Washington, D.C. – December 6, 2025 – The White House has published President Donald Trump’s long-awaited National Security Strategy, a 33-page document that dramatically reorients U.S. foreign policy around an expanded “America First” doctrine, asserts near-absolute dominance in the Western Hemisphere, and issues an unprecedented warning to Europe that it risks “civilizational erasure” within two decades unless it reverses its current path.
Signed personally by the president and posted on the official White House website late Thursday, the strategy marks the clearest articulation yet of Trump’s second-term worldview: alliances are transactional tools, not moral commitments; the United States will no longer subsidise a declining Europe; and American military and economic power must be redirected toward securing the homeland and its immediate neighbourhood.
The most eye-catching section revives and expands the 1823 Monroe Doctrine into what the document calls the “Trump Corollary.” It declares that U.S. preeminence in the Western Hemisphere is an existential national-security requirement. To achieve this, the strategy calls for a major “readjustment” of American military posture: shifting forces from Europe and the Middle East toward the Caribbean, Central America, and South America to combat drug cartels, mass migration, and growing Chinese and Russian influence. The plan explicitly authorises expanded Navy and Coast Guard operations, including the potential use of lethal force against cartel vessels — a policy already put into practice in recent months when U.S. warships sank several suspected narco-subs in international waters, prompting legal objections from Latin American governments and some congressional Democrats.
On Europe, the tone is strikingly confrontational. The document describes the continent as suffering from deep economic decline overshadowed by an even graver threat: “civilizational erasure.” It blames mass migration, collapsing birth rates, censorship of free speech, suppression of political opposition, and loss of national identity, warning that some NATO members could become “majority non-European” within decades. The strategy accuses European governments of defying public desire for peace in Ukraine and deliberately prolonging the war, claiming they have blocked U.S.-led efforts to negotiate a rapid end to hostilities.
In response, the United States declares it a core national interest to secure a swift settlement in Ukraine — not out of solidarity with Kyiv, but to stabilise European economies, prevent escalation between nuclear powers, and restore “strategic stability” with Russia. Perhaps most controversially, the document pledges to “cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” openly expressing support for the rise of nationalist and populist parties while urging the continent to “remain European” and abandon what it calls Brussels’ regulatory overreach.
The strategy also formalises Trump’s long-standing scepticism toward NATO’s endless expansion, stating that the alliance must not grow further and that European members must meet far higher defence-spending targets. This echoes Vice President JD Vance’s earlier remarks that Europe’s greatest threat comes from within, not from Russia.
China policy is framed as a two-track approach: contain Beijing’s global ambitions through alliances, military superiority, and economic pressure while preserving enough trade to fuel American growth. The document stresses the need to deter any move against Taiwan by maintaining clear U.S. military overmatch, but it avoids calls for decoupling and instead seeks “mutually advantageous” commerce and a reduction in American dependence on Chinese supply chains. The administration argues this balanced posture is necessary to grow the U.S. economy from roughly $30 trillion today to $40 trillion within the next decade.
Across the board, traditional alliances are described as instruments rather than permanent obligations. The strategy portrays Trump’s diplomacy as unconventional but backed by overwhelming military and economic leverage, designed to manage great-power competition without sliding into direct conflict.
European Union officials declined immediate comment, saying only that they were still reviewing the document. Behind the scenes, however, diplomats expressed alarm at what one senior official called “an overt attempt to interfere in European domestic politics.” In Kyiv, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak described the language on Ukraine as “deeply disappointing and dangerous.”
Republican leaders largely praised the document. Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Roger Wicker called it “a realistic blueprint for a dangerous world,” while Democratic critics warned that the confrontational tone toward Europe risks fracturing NATO at the worst possible moment.
As the administration begins translating the strategy into budgets, troop deployments, and diplomatic initiatives, one message is unmistakable: the era of the United States as the unconditional guarantor of a liberal global order is over. In its place, Trump offers a narrower, harder-edged vision centred on American power, American borders, and American prosperity — even if that means leaving longtime allies to confront their own challenges alone.
