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Athanasios Platias

Vasilis Trigkas

Sun Tzu wrote that “fighting and winning all your battles is not the height of skill; subduing the enemy without fighting is the height of skill”. That maxim offers perhaps the clearest lens to interpret the logic of American grand strategy under US President Donald Trump.
What many dismiss as inconsistency may conceal a patient strategic deception. The aim is not direct confrontation, but the quiet reshaping of the global economy in support of long-term US power.
The US wants to improve its relative position vis-a-vis China for the long game. At the centre lies what might be called positional power – control over the critical nodes through which global economic systems operate. It’s about dominance of computational power (semiconductors), resource power (rare earths, energy) and connectivity power (shipping and maritime chokepoints).
China spent three decades accumulating precisely this kind of power. It dominates large segments of global industrial production, critical mineral processing and shipbuilding. Before the Xi-Trump meeting in South Korea, Beijing showed its positional power through retaliatory rare earths restrictions. With US industry on the brink, Trump accepted a trade ceasefire.
Yet the American response since then may be less reactive than is often assumed. Recent US military interventions can be interpreted as part of a broader geopolitical repositioning that bears down on China’s vulnerabilities. Indeed, the logic of hemispheric consolidation and resource security appears in the US’ 2025 National Security Strategy.
Venezuela matters not only because it has provided discounted heavy crude to China (around 4 per cent of Chinese seaborne oil imports) but because it serves as a signal to the western hemisphere that China will not intervene to protect countries facing US ultimatums. Panama matters because maritime chokepoints remain central to global trade. Greenland matters because the Arctic routes connecting the Pacific and Atlantic may become increasingly significant as polar access expands. Iran matters because the Strait of Hormuz remains a structural vulnerability of the Chinese economy.


Within this framework of economic restructuring, the Iran war appears less like an erratic Trumpian act and more like part of a calculated geopolitical transition. The strategic effect of the war is the gradual reorientation of energy centrality away from the Gulf towards the Atlantic basin. This would generate immense advantages for the US.
First, expanding American energy exports would strengthen US fiscal revenues and reinforce the country’s abundance of shale energy.
Second, US energy predominance would deepen European dependence on the Atlantic system. European aspirations for strategic autonomy become difficult to sustain when competitiveness in industry and artificial intelligence increasingly relies on American liquefied natural gas and crude exports.
Third, the transition could elevate Russia’s strategic significance. A stabilised Russia enriched through energy exports arising from Gulf disruption could acquire greater bargaining leverage over China. This does not imply future Russian hostility to Beijing or a “reverse Nixon”. But a fiscally resilient Moscow would have more room to negotiate energy exports to China on favourable terms. This could raise Chinese input costs and erode aspects of Beijing’s industrial competitiveness.


To be sure, this grand strategic vision appears constrained by two obstacles: refinery compatibility and US energy inflation.
However, modern energy systems are more adaptable than commonly assumed. European refineries have already shown adaptability following the collapse of Russian energy imports after 2022. Moreover, Indian mega-refineries can process diverse crude blends. Meanwhile, US Gulf coast refineries optimised for heavier imported crude could increasingly rely on Canadian and Venezuelan heavy grades while exporting lighter American shale oil abroad.
Put simply, the emerging system would not require refinery reconstruction, but strategic oil trade reconfiguration. The US exports light shale crude to Europe and India while importing heavier Canadian and Venezuelan crude better suited for its domestic refining infrastructure. Europe gradually shifts towards Atlantic energy dependence. India operates as a commercially flexible intermediary refining hub for Russian and US oil. Gulf producers lose global market share.
Price surges amid the war in Iran have allowed for US record crude exports. With long-term oil futures above US$75, producers are increasing capital expenditures in support of US shale extraction.

Another problem is petrol prices, which constitute a daily referendum on presidential competence. A successful transition to US global energy centrality would require not laissez-faire globalisation, but managed energy nationalism. Trump could buy time with strategic reserve releases, pressure on energy firms or temporary fuel subsidies financed through windfall taxes.
China appears to be patiently adapting to this US-driven restructuring of global energy markets by doubling down on its renewable sector. Moreover, rather than confronting the US directly in the western hemisphere or the Gulf, Beijing is positioning itself as a Eurasian continental power seeking to secure access to resources and strengthen connectivity.
Zhao Long from the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies has observed that the Middle East’s role as a stable energy supplier for China is questionable. This could prompt deeper energy cooperation with Russia, alongside expanded connectivity through Central Asia-Europe freight corridors and Arctic shipping lanes. To bypass US gunboat diplomacy, China has responded with more infrastructure investments and Eurasian alignment with Russia.
As long as Trump avoids provoking a crisis over Taiwan, Beijing appears inclined towards reciprocal restraint. Chinese strategists, however, understand that American actions in resource-rich areas may not represent incoherence, but an attempt to reshape the world economy in ways that advance long-term US power. The US-China trade truce may represent not an eased rivalry, but a temporary stabilisation while both powers prepare for the long game.


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Opinion

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World

China

Behind the Trump administration’s detente with Beijing lies a strategy to redirect global energy flows and disrupt Chinese competitiveness


Behind the Trump administration’s detente with Beijing lies a strategy to redirect global energy flows and disrupt Chinese competitiveness.


China trade

Trade

Energy

China economy

Donald Trump

Rare earths

Middle East

Diplomacy

Iran

Donald Trump’s China policy

Transport and logistics

Russia

Venezuela

US-Israel war on Iran

United States

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


US quietly plays the long game on energy dominance against China

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Behind the Trump administration’s detente with Beijing lies a strategy to redirect global energy flows and disrupt Chinese competitiveness

Behind the Trump administration’s detente with Beijing lies a strategy to redirect global energy flows and disrupt Chinese competitiveness