A new, bombastic announcement from the irrepressible President Trump, who stated his intention to raise US defence spending to as much as USD 1.5 trillion by 2027 - in practical terms, an increase of USD 500 billion in just 2 years. Frankly, an unfeasible target, even for the American superpower.

That said, beyond the usual discount that must be applied to the Tycoon’s declarations, his words reveal much about US strategy in the years ahead: accelerating the systemic confrontation with China, pushing forward decoupling, and pre-positioning for a potential shift from all-encompassing systemic competition to war - whether cold or hot.

Hence the emphasis on controlling global supply chains, operations such as the one in Venezuela, pressure on Mexico and Canada, and the Greenland issue. The latter is pivotal in the context of competition with Beijing: vast potential in terms of critical raw materials (cobalt, lithium, rare earths, graphite, etc.), a key crossroads along Arctic routes, and a central position within the framework of the next-generation missile defence shield, GOLDEN DOME.

The White House’s objective is crystal clear: to increase its geostrategic leverage over Greenland by “detaching” it from Denmark or by radically renegotiating the 1951 Treaty with Copenhagen (see our forthcoming analysis). Iran - Beijing’s strategic partner - is also in Washington’s crosshairs, while Europe is to be “tamed” through leverage on LNG and the digital domain. The White House has sharply accelerated across all these dossiers, but it still needs time - and a further strengthening of the military instrument.

This also explains the blow dealt to major US defence prime contractors: too many dividends. In an era of hyper-competition and the return of state interventionism in the economy, the traditional “privatised” model that also governs the US defence industry - creating value primarily to reward shareholders - no longer works: the strategic logic of security and national power now come first.

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