President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy delivers one of the most forceful articulations of his “America First” worldview yet, warning that key European allies are weakening and declaring that the United States will assert unapologetic dominance across the Western Hemisphere.
Released Friday, the legally mandated strategy document marks a decisive ideological break from the Biden-era emphasis on alliance repair. Instead, it casts European partners as politically fragile, economically stagnant, and at risk of “civilizational erasure” due to migration challenges, demographic decline, and what it characterizes as censorship and diminishing national identity.
The strategy frames these developments not only as internal European dilemmas but as direct considerations for U.S. security planning: if current trends continue, it suggests, some NATO partners may not remain strong or dependable allies in the decades ahead.
Even as Washington pushes to broker an end to the nearly four-year war in Ukraine, the strategy makes clear that the United States seeks a reset with Moscow, arguing that resolving the conflict is necessary to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia” rather than prolong isolation of the Kremlin.
At the same time, the document underscores a renewed hemispheric assertiveness. It openly references what aides call a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, justifying recent strike missions against suspected narcotics networks in the Caribbean and signaling continued pressure on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. The message: U.S. influence in the Americas will not be ceded.
While the administration continues to highlight diplomacy, the overall tenor is declamatory and nationalist — positioning America’s interests not alongside allies, but above them, and setting the expectation that Europe must course-correct if it expects to remain a strategic pillar of the transatlantic partnership.
