United States President Donald Trump\u2019s administration claims Europe is facing \u201ccivilisational erasure\u201d due to mass migration, a narrative often used by far-right parties to drum up support during elections on the continent.<\/p>\n
In a 33-page \u201cnational security strategy\u201d document released late on Thursday, the Trump administration accused the European Union (EU) of \u201cundermining political liberty and sovereignty\u201d and insisted<\/a> on the need for US \u201cpreeminence\u201d in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what we know:<\/p>\n Does the Trump administration\u2019s \u2018strategy\u2019 align with Europe\u2019s far right?<\/p>\n One section of the NSS document called \u201cPromoting European Greatness\u201d highlights the continent\u2019s decreasing share in the world\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP) but goes on to claim that the continent\u2019s economic decline is \u201ceclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure\u201d.<\/p>\n The document states that Europe\u2019s migration policies \u201care transforming the continent and creating strife\u201d which includes the \u201ccensorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence\u201d.<\/p>\n Some European politicians are claiming that this message aligns strongly with European far-right claims. Far-right groups in Europe such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Vox in Spain, Front Populaire in France and Lega Nord in Italy, among others, have built their electoral campaigns on anti-immigrant and xenophobic narratives.<\/p>\n On Friday last week, Carl Bildt, Sweden\u2019s former prime minister, wrote in a post on X that \u201cin saying that Europe faces \u2018civilizational erasure\u2019 the Trump new security strategy places itself to the right of the extreme right in Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n In saying that Europe faces \u201dcivilizational erasure\u201d the Trump \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 new security strategy places itself to the right of the extreme right in Europe. Its language that one otherwise only finds coming out of some bizarre minds of the Kremlin \ud83c\uddf7\ud83c\uddfa. pic.twitter.com\/29vytDp6Hm<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) December 5, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Gerard Araud, former French ambassador to the US, also wrote on X that \u201cthe stunning section devoted to Europe reads like a far-right pamphlet. It largely confirms this perception.\u201d<\/p>\n Les \u00c9tats Unis viennent de publier une Revue de Strat\u00e9gie Nationale dont je conseille la lecture. L\u2019ahurissante partie consacr\u00e9e \u00e0 l\u2019Europe se lit comme un pamphlet d\u2019extr\u00eame droite. Elle confirme largement cette perception. https:\/\/t.co\/6Iig27QJZv<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 G\u00e9rard Araud (@GerardAraud) December 5, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Mark Sedgwick, a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark, told US broadcaster NBC that the language of the Trump administration\u2019s national security strategy also fits with the language used by supporters of the \u201cgreat replacement\u201d conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n That conspiracy theory was first introduced by French author Renaud Camus in his book Le Grand Remplacement in 2011, and claimed that \u201celites\u201d in France were trying to replace the White European population by encouraging immigration from Muslim-majority countries.<\/p>\n Since then, it has been used by far-right groups in the West, including the US, to campaign against mass immigration.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, the Trump administration document suggests that \u201cWestern Europe is no longer a top priority for the US,\u201d according to Gregoire Roos, director of the Europe and Russia and Eurasia Programmes at Chatham House.<\/p>\n What this means is that the Trump administration now \u201clooks [more] favourably on central and Eastern Europe, where there are closer political proximities\u201d, Roos told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile they don\u2019t agree on everything, countries such as Slovakia and Hungary share views [with the US] on EU bureaucracy, non-European migration as a threat to identity, and greater caution when it comes to siding with Ukraine in its war against Russia,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Why is Trump aligning with Europe\u2019s far right?<\/p>\n Washington\u2019s relations with European far-right leaders have certainly improved since Trump returned to office in January.<\/p>\n Late on Thursday, through the NSS, the Trump administration called on Washington to take a role in \u201ccultivating resistance\u201d within Europe and encouraged \u201cits political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilisational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation,\u201d the Trump administration added.<\/p>\n According to a December 5 report by The Associated Press news agency, Markus Frohnmaier, a member of Germany\u2019s AfD, said Trump\u2019s NSS is \u201ca foreign policy reality check for Europe and particularly for Germany\u201d.<\/p>\n But Roberto Forin, acting director of the Geneva-based Mixed Migration Centre (MMC), told Al Jazeera that the Trump administration\u2019s NSS doctrine is an \u201cunapologetic defence of whiteness\u201d, and called it a \u201csuprematist\u2019s discourse\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe objective of the current administration is to divide Europe, and polarise the continent by weaponising migration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is another example of how the new US administration is leading the race when it comes to not only migration issues, but rather multiculturalism,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n On December 4, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told reporters in Berlin that Europe is able to deal with its issues without foreign interference. He said that while Washington remains an important security partner in Europe, the alliance is \u201cfocused on addressing security policy issues\u201d and not topics such as the continent\u2019s freedom of speech and expression.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see ourselves as being able to discuss and debate these matters entirely on our own in the future, and do not need outside advice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n What else has Washington\u2019s NSS said about Europe?<\/p>\n Amid Russia\u2019s ongoing war in Ukraine, the NSS document targeted European officials\u2019 \u201cunrealistic expectations\u201d for ending the conflict, stating that the US has a \u201ccore interest\u201d in doing so.<\/p>\n According to the Reuters news agency, Pentagon officials told diplomats in Washington this week that the US was not yet satisfied with Europe\u2019s defence spending amid Russia\u2019s ongoing war in Ukraine and said the US may stop participating in NATO by 2027 if European countries do not increase their investment.<\/p>\n The NSS stated that Washington would prioritise \u201cenabling Europe to stand on its own feet and operate as a group of aligned sovereign nations, including by taking primary responsibility for its own defence, without being dominated by any adversarial power\u201d.<\/p>\n European countries, including Germany, France and the UK, have announced they will increase their defence spending and investments in military amid Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine. At the NATO Summit in June, members of the alliance pledged<\/a> to allocate up to 5 percent of their national GDP to defence and related sectors by 2035.<\/p>\n But on December 3, a US official told Politico that US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told a NATO foreign ministers\u2019 meeting in Brussels that the EU should focus on \u201cturning its defence commitments into capabilities\u201d and highlighted that \u201cprotectionist and exclusionary policies that bully American companies out of the market\u201d should be avoided since it \u201cundermines\u201d NATO\u2019s \u201ccollective defence\u201d.<\/p>\n Will this bolster Europe\u2019s far right?<\/p>\n Ian Lesser, a fellow and head of The German Marshall Fund of the US (GMF)\u2019s Brussels office, said in a report that EU and NATO observers are likely to view the NSS as \u201cconfirmation of established concerns about the direction and style of American policy\u201d.<\/p>\n But he warned that it also \u201cpoints to European cultural and demographic decline in ways likely to reinforce the views of hard-right elements in Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cViewed from Brussels, the strategy underscores the reality of an administration that is not isolationist but rather hyper unilateralist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n