While tariffs dominate headlines, the Trump administration is quietly rebuilding the United States’ Pacific island defenses to counter the expanding reach of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
By publicly threatening tariffs, following through on them, and occasionally delaying their implementation, Trump forces Xi—and much of the world—to react. While they scramble to respond, Trump quietly advances other priorities, such as reinforcing U.S. military and economic ties in the Pacific to counter the CCP’s rising influence.
Central to this strategy is the Cold War-era island chain strategy—originally designed to contain the Soviet Union—to stem Chinese communist expansion. It divides the Pacific into three concentric defensive lines. The first island chain includes Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. The second island chain consists of Guam, the Mariana Islands, and parts of the Caroline Islands, such as Yap and Palau. The third island chain extends from Hawaii to New Zealand via the Aleutians, a chain of islands belonging to the U.S. state of Alaska.
Admiral Liu Huaqing, architect of China’s modern navy, outlined a phased strategy: dominate the first island chain by the 2000s, the second by the 2020s, and achieve global naval reach by the 2040s. In response, both the Trump and Biden administrations reinforced U.S. military presence along these chains. The United States and its allies have expanded joint exercises, deployed land-based anti-ship missiles in the Philippines, and prepared detailed contingency plans for a Taiwan conflict.
Analysts emphasize that controlling the island chains is critical to checking the Chinese regime’s expansion and maintaining the regional balance of power. China’s navy—now the world’s largest by number of ships—continues to test these boundaries, fueling a strategic competition in the “gray zone,” a space between peace and war defined by posture, influence, and deterrence.
The second island chain in particular holds immense strategic value, forming a key outer ring of defense beyond the Chinese regime’s immediate reach. These islands serve as vital outposts for power projection, surveillance, and deterrence, especially as the regime modernizes its military and grows more assertive in the South China Sea.
In late March, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a landmark visit to Guam, reaffirming that any attack on Guam or the Northern Mariana Islands would be treated as an attack on the U.S. mainland. The visit underscored the Trump administration’s stance that these Pacific territories are integral to Washington’s homeland defense strategy, particularly amid rising tensions over Taiwan and the Chinese regime’s maritime assertiveness. Hegseth also announced a $400 million military infrastructure initiative in Yap, in Micronesia, further anchoring the U.S. presence in the second island chain.
The $78 million initiative is part of the broader Agile Combat Employment (ACE) strategy, which emphasizes dispersing aircraft across multiple small bases to complicate enemy targeting. More than 20 million square feet of runway and infrastructure have been rehabilitated, creating a grid-like base layout designed to frustrate Chinese missile targeting. The restored airfield will support short-takeoff aircraft, such as the F-35B, enhancing survivability and rapid response capabilities.
