If the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 taught us one thing (or should have) it was that the United States is far too reliant on China for its most basic supplies. Everything from antibiotics to car parts to syringes—and almost everything else we take for granted today—mostly is derived from supply chains emanating in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that rules China with an iron fist knows this weakness and has plans to exploit it when a geopolitical crisis erupts between Washington and Beijing (which is coming sooner than most realize).

Despite knowing about this weakness for decades, and that weakness being laid bare for the world to see during the pandemic years ago, Washington has done little more than pay lip service to the need for diversifying America’s supply chains. There have been some moves to detach U.S. supply chains from China. But those movements are minuscule compared to the kind of drastic action that is required to overcome this supply chain vulnerability.

Trade Vulnerabilities 

Now, it might be too late to mitigate these vulnerabilities with a geopolitical crisis so close at hand. Should a conflict erupt between China and the United States, America would find itself cut off from those basic goods that the civilian economy—and even the U.S. military—relies upon. Expect antibiotic shortages, complications to basic consumer goods, food supply shortages, and even aircraft part cutoffs to utterly decimate the U.S. economy.

The United States has never experienced a situation like this. It would be the equivalent of what Germany went through during Britain’s blockade of the country during World War I (and that’s a best-case scenario). No one is prepared. Just look at what happened recently with the potential port worker’s strike that was narrowly averted. Had that gone through as planned, life in the United States would have ground down to a halt.

A war with China, in which Beijing eviscerated the supply chains leading back to America, would be like that.

Americans would struggle to find basic supplies. Prices would go up as would inflation. Most experts believe that the United States would enter a “long depression” if the supply chains linking the United States and China together were severed due to a war between the two great powers.

Americans are barely getting by today as it is. 

A war with China would utterly collapse the economic order here in the United States. What’s more, it’d further destabilize the social and political order, leading to even greater levels of domestic extremism from both sides of the political aisle (further weakening the United States globally).

As of 2023, China was ranked as the world’s top exporter. Most sources believe that China exported around $3.73 trillion worth of goods globally. In fact, that was widely considered to be a 4.6 percent increase in the exportation of goods since 2021 for Chinese firms. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, from 2017-2022, China’s reported exports have steadily increased, indicating a clear trend. 

China’s top trading partner is the United States, which accounts for around $551 billion of Chinese exports. So, any severing of trade ties due to a war with America would harm Beijing, too. Yet, China’s deft moves to shore up new alliances with the Global South under the imprimatur of the informal BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) economic alliance is likely an attempt by Beijing to open new markets for the inevitable day when they can no longer trade with the United States.

Meanwhile, the United States exported $2.3 trillion worth of goods to the world, with Canada being the largest recipient of US goods. Although, 55 percent of essential goods for Americans are produced by China, which means that China severing ties will have a disproportionately negative impact on the United States. 

Avoid a crisis in the near term

All this, of course, would impact the war effort in any potential conflict with China. But China’s ability to shift exports to the Global South will play a decisive role in ameliorating any economic damage from the war. 

Certainly, it’d be devastating for China’s economy in the near term. The real question is: how devastating would it be for America’s? It is my opinion that, in the near term, the damage to America would be far greater than it would be to China.

The best solution is for cooler heads to prevail and to avoid this outcome for as long as possible—all while following the recommendations of people like former U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer to make ourselves as free of Chinese trade as possible in the long run. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is due October 22 from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image: Paul R. Jones / Shutterstock.com