By Alejandra Jaramillo, CNN
The strategy centres on President Donald Trump's call for a "readjustment" of the US military presence in the Western Hemisphere. Photo: Getty via AFP
The White House quietly released President Donald Trump's new national security strategy late this week, a 33-page document that elevates his "America First" doctrine and sets out the administration's realignment of US foreign policy, from shifting military resources in the Western Hemisphere to taking an unprecedentedly confrontational posture toward Europe.
The strategy centres on Trump's call for a "readjustment" of the US military presence in the Western Hemisphere to counter migration, drug trafficking and what it describes as the rise of adversarial powers in the region.
It outlines plans for a larger Coast Guard and Navy presence in the region and deployments to "secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force."
The document frames this as part of a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, an 1823 presidential call for European powers to respect the US' sphere of influence in the west.
"The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity - a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region," the document says.
It comes as the administration has pursued a deadly campaign against alleged drug boats in international waters, so far, destroying at least 23 boats and killing 87 people. Outside legal experts and some members of Congress have questioned the legality of the effort.
The strategy's section on Europe represents a more dramatic escalation, warning that European nations face "economic decline" that could be "eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisation erasure".
The document goes on to argue that "over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European," raising what it calls "an open question" about whether those countries would continue to view their alliance with the United States in the same way.
The administration's strategy also asserts that the "Ukraine War has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe's, especially Germany's, external dependencies" and claims "a large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments' subversion of democratic processes".
The strategy blames European officials for blocking US-backed efforts to end the conflict and states that an end to "hostilities" is needed to stabilize European economies, prevent war, and reestablish stability with Russia: "It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state."
A salient point in the Europe section of the strategy goes further, explicitly endorsing efforts to influence the domestic politics of US allies, saying the American broad policy toward Europe should prioritize "cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations".
"Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. … We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilisation self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation," it says.
The chief spokesperson for the European Commission, Paula Pinho, said at a press briefing Friday (local time) that European leaders had not yet had "the time to look into (the document)" and were not in a "position to comment".
The document also reiterates the administration's push for "ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance".
The document formalizes some of the administration's previous criticism of Europe. In a speech in Munich, Germany, in February, Vice President JD Vance told European leaders that the biggest threat to their security was "from within," rather than from China or Russia.
"What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values," Vance told a stone-faced audience at the Munich Security Conference.
The Trump administration's strategy also outlines a dual-track approach to China, pushing to contain Beijing's global influence while preserving economic ties and maintaining the current conditions on Taiwan, saying that "deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority".
It also calls for "maintaining a genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship" with China by prioritizing "reciprocity and fairness" and reducing US dependence on the country.
According to the document, such a reset is key to sustaining US growth from "a $30 trillion economy in 2025 to $40 trillion in the 2030s."
The strategy describes alliances as instrumental rather than intrinsic, labelling them "a broad network of alliances, with treaty allies and partners in the world's most strategically important regions," deployed as tools within a broader framework grounded in Trump's affinity to break with traditional norms.
"President Trump uses unconventional diplomacy, America's military might, and economic leverage to surgically extinguish embers of division between nuclear-capable nations and violent wars caused by centuries-long hatred," it says.
-CNN
