NEO: Trade surplus or war surplus? Competing visions by the US and China: 12-09-2026: ******

Trade Surplus or War Surplus? Competing Visions Presented by the US and China Simon Chege Ndiritu, September 12, 2026 The real threat to global stability and the well-being of citizens is not China’s strong economic performance but Washington’s colossal military spending, which drains the social sector and provokes global conflicts. Scott Bessent campaigned against China’s trade surplus US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly campaigned against China’s trade surplus, including rallying 19 G20 members to disrupt China’s $1.2 trillion trade surplus (2025), while ignoring how his country is allocating $1.5 trillion for wars in the 2027 financial year (FY2027). China’s $1.2 Trillion Surplus — Affordable Products to the World China made a record $119.09 billion in trade surplus for August 2026, which was a significant increase from $112.5 billion recorded in the previous month. Meanwhile, the US is estimated to have used nearly the same amount ($103 billion) for the first 120 days of its war against Iran. By September 7, 2026, Brown University reported that Americans have incurred an additional $100 billion while purchasing diesel and gasoline over the period of Washington’s illegal war against Iran, which has also turned into a debacle. Therefore, the US government’s decision to deprive its citizens and channel resources to wars is creating conditions that cause taxpayers to lose even more money. Despite this, the White House and the House Budget Committee have expanded the US budget for wars by 44% to over $1.5 trillion for FY2027. While China’s trade surplus comes from efficient production and comparative advantage, which enables the creation of low-priced, high-quality products to consumers, Washington’s massive defense spending deprives Americans, destroys lives and infrastructure, and threatens the global economy and peace. With the US sanctioning foreign competitors and offering subsidies and bailouts to some of its multinational corporations, Bessent’s attempts to label China’s efforts as non-market are hypocritical China’s annual trade surplus continues to surpass $1 trillion, and is obtained through selling high-quality, low-priced products such as smartphones, laptops, small machinery, electric vehicles, and solar panels to people who would not be able to afford Western alternatives, which are of lower quality and significantly more expensive. Therefore, as Bessent was rallying G20 parties against China’s $1.2 trillion surplus, labeling it unsustainable, it’s the US’s bloated expenditure on the military that cannot be sustained not only by the country but also by the world. In fact, President Donald Trump stated that the US federal government was unable to fund daycare, Medicare, and Medicaid, as it only had money for waging wars. Additionally, in April 2026, Jodey Arrington, the Chairperson of the House Budget Committee, urged both the Republicans and Democrats to acknowledge that major social welfare programs were unsustainable, as an important step in addressing the country’s liabilities. Clearly, Washington is derelict in its basic responsibilities as a state, in favor of the pursuit of militarism, while demanding that its citizens reject affordable products from China, and both actions are unsustainable. Bessent’s description of China’s trade surplus as “excess capacity” is hypocritical, as this “surplus” does not represent output in excess of consumers’ demand, but the amount consumers in other nations have purchased from China in excess of what their own nations have sold to China. With the US sanctioning foreign competitors and offering subsidies and bailouts to some of its multinational corporations, Bessent’s attempts to label China’s efforts as non-market are hypocritical. The reality that the West’s offshoring of manufacturing enhanced China’s economic output shows that the Asian giant is a market economy. Notably, the Chinese Government lacked leverage to force Western firms such as Apple Inc., Tesla, or GM to move their manufacturing to China. Chinese technology firms such as Huawei, Xiaomi, or Alibaba Group only took advantage of conditions that attracted Western firms in the first place. Expecting that only Western firms should thrive within China’s borders is racism, in a similar manner to expecting that China cannot produce a favorable trade surplus at some times in history. China has been driving global economic growth, such that, restricting its exports would cause price inflation in other countries, suppress production not only in China but in countries that use Chinese products for production, and harm the global economy. Therefore, nations should instead try to cultivate production efficiency and develop areas of comparative advantage to correct the trade imbalance with China. However, the real threat to the world today is US militarism. The US’s $1.5 Trillion Military Budget — Bombs on Dissenting Peoples The $1.504 trillion US defense budget for FY 2027, inclusive of $350 billion in mandatory spending, promises further wars launched across oceans against countries such as Iran, Iraq, or Yemen. Surprisingly, while the House Budget Committee projected a 3% annual economic growth between 2026 and 2036, the current administration expanded the defense budget by 44% from $1 trillion for FY2026 to $ 1.5 trillion in FY2027. Past US wars have destroyed billions’ worth of infrastructure and killed tens of millions, including women and schoolchildren, without any recourse, making them destructive for the world. Since the budget is the clearest reflection of priorities, the US administration’s allocation of such huge sums to the military shows how much it values wars, even at the cost of asphyxiating social and economic development in America for the benefit of elites in Washington. Tellingly, the “Rebuilding Our Military” factsheet for FY 2027 released by the White House expressed how President Trump was committed to upgrading the US military to secure “peace through strength,” a euphemism for beating other peoples into submission and taking their minerals. It stated how the increased expenditure on the military will, among other things, facilitate “investment in critical minerals.” Since all the minerals in the US are not militarily contested, it is not a stretch to argue that the expanded military spending is designed to wrestle critical minerals from other countries. For such ends, a military conflict of the WWII scale is not off limits in Washington’s endeavor, as noted in the following excerpt from the aforementioned factsheet; This amount [$1.504] exceeds even the Reagan buildup by approaching the historic increases just before World War II, a level that recognizes the current global threat environment and restores the readiness and lethality of our forces. The White House’s description that the world has an “elevated threat environment” is hypocritical, noting that the US has launched the most destructive wars after WWII, killing and causing the deaths of millions, a bloodbath that can only be rivaled by that caused by the Nazi Germany during the WWII. Therefore, it is more meaningful to scrutinize the sustainability of US military spending than that of China’s trade surplus. An article published in Global Research in 2016 showed that the US had directly killed between 10 and 14 million people in wars after 1945. Meanwhile, its wars, meddling, and interventions had caused the deaths of between 20 and 30 million humans over the period, portraying a nation that needs to face an international tribunal if the ideology driving this behavior is to be stemmed. Consequently, Washington lacks any moral standing to tell others what is sustainable or not. While the global threat to peace and violence would significantly reduce if the US stopped stoking and propagating wars, its massive increase in war budget suggests that it is preparing surplus violence for humanity. A $1.2 trillion trade surplus would be a better choice for humanity any day. Simon Chege Ndiritu is a political observer and research analyst from Africa