There is no military in the world as advanced as the U.S. military, but China is close enough to being second to make them a serious threat. China would have to be given the edge militarily if the battle is fought in its home court region where they have the supply line advantage in any extended conflict. China does not want to go to war with the U.S. and visa-versa, but each have geopolitical aims that can conflict with the other. China sees control of the first island chain as paramount to its security, no different than the U.S. does the Caribbean. We have our Monroe Doctrine, and Xi Jinping has made it clear that they see Taiwan as part of China and confirm the South China Sea being named as correctly as our Gulf of America as respective spheres of dominance. Beijing chafes when the U.S. Navy transits the strait of Taiwan … about how we would feel if Chinese warships transited the Panama Canal and then the Florida Keys.

There is an imbalance here that President Donald Trump intends to maintain or concession to trade for something if that opportunity arises. It was unacceptable to Trump that China owned Panamanian ports and was expanding its influence in our hemisphere through investment. This contested freedom of transit extends to the Arctic as the northwest passage opens for business. That is one reason that the push is on for us to acquire Greenland before the end of his second term. Although the means to the end will be different, he is not kidding about Greenland any more than he was Venezuela. China is under no illusion that the U.S. Navy does not still control global commercial sea lanes but is working on a blue water navy to challenge Trumps “Golden” one. The U.S. miliary spends $257 billion a year to support our U.S. Navy — a financial commitment that no other nation in the world can come close to, but also one getting harder for us to afford. China is no longer borrowing us money to finance our annual deficit but is withdrawing its investment in U.S. Treasuries to finance its own.

Xi Jinping has vowed to be ready militarily to take Taiwan by 2027. There is a lot of evidence that China’s military is growing commensurate to becoming able to achieve that task. The U.S. military is expanding and deploying in ways that could stop China. We have allies in Japan and the Philippines, but mutual trust is only as strong as it can be with our current president. He wants to be unpredictable, seeing that as an advantage but it also carries risk. Uncertainty can have lethal consequences if it leads to miscalculations. Adversaries and allies respond differently to conditions where the U.S. response cannot be relied upon. Japan is aggressively expanding its military capability, which in turn alarms China. The U.S. military is bringing back old WW II airbases into service in the Pacific and even future armaments such as the Boeing F-47 next generation aircraft has an extended range of 1,000 miles built into its design for the Pacific Theater to be refueled mid-air by drone tankers. I would note that a lot of these new U.S. arms and material are not expected to be deployed until 2028-2030. So that means that if the Chinese military is ready by 2027 to take Taiwan and our military is not ready to stop them until 2029, then China has no incentive to wait until we are ready for them. Some in China will see that as a window of opportunity. They have a tough decision to make soon. China usually does what makes sense, so hopefully this period of high risk ahead will pass. An invasion of Taiwan would destroy the objective rather than acquire it. Taiwan cannot depend on Trump to protect them as there is not enough in it for Trump the way he calculates return on investment. A war with China would also be a “forever war,” which Trump’s MAGA base has vowed to oppose.

The U.S. made another $11.2 billion arms sale to Taiwan, but is behind in delivery of previous weapons systems sold to them. Over $21 billion in previously approved arms and ammunition sales have reportedly yet to reach Taiwan as of late 2025. Physical delivery of these weapons takes years contributing to that window of time until risk of invasion by China decreases.

Trump’s spectacular in-country arrest and U.S. prosecution of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Madura will win him a majority of kudos. It will also garner criticism from others, but this opposition should be careful about being on the same side of something as Vladimir Putin. Putin is a far bigger international criminal than Maduro yet he got red carpet treatment in Alaska by Trump. Many are asking, “What’s next in Venezuela?” There is a lot of hand-wringing (not from me). My take would be that he will make a deal with the next criminal successor in line there over shares of the oil. I would not expect a conflict, just a deal over splitting the spoils. The cost of the U.S. maintaining the military resources that Trump has committed to the Caribbean will add up to a big number that will get brought up in 2026. Trump will expect reimbursement recovering the cost in Venezuelan oil along with a cut of the proceeds off the top. Cuba has a major problem as they will get their oil lifeline cut off unless they too make a deal with Trump.

Remember everything is transactional. Trump has no intention of invading Venezuela. They can keep it under threat as long as they pay him extorted cash rent. This also gives him leverage on Canada as they have competing heavy oil that U.S. refineries will not need with heavy grade Venezuelan oil becoming available. Haliburton shares +10%, Canadian oil -5%. Mexico and Columbia could both worry but they would be more problematic to remote-control than Venezuela. Venezuela satisfies our future need for oil. Trump will require U.S. oil companies to invest in Venezuelan oil/gas development.

MAGA rejects “boots on the ground” or “forever wars” but as long as things go well, and I think that is as likely as not, they will put up with it. The more success Trump has with foreign engagements the more that resistance to them from his base and the American public in general will fade. The same thing happened in another country in Europe about 87 years ago, before it all went to hell. Trump uses the U.S. military generously as a messenger but selectively as a hammer. It is ironic that the only place he is willing to commit boots on the ground to is domestically in U.S. cities. The Delta Force and the CIA don’t count as “boots on the ground.”