As President Donald Trump is trying to put together our involvement in the ongoing Israeli-Iran conflict, there are questions about whether the US will turn its focus on foreign policy to face China, analysts told the Daily Call News Foundation.

Trump enacted a ceasefire between Israel and Iran on Monday night, bringing a suspension in a 12-day conflict between the two countries over Iran’s nuclear programme, which was turned down by a US strike against Tehran’s nuclear presence. Foreign policy analysts and Trump administration officials – particularly including the executive director of the defense for policy Elbridge Colby – We have long advocated a shift towards focusing on China as the threat grows. The potential for peace in the Middle East may also provide the opportunity for a much-anticipated pivot after the US spends trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in the Middle East.

Brent Sadler, a senior researcher at the Allison National Security Center at the Heritage Foundation, told DCNF. “That being said, it emphasizes that the military will continue to compete with China, while still working in new ways to ensure a crisis around the world opposed to China’s strategy.” (Related: Trump announces ceasefire between Israel and Iran)

The US spent an estimated $8 trillion fight in the Middle East from 2002 to 2022 in battles since September 11th. According to Research from Brown University. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria cost money and gain negligible profits for the benefit of the US as the initiatives of a change of government failed to produce stability and domestic rebellions stuck in the US troops. Thousands American life in the process.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff signaled what the US wants on Thursday Enlarge Abraham is consistent with other countries to promote long-term stability in the region. The agreement was first implemented under Trump’s first administration, promoting diplomatic relations between Israel and the Arab states as a offset to Iran. The first states to normalize relations with Israel under the framework were the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

If the improved Abrahamian agreement can succeed in moving forward with relations between Arab countries and Israel, the resulting stability could provide an opening for the United States to focus primarily on fighting China’s hegemony in the Pacific. The much-anticipated possibility of a pivot could be timely given China’s rise over the past decades.

China has emerged as a fellow US competitor in many ways, including building a large navy, transcending US industrial capabilities and expanding its influence around the world.

Chinese Navy Beyond the top Number of US ships in 2020, netting 360 ships It will be compared to 296 of the US fleet. China is also moving forward with its capabilities to build commercial transports and infrastructure.

Navy Secretary John Phelan said at a senator’s hearing on June 10 that the revival of American shipbuilding is “crucial to maintaining reliable naval deterrence,” causing vigilance over the decline of the US Navy. (Related: We are likely to go to war with China over the next 10 years, experts say)

(Combo) This combination of photos, created on May 14, 2020, shows a recent portrait of China’s President Xi Jinping (L) and US President Donald Trump. (Photo by Dan Kitwoodnicholas Kamm/Pool/AFP/AFP via Getty Images)

China uses its navy to infiltrate beyond its usual patrols within the first islands between Southern Japan and the South China Sea, projecting uncontested power in its company’s backyards recently. China is also regularly infringed by the island nation’s Taiwanese state, indicating that Beijing intends to ultimately recapture it by force or other means.

Sadler told the DCNF that the US cannot compete alone with China and that it needs to rely on its allies to effectively block China from aggressive expansion.

“Only the US will be challenged, and indicators around it will point to China already losing deterrent power until it holds back the outcome of the recent 12-day war with Israel and Iran,” Sadler told the DCNF. “That being said, even if alliance investment in the military increases [and] The Navy, the United States, must urgently recapitulate its decades-lacked defense industrial bases and navy. ”

China also has substantial advantages over the US and other regions in industrial capacity past the US in total production from the mid-2000s onwards. contribution At nearly 40% of the world’s productive production. The US and the rest of the world I’ll continue Relying on China for its manufacturing capabilities despite efforts to revive American industrial bases through multiple administrations.

Additionally, China has expanded its economic impact internationally through The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which provides large-scale infrastructure investments to developing countries around the world. Critics of the BRI have placed the economy and government at Beijing’s mercy as they argue that the scheme is designed to lock developing countries into debt.

George Beebe, director of the Quincy Institute’s Grand Strategy, told the DCNF that Trump, which will ensure stability in the Middle East through diplomacy with Syria, Iran and Israel.

“If the Trump administration succeeds in advancing diplomatic relations between the new Syrian government and Iran, the justification of the US’s massive presence in the Middle East will be significantly reduced, and the associated risks of America being drawn into unwanted local conflicts will be reduced in parallel,” Beebe told the DCNF. “This will greatly encourage pivots into the Indo-Pacific.”

In 2026, the Pentagon is expected to spend more on deterrence in China. request Over $10 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative.

“As the most dynamic and fastest growing region on the planet, the Indo-Pacific is a foreign policy priority of the Trump administration and is crucial to our shared security and prosperity,” a State Department spokesman told the Daily Coller News Foundation. “Our presence in the Indo-Pacific will make America stronger, safer and more prosperous.”

The pentagon declined to comment.

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