump for defusing tensions with Pakistan.
China, meanwhile, is on an industrial tear. In 2024, Beijing produced 12 times more steel than the United States, and it refines most of the critical minerals that are needed for weapons such as the F-35 fighter and Tomahawk missile. In those distinct areas and others, even with allies and partners, the United States will struggle to catch up without making other changes.
Where China dominates
industrial production
Rare earths are critical
materials for guided missiles,
radar systems and electric motors.
United States
Allies and partners
China
150 metric tons
of rare earths
Steel is necessary in large quantities
to build ships, planes and munitions.
United States
Allies and partners
China
500,000 metric tons
of crude steel
Sources: World Steel, U.S.G.S.
There are not many historical analogues to China’s growth. It has more than tripled its share of the world’s global manufacturing since 2004, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. To keep up, the United States needs its allies to step up. Mr. Trump rightly claims credit for taking on free riders. Over the past six decades, U.S. military spending has ranged between 3 percent and 9.4 percent of G.D.P., while that of our allies has been as low as less than 1 percent.
In recent years, that has started to change. Japan has said it will spend 2 percent of G.D.P. on defense. Europe, too, has shown a willingness to spend more. Russia’s war on Ukraine, combined with Mr. Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO, spurred the alliance’s members to pledge to spend 5 percent of their G.D.P. on defense in the coming years.
That progress builds on the Biden administration’s less coercive, more enduring efforts to strengthen alliances. President Joe Biden brought two European military powers — Sweden and Finland — into NATO, rebuilt military ties with the Philippines and helped warm relations between distrustful allies in South Korea and Japan. In areas like electricity production and ships, strengthened alliances can make a difference in competition with China.
Where America, with
allies, can match China
Electricity powers the
industrial economy needed for
military manufacturing.
United States
Allies and partners
China |
