China’s navy this week test-fired a long-range ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine into the South Pacific, alarming U.S. allies across the region. The launch, China’s second major open-ocean ballistic missile test in less than two years, was described by U.S. officials as a “great concern to the region and the world.” But our nation’s defense budget still does not reflect the reality of China’s growing military threat.
Missile tests are not abstractions. They are threats and should be taken as warnings. Beijing is preparing for a more dangerous world, and Congress must do the same by passing President Donald Trump’s defense funding by the reconciliation process that can bypass a filibuster by Democrats.
Trump is right to demand urgency. In a July 7 Truth Social post, he called on Congress to pass a third reconciliation bill of this year including $350 billion in defense funding, and to make the bill congressional leaders’ “Number One priority” when they return.
Republican leaders in both chambers should do that without delay.
China is not the only demand made of American hard power. The Department of War has requested supplemental funds for the Iran war, which estimates suggest will cost at least $29 billion. That request should not be treated as separate from the Chinese threat. The same industrial base, munitions stockpiles, air defenses, naval forces, and readiness accounts that deter Beijing are also being strained by conflict in the Middle East.
If Democrats win majorities in the coming midterm elections, the chances of that bill, including funding for the war against Iran, passing are nil.
Delaying passage would be fiscally and strategically irresponsible and would put taxpayers and warfighters at a deep disadvantage.
China’s missile test shows there is no time to waste.
America’s adversaries are getting stronger, and our elected officials must ensure that the United States and its allies and interests are protected in a national security environment that is deteriorating.
For 44 years, China avoided open-ocean tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Then, in September 2024, it launched one toward the South Pacific. Now it has launched another, this time from a nuclear submarine.
The first missile tested traveled 7,300 miles to French Polynesia, and the recent one was fired into the South Pacific nuclear-free zone.
China claims all this is “routine,” but the truth is that it is flexing its muscles and signaling its ambitions.
The timing is not accidental. U.S. officials have long warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027. Whatever Beijing’s official explanation, the missile tests are intended to intimidate. They are meant as a message to China’s neighbors and any nation, including the U.S., that they should not stand in Beijing’s way.
On July 6, the U.S. Department of the Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute announced that the PLA had constructed “an unknown type of fixed launch system” that “appears capable of launching multiple missiles.” The institute’s report said satellite imagery and analysis of the PLA Rocket Force inventory suggest an “intent to field a conventional quick-strike capability.”
Tom Shugart, defense analyst and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, called the report a “quite important — and ominous — development.” The system being developed by the PLA Rocket Force would be “most useful for a first strike.”
More troubling still is that the report said test silos were built in 2022 and 2023. Shugart noted that the PLA “moves pretty fast in system development,” meaning China may be fielding the platform soon.
China is not the only threat. For the first time, the U.S. is facing several nuclear-armed opponents that want to end our global leadership. China, Russia, and North Korea are part of that club. The Islamic Republic’s membership has, for the moment, been delayed.
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All threaten American interests and allies and the stability of the global order from which Americans benefit every day. Deterring their ambitions will require American resolve. But that resolve can work only if it is backed by hard power and money that our nation’s military needs.
China’s missile landed in the South Pacific, but its message was to Washington. Congress should not pretend this is a normal budget fight. It should recognize the world is more dangerous and hostile and will be utterly unforgiving of American weakness. Passing Trump’s defense funding will not solve every national security problem. But failing to pass it would tell Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang, and Tehran that we are buckling under pressure rather than standing firm.