Is there a decent-sized chance that America and China will go to war in the next few decades? You betcha! Chinese President Xi Jinping called it the “Thucydides Trap,” and it’s certainly a plausible scenario: When two rival powers have opposing interests and ambitions, you’re just one diplomatic breakdown away from a military conflict.
And China knows it.
In a perfect world, China would be 100% independent of the U.S., so if and/or when that day comes, the ChiComs have a free hand to give Uncle Sam the middle finger.
But over the next few decades, is there a much bigger chance that a war will break out somewhere in the Middle East? You betcha! And if you’re China, a country that consumes 90% of Iran’s oil exports — and 90% of all China’s oil imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz (with at least 54% of its oil coming from Middle East nations) — that’s a disastrous vulnerability.
You’re just one “Holy War” away from economic Armageddon.
China is an oil-dependent state. Over 70% of its oil consumption comes from foreign countries. By a yuuuge margin, it’s the world’s #1 oil importer; China needs fossil fuels to survive. (Fun fact: 58% of China’s power still comes from coal.)
In February of 2026, the BBC ran the idiotic story, “As Trump Retreats From Climate Goals, China Is Becoming a Green Superpower.” The BBC celebrated China’s “investments” in green technology — but if you read beyond the headline and got about 30 paragraphs into the story, a startling reality emerges: China didn’t invest in green energy to use it!
Instead, China intended to sell it to the West, taking advantage of “clean energy subsidies” and environmental regulations in Europe and America.
But now that President Donald Trump has canceled these subsidies, China is actually LOSING money:
Beijing has focused on three key industries: electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels.
Already, China makes more solar panels than the rest of the world combined.
[…]
Oversupply has also become a domestic challenge.
Solar manufacturers have been cutting prices to stay competitive, while investing to keep up with the latest tech and rising raw material costs. The result: the country’s top solar panel makers predicted they would lose up to 38.4 billion yuan ($5.5bn; £4bn) for 2025, Nikkei reported last month.
Six provinces reportedly cancelled 143 wind and solar projects with a combined capacity of 10.67 GW in the second half of last year. [emphasis added]
This is why there’s no “green solution” to China’s energy demands: It’s either fossil fuels or economic collapse.
This is a vulnerability that President Trump knows well, because he took full advantage of it in his first term.
From CNBC (Feb. 9, 2018): How Soaring U.S. Oil Exports to China Are Transforming the Global Oil Game
U.S. oil shipments to China have surged, creating trade between the world’s two biggest powers that until 2016 just did not exist, and helping Washington in its effort to reduce the nation’s huge trade deficit with China.
[…]
Data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows U.S. crude shipments to China went from nothing before 2016 to a record 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in January, worth almost $1 billion. Additionally, half a million tonnes of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) worth almost $300 million, headed to China from the U.S. in January.
The U.S. supplies will help reduce China’s huge trade surplus with the U.S. and may help to counter allegations from President Donald Trump that Beijing is trading unfairly.
But, alas, it’s also a vulnerability that President Joe Biden badly bungled.
From Bloomberg (Dec. 26, 2024): US Oil Exports to China Dwindle as Demand Wanes, Buying Shifts
US crude exports to China plunged by almost half this year as shifts in the nation’s economy weighed on demand and it bought more barrels from other countries including Russia and Iran.
Exports of US oil to China plunged to 81.9 million barrels over the course of the year, down 46% from 150.6 million barrels last year, according to data from Kpler. That knocked China down to the sixth-largest buyer of US crude, from second last year.
Now that Trump is back, so are U.S.-to-China oil exports. It’s one of the concessions he won from his recent summit with Xi Jinping.
Bloomberg (May 15, 2026): Trump Says China’s Xi Likes the Idea of Buying More Oil from US
President Donald Trump said his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping likes the idea of buying more US oil, as the leaders meet in Beijing.
Trump made the comments in an interview with Fox News, after a White House official on Thursday said China was interested in purchasing more US crude to reduce its dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. The crucial waterway has been effectively closed since the Iran war began in late February, bottling up roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows, driving up prices.
Here’s Donald Trump in his own words:
.@POTUS: “One thing I think that we’re going to make a deal on, they’ve agreed they want to buy oil from the United States. They’re going to go to Texas. We’re going to start sending Chinese ships to Texas, and to Louisiana, and to Alaska… that’s a big thing.” pic.twitter.com/BnQPNq0VGy
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 15, 2026
It was largely overlooked by the media, but it’s a geopolitical bombshell: Right before our eyes, President Trump just “reoriented” flipped America’s entire China strategy!
The summit wasn’t really about Taiwan, Iran, or Thucydides theories; those were just the surface-level optics. Instead, it was all about oil, power, and leverage. And now, Trump is about to pull off the unthinkable: He’s making China dependent on American oil.
In 2016, America produced 8,852 thousand barrels of crude oil a day. By 2020, it was 11,336. In 2025, it was 13,586 — and the number is rising each year. Our rate of growth is exceeding our domestic consumption capacity… and all that oil’s gotta go somewhere.
Therein lies our opportunity: Just as OPEC used oil to manipulate foreign governments, America can now use oil exports to keep a lid on China.
It’s a win-win deal for all parties. Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska are a helluva lot more stable than Iran and/or the Middle East — which means, China’s economy will be less vulnerable to geopolitical tensions. (Plus, importing billions of barrels of American oil will get Trump off Xi’s back about the trade deficit, which could lower tariffs on Chinese exports. That’d be great news for Chinese companies.) From China’s perspective, the U.S. is now the most attractive option.
And it’s a remarkable victory for America: President Trump has weaponized the economic instability of the Middle East (that he largely caused!) to strongarm China into dependency on U.S. oil. Not only will American companies seize the windfall, but we now have unprecedented leverage over the ChiComs.
If they get too big for their britches, we can simply turn off China’s lights.
In the 1800s, Britain and France defeated China in the Opium Wars, getting the Chinese hooked on Opium. (Which wasn’t very nice: Opium is highly addictive.)
But for industries of scale, oil is far more addictive than opium: China literally can’t function without it.
Donald Trump already took Venezuelan oil offline. Iran is kaput. Russia is saddled with sanctions. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, and other Middle East nations can no longer safely access the Strait of Hormuz.
Yet America’s oil output keeps growing — as does China’s energy demands.
China’s annual electricity consumption surpassed 10 trillion kWh for the first time in 2025, the National Energy Administration said on its official WeChat account Jan. 17, cementing the country’s position as the world’s largest single-country power consumer.
[…]
China’s annual power consumption now exceeds the combined total of the EU, Russia, India, and Japan, and is more than twice that of the US, the NEA said, noting that the country’s power demand has doubled from 5 trillion kWh in 2015, underscoring the scale and speed of its economic transformation.
In Trump’s first term, America achieved energy independence. In his second term, he’s now using petro-diplomacy to remake U.S.-China relations.
It’s the story the mainstream media missed — and it changes everything.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First. It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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