OPINION:
The Trump administration’s decision to slash the National Security Council staff by 50%, from about 300 political appointees to roughly 150, marks a crucial acknowledgment: America’s archaic security machinery cannot withstand the onslaught of 21st-century economic warfare. As adversaries weaponize trade, technology and finance, the true battles are no longer at sea or on distant battlefields; they are fought in boardrooms, digital networks and global supply chains.
To defend America’s future, we must replace incremental reforms with a sweeping innovation: a razor-focused Office of National and Economic Security housed directly in the White House.
Recent weeks have highlighted glaring failures within the Treasury and Commerce departments, where conflicting announcements on trade measures have generated confusion and undermined global market confidence. These missteps are symptomatic of structural inadequacies that render the United States vulnerable to strategic economic subversion by China, our primary geopolitical adversary. Yet China is not just reducing and shifting individuals. It is reimagining and measuring the contributions.
China wields economic coercion with surgical precision. Its state-sponsored intellectual property theft siphons off an estimated $600 billion in U.S. innovation annually, equivalent to more than the entire annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security. China controls roughly 80% of global rare earth mineral production and more than 70% of the world’s solar panel manufacturing capacity, and it holds more than 90% of the electric vehicle battery market between companies CATL and BYD.
These figures underscore a stark reality: Supply chains that underpin our defense, energy and technology sectors are under foreign control, and existing agencies, a pared-down NSC and the Treasury and Commerce departments, lack the unified authority and agility to fight back. All lack the ability to operate effectively on private-sector timelines, evincing ossified decision-making structures that lack the dynamic elements needed to confront nimble, state-centric China.
The proposed agency would merge the sharpest elements of the NSC, the National Economic Council and the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board into one high-octane hub. Rather than a sprawling bureaucracy, it would operate with a lean core team — no more than a few dozen highly competent, attuned specialists — empowered to coordinate across the FBI, NSA, Commerce, Treasury and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Since 2018, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has reviewed more than 1,500 transactions but blocked fewer than 50, often only after critical technologies have slipped through, including AMD selling its crown jewels of semiconductors. The economic and security office would flip that ratio, proactively identifying and halting hostile investments before they jeopardize national interests.
Critically, the agency belongs in the White House, not Foggy Bottom. The State Department’s $60 billion budget and 75,000-strong workforce excel at diplomacy but move at a pace measured in months, not minutes. The Office of National and Economic Security, reporting directly to the president, would cut through interagency bickering and leverage immediate executive authority to impose sanctions, negotiate export controls and coordinate allies in real time. In 2024, Washington’s sluggish response allowed two Chinese state-backed firms to acquire minority stakes in U.S. microchip startups valued at more than $1 billion. The agency would be uniquely structured to confront such vulnerabilities from the outset.
Beyond defense, the Office of National and Economic Security would seize the initiative to drive a multidecade economic strategy that outpaces China’s 30-year industrial plans. By integrating supply chain security, export controls, cyberdefense and international economic diplomacy, the office would craft a seamless policy framework. Imagine the agency marshaling data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Justice Department indictments of espionage rings and interagency intelligence to enact targeted tariffs within days, not years.
In the first 100 days of President Trump’s second term, the greatest successes have been swift executive orders. The least successful share common elements of structures with differing fiefdoms, the epitome of the worst of the State Department’s multilayered diplomacy.
The Office of National and Economic Security would blaze new trails internationally. Rather than relying on State Department ambassadors wrangling through five-round diplomatic talks, this White House engine would forge binding economic-security alliances: coordinating IP enforcement across the Five Eyes alliance (the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand), standardizing export controls with European Union partners and convening an “Economic NATO” to defend critical industries.
It would also use the best lessons from the Department of Government Efficiency’s well-received, populist initiatives, which have underscored the public’s receptivity and demand for new methods. Integrating the proposed agency aligns directly with such a mission, removing unnecessary bureaucratic complexity and creating a nimble, efficient command structure capable of decisive economic action.
The NSC cutbacks are a welcome start, but a slimmed-down version of yesterday’s playbook cannot prevail in tomorrow’s conflicts. We need an unambiguously presidential office, a purpose-built command center wielding economic and security instruments to protect American innovation, critical infrastructure and global influence. Establishing the Office of National and Economic Security is not merely strategic; it is existential. The hour is late, the stakes are monumental, and the time to act is now.
• Andrew King is a general partner and founder of Bastille Ventures.
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