Crossing the Rubicon

Trump’s Strategy To End the American Century

Dear readers,

The White House has officially released the second Trump administration’s National Security Strategy. While I will soon be posting a longer examination of this document and its implications for American foreign policy in the coming years, I wanted to provide you all my initial read on the strategy given its major implications for the United States and the world as a whole.

Bottom line up front: the United States will be focusing on the Western Hemisphere for the foreseeable future while drawing-down our strategic presence in Europe and Asia. In place of promotion of democracy and defending the international order, the United States will now adhere to a policy of “flexible realism” and establish a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America. While this would mean aggressively limiting the presence of rival powers like China and groupings like BRICS from Latin America, this strategy would also imply that the United States would be quick to use military force in response to political developments in the region.

The National Security Strategy does not include language that would describe China as an adversary or a threat. Instead, the Trump administration describes China as a competitor in trade that must be grappled with economically to prevent a potential conflict. There is no change to the United States’ Taiwan policy. However, there is a statement that without further defense spending from Pacific allies like South Korea, Japan, and Australia, the United States will be unable to maintain a military balance with China, which would “make defending the island impossible”.

With regards to Europe, Washington’s goal is to simultaneously support “patriotic” parties in Europe that seek to undermine the EU, demand that European allies spend more on defense, and re-establish “Strategic Balance” with Russia on the continent. These three policy objectives are provided under the banner of “Promoting European Greatness” - despite the fact that they are not only contradictory but also undermine the security and political ties that have defined the European-American relationship for 60 years. The strategy also references NATO expansion, claiming that Washington will prioritize “Ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.” When coupled with recent reporting from Reuters that calls for Europe to take over leadership of the alliance in 2027, we can see that this all points towards America’s potential exit from the continent in the near future.

The 2025 National Security Strategy describes a withdrawal of American interests in the Middle East due to the unpopular nature of “forever wars” and the development of domestic energy production. Despite the continuation of hostilities by Hamas, the earlier exchange of prisoners between the Israeli military and Hamas is cited as the foundation for a future peace in the region. Curiously, the document outlines the need to pursue pragmatic relations with Gulf monarchies and to abandon any notion of democratization (referring to previous administrations’ “misguided experiment with hectoring these nations” on the topic of democracy).

This weekend I will provide a longer breakdown of the strategy. However, I think the vision outlined by the current administration represents a real crossing of the Rubicon in that the United States has signaled its intent to withdraw from the key regional alliances and abandon any notion of promoting democracy abroad or defending the liberal international order. We’re abandoning our allies and folding to our adversaries - the damage left by this strategy will take generations to mend.