<p>The paper argues that Donald Trump’s return to the White House has elevated competition over overseas ports into one of the core components of U.S.–China rivalry. As a revisionist of the liberal globalization era—an era that enabled China to build out a worldwide port network and exposed acute strategic vulnerabilities for the U.S.—Trump seeks to reconfigure the established infrastructure paradigm in America’s favor: narrowing China’s foothold, regaining leverage in critical nodes, and expanding into new arenas. As a result, port infrastructure is becoming the terrain of a protracted, multi-round contest for geoeconomic and geopolitical advantage. To show how this approach operates in practice, the article examines two illustrative cases. Panama demonstrates a mechanism of regaining leverage: diplomatic and legal pressure shifts a port concession from the realm of commercial management to that of strategic vulnerability, labeling the Hong Kong operator as China-linked infrastructure and opening the way for a broader reconfiguration of port assets in favor of a Western infrastructure–finance coalition. Ukraine, by contrast, embodies a seize logic by embedding Western capital and management in reconstruction and linking ports to critical minerals and secure supply chains. The analysis concludes that the current systemic transition of the global order offers a window for assertive U.S. action, but durable success requires coalition-wide convergence around shared threat definitions, sustained domestic support, and the delivery of credible alternatives—supported by discreet diplomacy and disciplined messaging to maintain legitimacy and shape the narrative.</p>