The Pentagon is considering plans to send heavily armed, versatile Marine Corps Expeditionary Units to East Asia, curtailing some deployments in the Middle East as it repositions forces in response to growing Chinese influence, military officials said.

The move would be among the first tangible steps by the Trump administration to expand the U.S. military presence in Asia after announcing its National Defense Strategy last month.

The new strategy and a parallel national-security plan released in December set a goal of getting the U.S. military out of the Mideast and realigned to counter China and Russia as strategic competitors.

While the strategy comes amid tensions over North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program, it isn’t intended as a buildup for war, officials said, but as an approach to how the U.S. military positions itself over at least the next four years based on the threats it sees.

These “major muscle movements,” as the Pentagon calls hardware and personnel redeployments, are aimed at a global resetting of forces, officials said.