President Donald Trump’s chief objective in his forthcoming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping should be to preserve peace in the Pacific. In the long run, that will require fixing America’s anemic defense industrial base.
Some commentators have argued that Trump is going into the summit in a weak position. As evidence, they point to his low poll numbers and the unresolved war against Iran.
But Xi cares more about hard power than he does about political predictions from pundits. And Trump has a strong hand to play: The United States has demonstrated its unparalleled military strength and sophistication with recent operations in Venezuela and Iran.
In the former, it went into the capital of a hostile foreign country and seized its leader, Nicolas Maduro, without losing a single American life. In Iran, a final settlement remains elusive, but the U.S. has severely degraded Iran’s defense industrial base, sunk its navy, and eliminated top military and political leaders while losing only 13 servicemembers.
These operations made America’s qualitative edge in waging war plain. By contrast, Chinese air defenses, employed by both Venezuela and Iran, performed poorly.
Although the recent military operations have highlighted American efficiency and resolve, they have also drained our nation’s stockpile of armaments. America’s defense industrial base is in a perilously depleted state.
According to an April 21 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the U.S. expended more than half of its prewar inventory of critical munitions. Although the report notes that America has enough missiles on hand to continue fighting Iran “under any plausible scenario,” there is a risk of running out “in future wars.” This is dangerous.
Xi has called for China’s People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. He considers it central to China’s “rejuvenation.” Xi and his advisers have now seen American hard power on display, but they are also aware that our munitions stockpiles, including Patriot, Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, and Precision Strike Missiles, are dangerously low.
These shortages are the result of decades of defense consolidation, red tape, and bipartisan neglect. It might take years for some stockpiles to be replenished, and we might not have that long.
The Trump administration has made it a priority to fix the defense industrial base with many reforms, including efforts to incentivize production and to boost domestic manufacturing.
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In a May 8 letter, a bipartisan group of senators called for Trump to move ahead with a long-delayed $14 billion weapons package for Taiwan. Weapons supplies to Taiwan have been slow, and the resulting backlog of deliveries is worth $21 billion even by conservative estimates. That’s ominous. We should not let the island nation’s defenses fall short of what is necessary to deter Chinese aggression.
The Trump-Xi summit is an opportunity for the U.S. to deter China from starting a war, but it is also a reminder that American power is inseparable from American industry. Until the U.S. fixes its defense industrial base, the risk of war in the Pacific remains great.