Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared Saturday that the United States will not allow China to seize control of the Asia-Pacific and pressed American allies to raise defense budgets to 3.5 percent of GDP or stop expecting Washington to carry their weight.
Speaking at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s annual gathering of defense ministers and military brass, Hegseth served as the summit’s top headliner. China declined to send its defense minister for the second straight year, sending only academics and scholars instead.
Hegseth described China’s military buildup as a source of what he called rightful alarm and warned that no single power would be permitted to impose dominance over the Pacific. A region controlled by any hegemon, he said, would unravel the existing balance of power.
The defense secretary also announced that the Trump administration expects Asian allies and partners to spend 3.5 percent of their GDP on defense. He cited the administration’s own $1.5 trillion defense budget request as evidence Washington was fulfilling its end of the bargain.
The era of the United States paying for the defense of wealthy nations is over, Hegseth said. He framed the demand bluntly: partners not protectorates, with everyone having skin in the game and no one getting a free ride.
South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand all drew praise for their contributions. Japan was highlighted for taking concrete steps toward stronger defenses. Hegseth said Tokyo and Washington both needed to pull their weight to keep the bilateral alliance strong.
One topic conspicuously absent from his prepared remarks was Taiwan. Last year at the same conference, Hegseth had warned explicitly against a potential Chinese invasion of the island. This time, he never brought it up. A $14 billion arms sale package to Taiwan has been stalled, and Trump said last month, after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, that he had not yet decided whether to approve it.
When reporters pressed him on the package, Hegseth said the decision rests entirely with the president, adding there had been no change in the overall US position.
On US-China relations broadly, Hegseth described the current state as better than it had been in many years, pointing to increased military-to-military contacts following Trump’s Beijing summit. The two sides are meeting more frequently, he said, with communication lines open and active.
