WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has set forth a new national security strategy that paints European allies as weak and aims to reassert America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
The document released Friday by the White House is sure to roil long-standing U.S. allies in Europe for its scathing critiques of their migration and free speech policies, suggesting they face the “prospect of civilizational erasure” and raising doubts about their long-term reliability as American partners.
At the same time the administration is sharply critical of its democratic allies in Europe and carrying out a pressure campaign of boat strikes in South America, it chides past U.S. efforts to shape or criticize Middle Eastern nations and seeks to discourage attempts for changes in those countries’ governments and policies.
The strategy reinforces, in sometimes chilly and bellicose terms, Trump’s “America First” philosophy, which favors nonintervention overseas, questions decades of strategic relationships and prioritizes U.S. interests.
The U.S. strategy “is motivated above all by what works for America — or, in two words, ‘America First,'” the document said.
This is the first national security strategy, a document the administration is required by law to release, since the Republican president’s return to office in January. It is a stark break from the course set by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, which sought to reinvigorate alliances after many were rattled in Trump’s first term and to check a more assertive Russia.
Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who sits on House committees overseeing intelligence and the armed forces, called the strategy “catastrophic to America’s standing in the world and a retreat from our alliances and partnerships.”
“The world will be a more dangerous place and Americans will be less safe if this plan moves forward,” Crow said.
Criticism of Europe
The United States is seeking to broker an end to Russia’s nearly 4-year-old war in Ukraine, a goal that the national security strategy says is in America’s vital interests. But the document makes clear that the U.S. wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core U.S. interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
The document also accuses America’s longstanding European allies, which have found themselves sometimes at odds with Trump’s shifting approaches to the Russia-Ukraine war, of facing not just domestic economic challenges but, according to the U.S., an existential crisis.
Economic stagnation in Europe “is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure,” the strategy document said.
The U.S. suggests that Europe is being enfeebled by its immigration policies, declining birthrates, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” and a “loss of national identities and self-confidence.”
“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies,” the document said.
The document also gives a nod to the rise of far-right political parties in Europe, which have been outspoken in their opposition to illegal immigration and climate policies.
“America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism,” the strategy said.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul acknowledged the U.S. is “our most important ally” in NATO but said questions about freedom of expression or “the organization of our free societies” are not part of alliance discussions.
“We also don’t think that anyone needs to give us any advice on this,” Wadephul told reporters.
Markus Frohnmaier, a lawmaker with the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party, described the U.S. strategy as “a foreign policy reality check for Europe and particularly for Germany.”
Setting sights on power in the Americas
Despite Trump’s “America First” maxim, his administration has carried out a series of military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean while weighing possible military action in Venezuela to pressure President Nicolás Maduro.
The moves are part of what the national security strategy lays out as “a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine” to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.” The 1823 Monroe Doctrine, formulated by President James Monroe, was originally aimed at opposing any European meddling in the Western Hemisphere and was used to justify U.S. military interventions in Latin America.
Trump’s strategy document says it aims to combat drug trafficking and control migration. The U.S. also is reimagining its military footprint in the region even after building up the largest military presence there in generations.
That means, for instance, “targeted deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades,” it says.
Shifting focus away from the Middle East
With a shift to the Americas, the U.S. will seek a different approach in the Middle East.
The U.S., according to the strategy, should abandon “America’s misguided experiment with hectoring” nations in the Middle East, especially monarchies in the Gulf, about their traditions and forms of government.
Trump has bolstered ties with nations there and sees Middle Eastern countries as ripe for economic opportunities, and the Arab nations are “emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment,” the document says.
“We should encourage and applaud reform when and where it emerges organically, without trying to impose it,” it says.
This year, Trump made his first major foreign trip to the Middle East, and his efforts to settle the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has been a major focus. But the U.S. plans to shift its focus from the region, the administration says, as America is less dependent on its oil supply.
‘Rebalance’ of US relationship with China
Meanwhile, as the U.S. under Trump has overturned decades of free trade policies with his sweeping global tariffs, its ties with China have been a prime focus. America under Trump is seeking to “rebalance” the U.S.-China relationship while also countering Beijing’s aggressive stance toward Taiwan, according to the document.
The Trump administration wants to prevent a war over Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own and to which the U.S. is obligated by its own laws to give military support, by maintaining a military advantage over China.
But the U.S. wants allies in the region to do more to push back against Chinese pressure and contribute more to their defense.
“The American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone,” the strategy says. “Our allies must step up and spend — and more importantly do — much more for collective defense.”
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
By MICHELLE L. PRICE
Associated Press
