[Wirtschaft] Neue Sicherheitsstrategie der USA - Mit ausgeglichenem Handel zum Sieg
In November 2025, the US published its new national security strategy. This strategy deserves special attention. It does not break with previous foreign and domestic policy nor with previous economic and financial policy. However the situation has changed as competition between the US and China is intensifying on various levels. The new US national security strategy reflects this with significantly more open and direct language.
Compared to the numerous executive orders issued at the beginning of the second Trump (R) administration it was clearly better prepared than the first one. Furthermore the second Trump (R) administration is already acting more aggressively after just one year than the first term. Thus the second Trump (R) administration has definitively lost the innocence of its first term. And the US is making its claim to power and dominance unequivocally clear.
Aims
The strategy paper clearly outlines several goals that are to be achieved:
- Economic Growth
- Balanced Trade
- US-Dollar as World-Reserve-Currency
The US continues to aim for economic growth, productivity growth and increased industrial production. This is logical, since the country with the larger economy can have greater production capacity. Furthermore a more productive economy can produce more with the same resources (labor, raw materials, etc.). And industrial production is the sector of an economy where productivity growth is at its highest. [1, p.3 , p.4]
We want the world’s strongest, most dynamic, most innovative, and most advanced economy. [1, p.3]
...
We want the world’s most robust industrial base. [1, p.4]
And the US aims to increase its GDP from 30.000 trillion US-Dollar in 2025 to 40 trillion US-Dollar in 2030. This corresponds to similar nominal growth as in recent years. The goal is therefore realistic. However they also want to maintain their financial sector which jeopardizes their own targets. [1, p.20] [2, UVGD]
If America remains on a growth path—and can sustain that while maintaining a genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing—we should be headed from our present 30 trillion US-Dollar economy in 2025 to 40 trillion US-Dollar in the 2030s, putting our country in an enviable position to maintain our status as the world’s leading economy. [1, p.20][2, UVGD]
Preserving and Growing America’s Financial Sector Dominance - The United States boasts the world’s leading financial and capital markets, which are pillars of American influence that afford policymakers significant leverage and tools to advance America’s national security priorities. [1, p.14]
The financial sector ties up external resources for unproductive tasks. Instead of producing tangible goods and services labor is bound there and existing financial assets are redistributed. And the larger the financial sector the more workers are drawn away from other industries. Computer scientists, mathematicians and others are employed in the financial sector for tasks outside their fields and are then unavailable in their actual industries. Furthermore the financial assets traded in the financial sector are not available to meet the demand for real goods and consequently the demand for labor. In a system where nothing else changes every saving leads to a shrinking economy. It is unrealistic to expect the US to compete with China's managed market economy in the long term.
[3] [4]As early as April 2025 the Trump (R) administration announced its intention to strive for a balanced foreign trade policy. Logically the plan is to take action against countries with trade surpluses in order to reduce its own trade deficit. Specifically the aim is to target countries that maintain trade surpluses through regressive tax systems, low or unenforced penalties for environmental degradation and wage restraint. [5]
Countries including China, Germany, Japan, and South Korea have pursued policies that suppress the domestic consumption power of their own citizens to artificially boost the competitiveness of their export products. Such policies include regressive tax systems, low or unenforced penalties for environmental degradation, and policies intended to suppress worker wages relative to productivity. [5]
...
... America’s current account deficit is unsustainable. [1, p.22]
...
Economic Security – Finally, because economic security is fundamental to national security, we will work to further strengthen the American economy, with emphases on:[1, p.13]
- Balanced Trade - The United States will prioritize rebalancing our trade relations, reducing trade deficits, opposing barriers to our exports, and ending dumping and other anti-competitive practices that hurt American industries and workers. We seek fair, reciprocal trade deals with nations that want to trade with us on a basis of mutual benefit and respect. But our priorities must and will be our own workers, our own industries, and our own national security.
- ...
The US focus on foreign trade especially trade surpluses makes sense for the US.
Trade surpluses can only exist if other countries simultaneously have corresponding trade deficits.
And the US has had a significant trade deficit since the 1970s.
At the same time this foreign trade deficit correlates with stagnating industrial production.
This development is only logical since industrial products are particularly easy to trade across borders.
And when a country's own currency is overvalued, imports are correspondingly cheaper and crowd out domestic products and production.
Stagnant industrial production is particularly detrimental because industrial production is where the greatest productivity gains occur.
First, the United States must protect and defend our economy and our people from harm, from any country or source. This means ending (among other things):[6][1, p.21]
- ...
- Job destruction and deindustrialization;
- ...
Furthermore the US wants the US dollar to remain the world's reserve currency. This means that the demand for the US dollar on the international foreign exchange market and therefore its exchange rate is higher than the demand for the US dollar for foreign trade. The US dollar is thus in demand as a means of investing foreign assets.
America retains the world’s most enviable position, with world-leading assets, resources, and advantages, including:[1, p.6]
- ...
- The world’s leading financial system and capital markets, including the dollar’s global reserve currency status;
- ...
However wanting the US dollar to be the world's reserve currency undermines the other goals of the US. As long as the US dollar is the world's reserve currency it will remain overvalued. And as long as the US dollar is overvalued the US will likely continue to have trade deficits and stagnant production and productivity.
Strategy
The strategy paper clearly focuses on China. Asia receives six pages in the strategy paper more attention than any other geographical region. And the frequency with which Asia can be replaced with China in the strategy paper demonstrates the intense focus on China. Ultimately it will come down to a competition between the USA and China. [1, p.19-24]
China still holds a clear advantage over the US. China combines high productivity partly due to imports from developed countries with a wage level that relative to productivity is lower than that of developed countries. While the economies of both countries are not yet on par. China's real economic growth and population are significantly larger than those of the USA. Furthermore China's coastal regions are considerably more developed than large parts of western China. Therefore China will continue to grow faster than the US for the foreseeable future.
This dilemma is probably well known.
But instead of changing the economic and financial policy conditions in the US, allies are to be recruited to compete with China.
The strategy paper explains that production and supply chains are to be more closely tied to the US.
[1, p.16
, p.22]
In addition to its existing strategy of restructuring supply chains through tariffs the US is thus taking the next step in pursuing its foreign trade objectives.
And in the case of Latin America (excluding Mexico) China overtook the US as its largest trading partner in 2018.
[1, p.16
, p.17]
[7]
American policy should focus on enlisting regional champions that can help create tolerable stability in the region, even beyond those partners’ borders. These nations would help us stop illegal and destabilizing migration, neutralize cartels, near-shore manufacturing, and develop local private economies, among other things. [1, p.16]
...
In addition to maintaining economic preeminence and consolidating our alliance system into an economic group, the United States must execute robust diplomatic and private sector-led economic engagement in those countries where the majority of global economic growth is likely to occur over the coming decades. [1, p.22]
The New Silk Road (Belt and Road Initiative/BRI) initiative from China is not mentioned by name and is only alluded to. However it is well understood that China's foreign investments are surpassing those of the USA and the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF).
China has recycled perhaps 1.3 trillion US-Dollar of its trade surpluses into loans to its trading partners. America and its allies have not yet formulated, much less executed, a joint plan for the so-called “Global South,” but together possess tremendous resources. Europe, Japan, South Korea, and others hold net foreign assets of 7 trillion US-Dollar. [1, p.22]
Any assessment is only as good as its underlying assumptions and this is where the strategy paper is at its weakest. It proposes that other countries help China's economy shift away from exports and towards domestic demand. Consequently it is assumed that China's economy remains heavily dependent on exports. China's export ratio and trade balance peaked in 2007 and have remained stable and sustainable at approximately 20% and 2% respectively since 2016.
We must encourage Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and other prominent nations in adopting trade policies that help rebalance China’s economy toward household consumption, because Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East cannot alone absorb China’s enormous excess capacity. [1, p.22][8] [9] [10] [12]
Beyond that the USA is striving to replace imports with its own production and to increase exports.
Firstly the US passed the CHIPS (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors) and Science Act in August 2022 allocating 280 billion US-Dollar to the US.
This legislation aims to build up semiconductor production in the US and reduce dependence on imports.
[12]
The US can generate enormous exports from its digital service providers (Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, etc.) as long as these exports can be carried out without barriers.
Now artificial intelligence providers are also involved.
And the strategy paper repeatedly criticizes regulation of digital services specifically for the American double continent/Western Hemisphere and Europe.
[1, p.5
, p.17
, p.25]
We want to ensure that U.S. technology and U.S. standards—particularly in AI, biotech, and quantum computing—drive the world forward. [1, p.5]
...
However, many governments are not ideologically aligned with foreign powers but are instead attracted to doing business with them for other reasons, including low costs and fewer regulatory hurdles. [1, p.17]
...
We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation. [1, p.25]
Furthermore the US can leverage its defense industry for additional exports. For example the US has repeatedly dictated its defense spending targets to its NATO allies in 2014 (2%) and 2025 (5%). At the same time it is advantageous for armed forces and to a certain extent alliances to use standardized procedures and equipment. The US can exploit this to reduce its foreign trade deficit by dictating its defense spending to its allies. [1, p.14 , p.20] [13] [14]
The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.
...
President Trump has set a new global standard with the Hague Commitment, which pledges NATO countries to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense and which our NATO allies have endorsed and must now meet. [1, p.20]
As already mentioned the US goal of maintaining the US dollar as the world's reserve currency and eliminating the US trade and current account deficits are in direct conflict. The US's claim to dominance in its financial sector only exacerbates this conflict. Even if the US increases its exports this will also increase the demand for and the exchange rate of the US dollar. Consequently imports will also increase due to the higher purchasing power. The trade and current account deficits will then persist.
The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.
John Connally (D until 1973, R from 1973), Treasury Secretary [15]
The overvalued US dollar reserves are sitting in the portfolios of the rest of the world. However the deindustrialization of the US is the US's problem. And as long as the US doesn't solve this dilemma this problem will persist.
[Foreign Policy] New Security Strategy of the USA - Pivot to Asia
[Domestic Policy] New Security Strategy of the USA - One Way Influence
Src:
[1] National Security Strategy of the United States of America - November 2025
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf
[2] AMECO database
https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-research-and-databases/economic-databases/ameco-database_en
[3] GDP (constant 2015 US-Dollar) - United States
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?locations=US
[4] GDP (constant 2015 US-Dollar) - China
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?locations=CN
[5] Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares National Emergency to Increase our Competitive Edge, Protect our Sovereignty, and Strengthen our National and Economic Security 2025-04-02
https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-declares-national-emergency-to-increase-our-competitive-edge-protect-our-sovereignty-and-strengthen-our-national-and-economic-security/
[6] Industrial Production: Total Index (INDPRO)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO/
[7] China Bigger Trade Partner Than US in Most of Latin America 2022-06-08
https://www.asiafinancial.com/china-bigger-trade-partner-than-us-in-most-of-latin-america
[8] Current account balance (% of GDP) - China
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BN.CAB.XOKA.GD.ZS?locations=CN
[9] Exports of goods and services (current US$) - China
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.CD?locations=CN
[10] Imports of goods and services (current US$) - China
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.IMP.GNFS.CD?locations=CN
[11] GDP (current US$) - China
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=CN
[12] The CHIPS and Science Act: Here’s what’s in it 2022-10-04
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/the-chips-and-science-act-heres-whats-in-it#/
[13] Wales Summit Declaration 2014-09-05
https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/official-texts-and-resources/official-texts/2014/09/05/wales-summit-declaration
[14] Defence expenditures and NATO’s 5% commitment 2025-12-18
https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/defence-expenditures-and-natos-5-commitment
[15] The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem 2023-09-06
https://corporatenetwork.com/the-dollar-is-our-currency-but-its-your-problem/
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