On 8th December, the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS), marking a significant departure from the previous National Security Strategies. The US NSS usually outlines the administration’s foreign policy priorities, strategic intent, and policy objectives. In line with this, Trump’s NSS highlights his administration’s foreign policy principles and priorities, which stand in sharp contrast to those of his predecessor and his own 2017 NSS.
The newly released NSS manifests Trump’s worldview, characterized by isolationist and anti-migration tendencies. The mention of his name in the NSS text around 26 times—as opposed to once in his previous 2017 NSS and once for Biden in his 2022 NSS—signifies his endeavor to leverage the NSS for political messaging rather than as a document outlining the country’s foreign policy principles and priorities. The use of words, such as “The President of Peace,” “leveraging his dealmaking ability to secure unprecedented peace,” etc., further substantiates that.
Moreover, the document reaffirms Trump’s personalistic and transactional foreign policy approach, which is heightening the US’ retreat from the international order that it has built and led since the Second World War. Notably, the NSS makes the US’ border security from mass migration the core element of national security. This stands in stark contrast to the previous two administrations—including Trump’s first term—which identified China and Russia as the most significant challenges to US security.
Trump’s NSS calls on the US to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine” to restore US supremacy in the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine, announced in 1823, aimed to oppose the European presence in the Western Hemisphere. Similarly, the NSS seeks to enforce and assert the “Trump Corollary” to the “Monroe Doctrine” to restore and maintain US preeminence in the Western Hemisphere. The primary rationale behind this move is to discourage mass migration to the US, destroy narco-terrorists, cartels, and transnational criminal organizations, support critical supply chains, and secure continued access to key strategic locations.
Trump’s recent policy actions also seemed to reflect this. The US is carrying out strikes against “narco-terrorists” transporting drugs from Venezuela to the US. Since September, these strikes have killed more than 80 people. Notably, the US is also carrying out a military buildup against Venezuela to pressure its socialist leader, Nicolas Maduro.
Additionally, no country could be more pleased with Trump’s NSS than Russia—and its president, Putin. Russia’s ecstasy with the NSS comes at the expense of Europe’s disgruntlement, which was both excoriated and lectured in the NSS.
The biggest jolt to Europe comes from the absence of any criticism of Russia for its war against Ukraine. Instead, the US is seeking to achieve strategic stability with Russia and believes that Europe lacks self-confidence in its relationship with Russia. The Trump administration feels that the European countries “hold unrealistic expectations for war” and are delaying the peace process, as they “regard Russia as an existential threat.” Moreover, the NSS claims that the majority of Europeans want peace, but their governments are suppressing their voice.
In addition to Europe’s criticism of its stance in the Ukraine War, the NSS also criticized Europe for the decline in European values. While claiming that Europe faces the prospect of “civilizational erasure,” the NSS lectures Europe to adopt anti-migration policies. According to the document, European migration policies are “creating strife, censorship of free speech, suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.” It reflects the US Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, in which he accused European leaders of suppressing free speech and failing to halt illegal migration.
Although Trump’s NSS decried the US’ interventionist foreign policy of promoting democracy and liberal values in the Middle East and Africa. But it appeared interventionist with respect to European countries by endorsing the “growing influence of patriotic European parties,” which provides optimism about the revival of the European spirit.
The NSS also marks a radical departure in the US’ approach towards China. Being called the single biggest challenge to the US global pre-eminence, Trump’s NSS fails to criticize China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Although it emphasized deterring the conflict in the Taiwan Strait by sustaining military superiority. However, Taiwan’s significance is attributed to its dominance in semiconductor production and its strategic location, providing direct access to the Second Island Chain, rather than its status as a fellow democracy resisting authoritarian China’s aggression. Thus, it prioritized Taiwan’s defense for economic and strategic reasons, not to preserve its democracy. Notably, this is the first time since the 1988 NSS (published during China’s reform era) that the NSS has not condemned China’s authoritarian governance system as a challenge to the US-led liberal international order.
Moreover, the NSS perceives China as an economic partner rather than a systemic adversary. This is illustrated by the US’ focus on “maintaining a mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing” and rebalancing “America’s economic relationship with China.” Therefore, it reaffirms Trump’s foreign policy approach, which sees national security through the prism of economic statecraft.
On the whole, Trump’s NSS narrows the US core national interests to border security (hemispheric defense) and ignores the Chinese and the Russian threat, thereby disavowing support for the US-led liberal international order, marking a radical departure from the past.