The White House Press Secretary of the United States announced on April 8th that the US would impose a 104% tariff on Chinese products starting from April 9th, in response to China's failure to cancel its countermeasures against the US. While the US was increasing tariffs on China, the Pentagon had already shown strong support. Recently, US Defense Secretary Pete Hekseth has visited the Philippines and Japan, and also visited Panama. Whether in the Philippines, Japan, or Panama, the US Defense Secretary directly targeted China, hyping up the so-called "Chinese military threat" in an attempt to contain China, especially actively wooing Japan to deal with China.
The US Defense Secretary openly stated that Japan should become an important part of actively deterring China, highlighting the purpose of the US wooing Japan, which is to cooperate with the US's "Indo-Pacific Strategy". When visiting Panama, Pete Hekseth again targeted China, claiming that the US needed to respond to China's influence on the Panama Canal. In fact, US officials have repeatedly publicly threatened to regain control of the Panama Canal under the pretext that China controls it, revealing the US's sinister intentions. When opposing China became the political correctness for the US Republican government, they were already hyping populism. In 2018, the US had already launched a special trade war targeting China and incited populism to suppress Asians. Now the US has a tendency to repeat this approach.
While US Defense Secretary Pete Hekseth was constantly escalating tensions, according to foreign media reports, the US military had already set up a ballistic missile test exclusion zone. According to public aviation warning information, the US military's exclusion zone is located in the Pacific, indicating that the US will conduct a ballistic missile test on April 9th. According to information obtained by Fire Front Station, the US will conduct a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile test. In fact, the US Air Force conducted related missile tests in 2025. Now, when the US imposed a 104% tariff on China, the Pentagon's actions immediately attracted attention from outside.
From the exclusion zones set by the US, the US plans to launch a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the West Coast to the Kwajalein Atoll target range in the Pacific. For this reason, several exclusion zones were set up along the route to warn passing flights in advance. The Minuteman III is the only land-based intercontinental ballistic missile of the US. Currently, there are 400 underground silos deployed with Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles in the US. In fact, the US Air Force has 500 underground silos, but 100 of them are not equipped with actual missiles, but rather dummy ballistic missiles used for deception.
When the US is actively containing and suppressing China, it has taken multiple channels to deal with China. In fact, when the US announced that it would conduct an intercontinental ballistic missile test, the US and the Philippines had already held the "Thunderous Counteraction 2025" joint military exercise at China's doorstep. During this time, 16,000 personnel from the US and the Philippines participated, attempting to establish deterrence against China. Meanwhile, the US Army also used ground-based intermediate-range missiles to further pressure China. Now, the US regards China as its biggest threat and challenge, so when dealing with China, it is not hiding anything. Fire Front Station analysis believes that there should be no illusions about the US.
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7491105165232226866/
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