Donald Trump, Meet Sun Tzu

Chinese strategy vs. Trumpian bombast

Rumor has it that a year ago Donald Trump delayed his so-called Liberation Day pronouncements by a day to April 2, 2025, because he didn’t want his unconstitutional “tariff emergency” to come across as a cruel April Fool’s Day hoax. This year, he defied that superstition with an April Fool’s Day address to the nation that celebrated another unconstitutional act — a war with Iran conducted without the congressional authority that the US Constitution requires.

Both lawless acts have much in common. Not only do they flaunt America’s once cherished rule of law, but they attempt to drive a stake into the heart of the world order. Last year’s tariff shock was aimed at the rules-based global trading system founded by the United States. This year’s military shock is aimed at the Middle East, long the most volatile and potentially dangerous region in the world.

Both of Donald Trump’s unconstitutional acts are barren of any understanding of their consequences. Unsurprisingly, both have backfired. Despite record US tariffs that Trump claimed were justified as “reciprocal” actions against purportedly long abusive trading partners, America’s overall trade deficit hit a new record in 2025. Despite Trump’s bluster of the total obliteration of Iran’s military power, a remarkable in-depth military briefing by the Financial Times documents how Iranian missiles and drones continue to wreak havoc in the Middle East. Iran’s resulting strategic chokehold on the Straits of Hormuz has led to the worst energy shock in history.

And yet President Trump longs for stability and rapport with China, America’s most formidable strategic competitor. Apart from making the absurd demand that China, along with the UK, France, Japan, and South Korea, send warships to protect passage through the Strait of Hormuz to clean up the mess from a war that he started, Trump has bent over backwards to preserve the upcoming summit with Xi Jinping now scheduled for May 14-15. After having postponed the meeting once (originally scheduled for March 31 to April 2) due to complications from his war of choice, the US president is so desperate to cut a deal with his “good friend,” that he just turned over a drug smuggler and trafficker to China as a demonstration of good faith. Others claim the summit timeline has been extended to allow Trump to stage an exit strategy from Iran so he can travel triumphantly to Beijing. Who knows?

Whatever the reason, America will be at a distinct disadvantage in the upcoming summit with China. Trump is desperate for a deal, while Xi Jinping is not. The Chinese leader is perfectly content to sit back and watch while his US counterpart acts in a fashion that is not befitting of America’s once unrivaled status as world leader. As Beijing confidently observes from the sidelines, while Trump continues to lob one “Hail Mary” pass after another, China is likely to win this round by default.

A deeper perspective can be found in the wise counsel of Sun Tzu, ancient China’s most famous warrior-philosopher. In The Art of War, he stressed that, “When your strategy is deep and far reaching …, you can win before you even have to fight.” That certainly applies to Xi Jinping and his willingness to observe his adversary rather than act to counter him. It also applies to Donald Trump and his lack of strategic forethought in declaring a false tariff emergency and in prosecuting an illegal war in Iran.

Iran also understands the importance of strategy. Despite suffering significant leadership decapitation, along with massive damage from the US-Israeli air campaign, Iran holds a major strategic advantage with its chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz. The real question is why the United States didn’t understand this. Look no further than the Trump Administration’s “National Security Strategy” of November 2025, where the word “Iran” appeared only twice in a 31-page document. Donald Trump’s short-sighted fixation on the tactics of obliteration also may have had something to do with it. But that begs the key question: Why didn’t Trump grasp the strategic significance of Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz?

Sun Tzu provides an answer to this question by stressing the importance of advice. Trump acts on the basis personalized whims, dispensing with any semblance of strategic advice. He wants sycophants in the White House Situation Room rather than honest brokers who dare speak truth to power. Scornful of expert advice, Trump has stated publicly that, “I will feel it in my bones” when the war is over. Sun Tzu, arguing for discipline and reason, says, “Assess the advantages of taking advice, then structure your forces accordingly … strategically, based on what is advantageous.”

A deal-focused Donald Trump doesn’t have a strategic bone in his body. He emphasizes deal count, the number of wars he has supposedly ended, the purported inflow of tariff revenue from abroad, exaggerated tallies of foreign investment commitments to rebuilding US capacity, etc. Never mind, those metrics are all fictitious — they have become deeply ingrained in the Gospel of MAGA. By contrast, Xi Jinping represents a tradition, dating back to Sun Tzu, that elevates strategy to the highest order. While that doesn’t always work out perfectly for China — I have my own concerns about the efficacy of China’s economic rebalancing strategy — the Chinese leadership deservedly gets enormous credit for its strategic value system.

The upcoming mid-May summit between Donald Tfump and Xi Jinping is shaping up to be an historic mismatch between the long view of a strategist and a myopic display of bombast. Trump, as always, will claim victory in a false sense of bravado. Sun Tzu would undoubtedly render a different verdict, insisting that, “The one with many strategic factors in his favor, wins.” As Donald Trump prepares to retreat from the Strait of Hormuz in strategic defeat, his delusional claim of victory over Iran will be all the more apparent.

For two consecutive Aprils, Donald Trump has made massive, illegal policy blunders. I am already getting worried about next April. If current public opinion polls are even close to correct, by that point Donald Trump’s MAGA faction will have lost control of at least one house of the US Congress and American-style autocracy will thankfully be in retreat. By April 2027, however, a bruised, vindictive, and angry president will be licking his wounds, intent on striking back ahead of the 2028 election cycle.

If recent events tell us anything, this is not a risk to to take lightly. It will be up to a new congressional leadership to right the course for the United States. Guess who said, “Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and sternness”? Sun Tzu gets the final word.