On 5 December, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration released its long-awaited national security strategy (NSS). Originally due to be published earlier in the autumn, the document reportedly underwent extensive revision to include gentler language on China, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shepherding that effort. The reason may be political: Midterm elections in 2026 will determine whether Trump’s Republican Party continues to control both houses of Congress, and cost-of-living concerns are likely to figure prominently. Trump is keen to avoid a new economic rupture with Beijing, which could threaten U.S. soybean farmers, car manufacturers and other constituencies that require stable trade relations between the world’s two leading powers. Trump also appears hopeful that he can strengthen his rapport with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and thus shape the trajectory of U.S.-China relations during his remaining time in office.

The Asia section of the new NSS – titled “Win the Economic Future, Prevent Military Confrontation” – underscores some longstanding U.S. positions that align with the region’s existing security architecture. These include endorsing “a free and open Indo-Pacific” and supporting the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India and Japan. The strategy is also more representative of Trump’s transactional and resource-guarding worldview than his first administration’s NSS, published in December 2017. Where that document depicted a starkly adversarial relationship between Washington and Beijing, this one reflects greater humility about the limits of U.S. leverage, contending that the U.S.-China relationship is presently “one between near-peers”.

In the main, though, the discussion of Asia policy and geopolitical dynamics in the new strategy is perhaps more notable for its contradictions and oversights. Among other internal tensions, it claims that the U.S. now “rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself” (emphasis the document’s) while citing “continued economic dominance and military superiority” as a strategic imperative. It also declares that Washington, as well as U.S. allies and partners, must “maintain global and regional balances of power to prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries”, yet it states that “[t]he outsized influence of larger, richer and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations” – implying that the administration may be amenable to spheres of influence.

The new NSS also fails to recognise how the administration’s own policies belie its stated objectives. It recommends, for example, that Washington’s allies and partners should, with the U.S., form an economic counterweight to China. Yet many of them, still reeling from the steep tariffs that Trump has imposed, believe that they must now de-risk from both Beijing and Washington.

Finally, the document leaves core questions untouched. It concludes that preventing an armed conflict between the U.S. and China will rest on the former’s “winning the economic and technological competition over the long term”. But absent an explanation of what victory would entail or whether such an outcome is even feasible in view of the strategy’s own assessment of China’s mounting power, this conclusion offers little practical guidance.