One month into Trump 2.0, the global order is in turmoil. Shock, outrage and confusion ripple through diplomatic circles and financial markets. Yet, the real surprise is not what President Trump is doing but the world’s astonishment that he is doing exactly what he promised. For those paying attention, the blueprint for Mr. Trump’s second administration has been clear for nearly 10 years. Especially since the 2023-2024 election cycle, his messaging has been consistent: The existential struggle of our time is between the United States and an expansionist, revisionist Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its economy is more than 10 times bigger than Russia’s, whose ideological hostility toward the U.S. has been uncompromising, whose military and technological advancements have been shockingly menacing, and whose desire to dominate the world has been explicit. Everything else ? diplomatic niceties, multilateral distractions in Europe and the Middle East, and the self-congratulatory pieties of the global elite ? must take a back seat to the defining mission of this administration: To break China’s grip on global power and restore democratic America’s dominance. In Mr. Trump’s first term, China was designated the United States’ foremost national security threat. Yet, while aggressive, Trump 1.0’s strategy against China was hampered by intense efforts to survive domestic partisan attacks, largely compartmentalized within economic and trade policy and greatly impeded by the catastrophic contingency of China’s own making: the global COVID-19 scourge. Trump 2.0 is different. With a resounding electoral victory, a deliverance from making unenforceable trade deals with Beijing and having survived the China pandemic, the gloves are off.

Save a few resource exporters such as Australia, it mines the West’s industrial base and research and development and taxes Western growth. Full stop. Economic statecraft ? trade measures, industrial policies and other sophisticated measures ? has displaced free trade policies in every major economy worldwide. A coordinated Western approach to China would better serve U.S. interests. It would limit China’s capacity to support Russian and Iranian aggression and further build its navy to bully neighbors and seize control in the South Pacific. Instead of bullying our allies with tariffs, Mr. Trump should encourage them to impose similar measures by applying a 60% levy on the Chinese content of imports from third countries. Making a deal with Russia on Ukraine, as hardheaded security analysts suggest, would embolden President Vladimir Putin. Reams have been written about how sanctions are hurting his economy. The European economy can’t recover with Germany’s unraveling with an auto sector unable to compete with Chinese electric vehicles and uncompetitive energy prices now that it lacks access to Russian natural gas. If Mr. Trump cuts a devil’s deal with Mr. Putin, how long before the practical Germans conclude they need cheap gas for their economy to succeed and turn to a pro-Russian Alternative for Germany government? U.S. economic success is now tightly bound to AI that runs on chips designed in America but fabricated in Taiwan with equipment made solely in the Netherlands. America must hold the line on Mr. Putin in Europe to succeed economically.

Without reducing the federal deficit or putting the skids on U.S. investment and growth, Mr. Trump can’t reduce the trade deficit with just tariffs. Tariffs targeted at China ? 60%, implemented in steps ? could work if he uses the proceeds to reduce the federal deficit. Otherwise, most of China’s lost exports would shift to places such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Mexico. Wider tariffs on trading partners Canada, Mexico, Europe, South Korea and Japan will weaken their economies, encourage retaliation, drive them into accommodating arrangements with Russia and China and ultimately leave America isolated with reduced markets for our technology products and growth prospects ? a poorer America. Extending expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is not a tax cut but merely sustaining the fiscal status quo. Any new tax breaks not financed by spending cuts, revenue from tariffs on Chinese goods or curtailing some of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s benefits would merely expand the budget and international trade deficits and stoke inflation. Mr. Trump can repeal the law of gravity sooner than change those macroeconomic realities. Economists have piled up mountains of studies allegedly showing that Mr. Trump’s first-term tariffs on China had negative consequences because they began with the premise that the current state of trade is based on comparative advantages and maximizes economic efficiency. China protects its domestic market while subsidizing virtually every major export industry in one form or another and forcing its trade surpluses on the current accounts of other major economies.

The world has changed since President Trump was first elected in 2016. China is emboldened by global dominance in manufacturing. With a sophisticated Navy and an axis with Russia, Iran and North Korea, Beijing is more confident about standing up to Mr. Trump’s threats and asserting its interests. Still, China’s reliance on exports to sustain growth, a thin safety net, excessive domestic savings and a burst property bubble have left it at risk of deflation. After a generation of overregulation and underinvestment, Europe is stuck in listless growth. America stands alone in the West, enjoying promising growth prospects and a strong currency, but in a foul mood. The election reminded us that voters have zero tolerance for politicians who preside over inflation. Mr. Trump’s tariffs and broader fiscal policies must accommodate all this to succeed. Otherwise, he will fail miserably at reducing the trade deficit to create more domestic demand for U.S. manufacturers and enable the next wave of liberal Democrats to seize control in the midterms and next presidential elections. Mr. Trump’s tax cuts and President Biden’s free spending swelled the federal budget deficit from 2.9% of the gross domestic product in 2016 to nearly 7%. With the dollar as the world’s dominant currency and America’s strong position in artificial intelligence, we can run large current account deficits, sell Treasury securities abroad and attract prodigious amounts of foreign investment to finance all this. Conversely, China exports more than it imports, runs more modest national government deficits and enjoys a current account surplus of about 2% to 4% of its GDP.

History has shown the futility of negotiating with China. For decades, U.S. administrations have tried engaging Beijing ― through Richard Nixon’s opening of China, Bill Clinton’s support for World Trade Organization membership and President Barack Obama’s short-lived “pivot to Asia.” Each approach has been met with strategic exploitation by China. As every Chinese leader has repeatedly and bluntly stated, the U.S. ultimately aims to change China’s socialist system, and this “long-term, complex struggle” requires constant vigilance from Beijing. Attempting a “Beijing-friendly” strategy through personal diplomacy and rational negotiation only emboldens Mr. Xi’s ideological crusade, as China has always believed that both “containment” and “engagement” are insidious designs aimed at the Chinese regime’s demise. Today, China’s ambitions are accelerating, and Beijing’s goal is clear: global hegemony and the ability to dictate trade, security and governance policies on its own terms. This vision is inherently incompatible with the principles of freedom, democracy and sovereignty that underpin the current international system. To counter this existential threat, the U.S. and its allies must abandon all illusions of negotiation or compromise. China’s actions are driven by an ideological commitment to displace the U.S. and reshape the world in its authoritarian image. A defensive posture is insufficient ― the West must launch an all-out offensive across economic, military and ideological domains in the face of this challenge. China’s momentum must be checked, and its ambitions must be actively dismantled.

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently delivered a speech full of communist triumphalism and ideological zeal. He touted the China plan as “an epic change the world hasn’t seen in a century,” a euphemism for his vision of a “Community of Common Destiny for Mankind.” This lofty phrase is not about China’s national revival but a road map for global dominance. The Chinese Communist Party sees itself as the architect of a new world order in which Beijing writes the rules and silences dissent. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi launched the Institute for the Study of the Community of Common Destiny for Mankind. This institute is a propaganda machine designed to justify China’s ambitions while undermining liberal democracies. Yet despite these overt signals, many in the West continue to misread Beijing’s intentions. Too many Western policymakers mistakenly view China as a nationalist regime focused on domestic revival. This misperception leads to accommodation, assuming China’s ambitions are limited to East Asia. In reality, the “community of common destiny” is a blueprint for a global order dictated by Beijing ? where authoritarian values trump freedom, economic dependence enforces compliance and sovereignty is conditional on China’s approval. This is not a nationalist agenda but a calculated drive for global hegemony. The biggest obstacle to China’s ambitions is the United States, not for any specific policy but because the U.S. embodies the liberal democratic order China seeks to dismantle. China’s mission is to erode the current global order and replace it with a Beijing-centric system. Their rhetoric of “cooperation” and “win-win development” is merely a rhetorical veneer for the drive for domination.

The U.S. it is waiting to normalize relations with Syria’s new rulers until they are tested, proving their tolerance to religious and ethnic minorities - Kurds, Alawites and Christians, including Armenians. They must also demonstrate independence from the Syrian Democratic Army, a hard-line Turkish-backed militia that vows to slaughter American allies, Kurds and moderate Sunni Arabs fighting ISIS. ISIS may be on the back foot in Syria and Iraq, but it is not vanquished. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens a cross-border attack against Syrian Kurds, whose members he views as terrorists because of their ties to the PKK. Syrian Kurds espouse grassroots democracy, women’s empowerment and environmental sustainability, which benefit all Syrians equitably. Geographic decentralization is also the basis for improved relations between ethnic and religious communities. They advocates three dimensions of decentralization: political, administrative and financial, alongside a comprehensive reform plan. There’s a lot to do. Syria needs a new constitution with a bill of rights. It must establish truth-telling or accountability for Mr. Assad’s crimes. National unity is paramount to ensure the central government’s critical role. Turkey may object to decentralization in Syria, lest it inspires its own Kurdish and Alawite minorities to seek something similar. Syria faces a moment of peril and opportunity. A discreet transition can help limit Islamist extremism in Syria.

Many blame tariffs imposed by Donald Trump for the rise of protectionism, but the global trading system was dysfunctional long before MAGA. China’s mercantilism attacked the foundations of Western prosperity by threatening U.S. and European core manufacturing. Now it is formidable in electric vehicles and many other leading-edge industries. Unfortunately, with the prosperity that approach enables, China can expand its navy, threatening to drag the Western Pacific and perhaps the whole world into war. As importantly, by answering China’s mercantilism with only targeted tariffs and industrial policies, Washington and Brussels play on Beijing’s home court. Autocracies can dole out subsidies, offer cheap credit through state-controlled banks and impose nontariff barriers on foreign products. Putting a trade wall around America with across-the-board tariffs would significantly alienate the rapidly emerging Asian economic powerhouses and damage U.S. security cooperation in the Pacific to counter Chinese imperial designs. The United States should impose a comprehensive mechanism to balance bilateral trade with China and redirect commerce to other, mostly Pacific economies. The United States should also create a new Asian-centered multilateral mechanism by rejoining the TPP. Canada, Japan and South Korea are members, and the U.K. is negotiating membership. This could encourage the EU to abandon its bilateral approach to the region and seek membership, inspire India to join, and together create an alternative to the WTO without China.

HTS claims to respect ethnic and religious groups and no longer claims any allegiance to al Qaeda or IS. Yet questions remain about the extent to which terrorists, including some foreign fighters, are still part of HTS. The benefit of U.S. engagement with HTS far exceeds the risk as Washington tries to navigate Syria’s complex current landscape. Backed by Turkey, the Syrian National Army holds territory in the northwest of Syria, where it has been both an ally and adversary of HTS while fighting a separate campaign against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. Overseeing the detention of thousands of IS terrorists, the SDF has been a key ally of the U.S. military in the battle against still-dangerous IS forces operating in Syria. But the situation remains fluid: Turkish troops have deployed in a self-proclaimed safe zone along the border with Syria. Mr. Assad’s ally Russia still controls a naval base in Tartus and an air base in Latakia. After Mr. Assad’s ouster, Israeli troops moved to occupy a larger buffer zone in Syria near the Golan Heights to protect against the chaos next door. With funds for postwar reconstruction also hanging in the balance, Syria’s new leaders should take some meaningful steps against Iranian militias, IS and al Qaeda terrorists, and they should share what they know about the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program and the whereabouts of Mr. Tice. That’s how the U.S. intelligence community could buttress a Trump administration “trust but verify” strategy on Syria.

With the shocking collapse of Bashar Assad’s dictatorship in Syria, the U.S. intelligence community is once again on the hook to produce the intelligence that will inform national security policy. The daunting list includes how to secure Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles; how to deal with terrorist groups in the country, especially the Islamic State group; how to ensure that Iran can no longer use Syria as a land bridge to transport weapons and financial assistance to its terrorist proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. It also includes how to secure the release of wrongfully detained American journalist Austin Tice; and how to evict Russia, an ally of both Iran and Mr. Assad, from its military bases on Syrian territory. The CIA should be poised to boost its efforts in Syria, where a U.S.-designated terrorist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has emerged as the most powerful faction of the Syrian opposition coalition that toppled the Assad regime. Under the leadership of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who is also a designated terrorist, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, known as HTS, is the foundation of Syria’s de facto transition government. Formerly known as the al-Nusra Front and once aligned with al Qaeda, HTS joined forces with southern rebel militias, who were the first to enter Damascus, to overthrow Mr. Assad last month. The CIA should not hesitate to embark on a liaison with the new director of Syria’s General Intelligence Service, Anas Khattab. The U.S. government designated Mr. Khattab as a terrorist because he communicated periodically with [al Qaeda’s Iraqi] leadership to receive financial and material assistance and helped facilitate funding and weapons for al-Nusrah Front.