“The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within,” Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference, February 14, 2025.
America’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) marks an ideological and substantive shift in U.S. foreign policy. The administration of President Donald Trump is attempting to define a new “America First” foreign policy doctrine that is deeply pragmatic. It invokes the Monroe Doctrine but with a “Trump Corollary.” The agenda of previous administrations to spread democracy around the world through foreign military interventions is no longer the aim. Foreign policy choices will be made based on what makes the United States more powerful and prosperous. This is a truly pivotal moment in the way the US will navigate world affairs.
This NSS is a real, painful, shocking wake-up call for Europe. It is a moment of significant divergence between Europe’s view of itself and Trump’s vision of as well as for Europe. If Europe had any doubt that the Trump administration is fully committed to a tough love strategy, it now knows it with certainty. The administration is asking — demanding, really — that Europe polices its own part of the world and, most importantly, pays for it itself. The strategy—which has been long overdue—chastises Europe for losing its European character. The orientation behind the words seems to indicate that the US sees Europe as evolving into a rigid, intransigent, globalist entity. And the latter is apparent given the EU’s reaction to the new NSS as illustrated by Brussels and the establishment elite of France, Germany, Poland and the Baltics: one of shock and dismay as met Vice President JD Vance’s Munich speech.
The continent of Europe is plagued with immigration issues and a predilection towards censorship, according to the US president’s newly issued National Security Strategy (NSS).
Europe is facing potential “civilizational erasure” as EU policymakers encourage censorship, stifling of political dissent, and turning a blind eye to mass immigration.
The landmark and strongly worded document released on Friday says that while the EU is showing worrying signs of economic decline, its restive cultural environment and internal political instability pose an even greater threat.
The strategy cites as serious concerns EU-backed immigration policies, suppression of political opposition, curbs on speech, collapsing birthrates, and “loss of national identities and self-confidence.” It warns that Europe could become “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”
Over-regulation
The document argues that many European governments are “doubling down on their present path,” while the US wants Europe “to remain European” and abandon what it termed “regulatory suffocation.” The latter is an apparent reference to America’s push back against the EU over its strict digital market guidelines, which Washington claims discriminate against US-based tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday denounced the European Commission’s $140 million fine against Elon Musk’s social media platform X, calling it an attack on American tech companies and “the American people.”
Rubio wrote on X, “The European Commission’s $140 million fine isn’t just an attack on @X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments. The days of censoring Americans online are over.”
Rubio’s comments reflected others within the Trump administration, including Vice President JD Vance, who also posted on the social media platform that the Commission was punishing X for not engaging in censorship.
“The EU should be supporting free speech, not attacking American companies over garbage,” he wrote.
Immigration
Another one of Washington’s key objectives is “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” the paper adds.
Trump’s strategy notes that the rise of “patriotic European parties” offers “cause for great optimism,” in a reference to growing bloc-wide support for right-wing Euroskeptic parties calling for strict immigration limits.
The document proclaims that “the era of mass migration is over.” It argues that large inflows have strained resources, increased violence, and weakened social cohesion, adding that Washington is seeking a world in which sovereign states “work together to stop rather than manage” migration flows.
Normalizing relations with Russia
President Trump’s security strategy for the US also calls for a swift end to the Ukraine conflict and preventing further escalation in Europe.
To this end, the US has placed the restoration of normal ties with Russia at the center of its newly released National Security Strategy, presenting both aims as among America’s core interests.
The 33-page report outlining President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy vision was released by the White House last Friday.
“It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine,” the paper states, “in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
It notes that the Ukraine conflict has left “European relations with Russia… deeply attenuated,” resulting in destabilization of the entire region.
The report criticizes EU leaders for “unrealistic expectations” regarding the outcome of the conflict, arguing that “a large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy.”
The US, it says, is ready for “significant diplomatic engagement” to “help Europe correct its current trajectory,” reestablish stability, and “mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”
In contrast with the US national strategy during Trump’s first term, which emphasized competition with Russia and China, the new strategy shifts the focus to the Western Hemisphere and to protecting the homeland, the borders, and regional interests. It calls for resources to be redirected from distant theaters to challenges closer to home and urges NATO and European states to shoulder primary responsibility for their own defense.
The document also calls for an end to NATO expansion—a demand that Russia has repeatedly voiced, calling it a root cause of the Ukraine conflict, which Moscow views as a Western proxy war.
Overall, the new strategy signals a shift away from global interventionism toward a more transactional foreign policy, arguing that the US should act abroad only when its interests are directly at stake.
President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy puts the Western Hemisphere at the center of US foreign policy and revives the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, appending it with a “Trump Corollary.”
The document invokes the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine but pushes it further. It states that the US will block “non-Hemispheric competitors” from owning or controlling “strategically vital assets” in the Americas, including ports, energy facilities, and telecommunications networks. It describes the Western Hemisphere as the top regional priority, above Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, and ties that status to controlling migration, drug flows, and foreign influence before they can reach US territory—clearly a fundamental and much-needed break with the foreign policies of recent presidential administrations.