Trump’s new national security strategy: 5 key takeaways

President Trump released his national security strategy late Thursday night with a focus on building up a larger military presence in the Western Hemisphere, balancing global trade, tightening up border security, and winning the culture war with Europe. 

The sweeping strategy is typically released within the first year of a new administration, explaining the president’s foreign policy focus and offering guidance on where money is likely to be spent. 

The 33-page document builds on Trump’s “America First” ideology but also provides the first explicit reference to the president replicating the Monroe Doctrine, calling for U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere. 

“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region,” the document states. 

The document doesn’t explicitly lay out a U.S. retreat from the globe, but it does call for increasing burden sharing among allies, elevating American economic interests and access to critical supply chains, and “unleashing” American energy production. 

Here are five takeaways from Trump’s national security strategy (NSS): 

Trump’s war in the Caribbean likely to heat up

Trump’s more than two-month military operation against suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean is likely to receive greater support as the NSS calls for the U.S. to readjust its global military presence to the Americas “and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”

Trump has framed U.S. military operations in the Caribbean as “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has singled out Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, indicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking, as a primary threat and said the U.S. could soon launch “land operations.”

While Venezuela is not named specifically, the NSS calls for “targeted deployments” to secure the U.S. border and “defeat cartels,” “establishing or expanding access in strategically important locations.” 

The strategy also focuses on Trump’s use of tariffs to dominate the region. But whether he holds such power is at the center of a case pending at the Supreme court.

“The United States will prioritize commercial diplomacy, to strengthen our own economy and industries, using tariffs and reciprocal trade agreements as powerful tools,” the document states.

And while the document does not explicitly call out China’s inroads in Latin America, the NSS says the U.S. should use its leverage in finance and technology to pull regional countries away from adversaries and underscore threats of reliance on those countries “in espionage, cybersecurity, debt-traps, and other ways.” 

Trump criticizes Europe as failing to deal with Russia

The NSS criticizes Europe’s “lack of self-confidence” in contributing to a deteriorating relationship with Russia — but does not address Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 or its campaign of sabotage, election interference and fomenting instability on the continent.

The NSS says the U.S. is the only power able to mediate between Europe and Russia to “reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”

The document further declares that the U.S. needs to “promote European greatness,” echoing a speech Vice President Vance delivered in Germany in February. 

“Washington is no longer pretending it won’t meddle in Europe’s internal affairs,” Pawel Zerka, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an analysis. 

“It now frames such interference as an act of benevolence (‘we want Europe to remain European’) and a matter of US strategic necessity. The priority? ‘Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.’”

Taiwan cheers US strategy on China

The NSS’s explicit recognition of protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty and security from external influence was welcomed by the foreign ministry in Taipei and likely reassures China hawks in Washington that the administration is not looking to abandon the island to Beijing. 

“The U.S. National Security Strategy affirms that deterring conflict over Taiwan is essential to the region and the world,” the Taiwan Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“A secure Taiwan anchors a stable Indo-Pacific, so we’ll continue to strengthen self-defense and contribute to peace and prosperity in the region.”

The NSS calls for the U.S. to preserve “military overmatch” to deter a conflict over Taiwan and says that “a favorable conventional military balance” is key to U.S interests in the region, although it stresses “burden-sharing” among America’s allies in the region.

It calls for continued pressure on Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia to increase defense spending.

“Regarding Asia, the focus on economics and deterrence are mainly sound,” Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute, wrote in an early reaction to the NSS. 

“Still, the idea that China’s strategy is about mutually fair trade flies in the face of the various criticisms that the document rightly makes about erroneous assumptions of the past,” he continued. 

American focus on Middle East to ‘recede’

Trump is working to draw down U.S. responsibilities in the Middle East, partly by focusing on increasing American energy exports and describing Iran and its proxy forces as greatly weakened following the 12-day war with Israel and U.S. strikes on nuclear sites. 

“But the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over — not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was,” the NSS states.

While Trump acknowledges “conflict remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic,” it paints a rosier picture of the region.

Jon Hoffman, research fellow with the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, welcomed a U.S. strategy to scale down its role in the Middle East but questioned whether the Trump administration has the political will to deliver on such a road map. 

“The past four presidents—two of which were Donald Trump—ran on a platform of less US involvement in the Middle East, yet pursued policies rooted in continuity, not change,” he wrote. 

“Washington remains entangled, trying to micromanage the region’s affairs. This approach will not realize the stated objectives of this NSS. Whether Trump has the political will to fundamentally change course in the Middle East remains to be seen.”

Draws partisan pushback from Democrats

Democrats were quick to slam Trump’s NSS as a dangerous outline of America’s retreat on the global stage that makes the U.S. and its allies weaker. 

“The world will be a more dangerous place and Americans will be less safe if this plan moves forward,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Armed Services Committee, wrote in a statement. 

“Among the many disturbing things are the blatant calls for social engineering, culture warfare, and interference with allied foreign governments and political systems. It’s an attack on freedom and individual liberty at home and abroad.”

Likewise, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the NSS “foreshadows setbacks – forsaking allies, throwing Ukraine under the bus, and abandoning key strategic goals and basic values. It will make America weaker, not safer. America first is America alone, and we’ll pay the price.” 

Some commentators were more measured.

The NSS “includes some threads of continuity from previous national security strategies and some major departures,” commented Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Military and Political Power.

“There are some laudable elements, some notable omissions, and some serious ‘say what?’ moments.”