China, explained.
US President Donald Trump, right, and Anthony Albanese, Australia’s Prime Minister, during a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington DC on Monday 20 October 2025 (Yuri Gripas via Getty Images)
False confidence can breed dangerous assumptions in any US stand-off with China.
Subscribe to The Informer for monthly expert analysis, and to Events for advance notice of visiting world leaders and distinguished guests.
You may unsubscribe from Lowy Institute newsletters at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
What Trump told Albanese about Taiwan matters more than AUKUSWhat Trump told Albanese about Taiwan matters more than AUKUS
The Trump-Albanese summit at the White House is over. The Australian media is understandably pre-occupied with what the President said about Australia (and about Kevin Rudd). But the American press has latched onto Trump’s ex tempore remarks about Taiwan because, as Politico put it, “This is only the second time Trump has publicly spoken about Taiwan since taking office in January.”
Trump’s comments were notable for their optimism about the likelihood of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan: “I think we’ll be just fine with China. China doesn’t want to do that.” But what is that optimism based on? Here’s the key section of the Politico story:
“First of all, the United States is the strongest military power in the world by far. It’s not even close,” Trump said, tamping down anxiety surrounding the next possible conflict. “We have the best equipment. We have the best of everything, and nobody’s going to mess with that. And I don’t see that at all with President Xi. I think we’re going to get along very well.”
To put it plainly, Trump is wrong about the military balance between the United States and China. In fact, he is dangerously wrong.
We all know that Trump is prone to changing his mind on a subject depending on who he talked to last. But we also know that he has a core set of beliefs – tariffs work, allies are grifters, autocratic strongman leaders are admirable – that no amount of evidence can shake. The concern should be that America’s vast military supremacy over China is, in Trump’s mind, another of those unexamined and unimpeachable truths, because he has said it before. In fact, he used almost the exact same phrase – “Nobody’s even close” – during a speech in Riyadh in May.
In the specific context of a fight over Taiwan, which is what Trump was talking about, I think it would be hard to find any military analyst who would support the claim that “It’s not even close”.
It’s important to stress here that this is not to question America’s status as comfortably the biggest military power in the world. The leading authority on this subject, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, estimates that in 2024, US military spending was US$994 billion (37% of the global total) while China’s was US$314 billion or 12% of all global spending.
But context is everything. And the military balance across the Taiwan Strait is far less favourable to the US than these headline figures suggest. As I wrote in Foreign Policy in September after the lavish Beijing military parade, China is now a global leader in military technology, and most of its effort is concentrated on weapons that can make a difference in a Taiwan scenario. It is particularly far ahead in missile technology, and a recent paper in the respected journal International Security estimated that China’s missile force could destroy 45% of American combat aircraft capability in the Pacific in the first month of a war.
To reiterate, there is no doubting America’s global military supremacy. But in the specific context of a fight over Taiwan, which is what Trump was talking about, I think it would be hard to find any military analyst who would support the claim that “It’s not even close”. It absolutely is close, so close that the outcome of such a fight is now, at best, a toss-up.
Trump’s misplaced confidence about America’s military supremacy relative to China could produce disastrous decisions that affect us all. As Mark Twain said: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
About the author
Sam Roggeveen
Sam Roggeveen is Program Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program. He is the author of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace (Opens in new window), published by La Trobe University Press in 2023.
The most-pressing world events explained by Lowy Institute experts and global contributors, in your inbox, every Thursday.
You may unsubscribe from The Interpreter at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
