According to Foreign Policy magazine as soon as the report
was released on November 2025, Donald Trump’s first National Security Strategy met
with an expected wave of criticism. The document, an attempt to turn Trump’s “America First” instincts into a foreign policy doctrine,
had failed to align ambitious ends with ways and means; to prioritize among
objectives; and to convey actual presidential intent. Those criticisms are
well-founded.
The document claims that President Trump single-handedly
reversed more than three decades of mistaken American assumptions about China:
namely, that by opening our markets to China, encouraging American business to
invest in China, and outsourcing our manufacturing to China, we would
facilitate China’s entry into the so-called “rules based international order.”
This did not happen. China got rich and powerful, and used its wealth and power
to its considerable advantage. American elites—over four successive administrations
of both political parties—were either willing enablers of China’s strategy or
in denial.
A Norwegian diplomat Mr Erik Solheim summed up the strategy on
X: “Dominate the Americas, respect China, undermine Europe, ignore India,
retreat from the Middle East, dont give a damn for Africa. These are the true
headlines of the new US National Security Strategy released this week. The
Strategy is the first official US acknowledgement that the US can no longer run
the world. A US retreat from global dominance is welcome and overdue. The rest
of us must rise to the occasion and shape the new world order.”
There is no mention of Afghanistan or Pakistan in the whole Trump 2.0 world view paper.
In the Indo-Pacific region, both allies and adversaries can
clearly see the messages conveyed in the National Security Strategy (NSS)—the
United States is dedicated to enhancing extended deterrence in the area while
reminding its Indo-Pacific partners that Washington anticipates they will
increase their military contributions to this deterrence.
According to the Atlantic Council, the document places
greater emphasis on China and Taiwan. For instance, some analysts are already
suggesting that the change from the previous NSS’s phrase “oppose any
unilateral changes” to “does not support any unilateral change” regarding the
status quo in the Taiwan Strait represents a softening stance, even though the
new NSS describes this as a “longstanding declaratory policy.” Concerned
readers should focus instead on the NSS’s unequivocal directive to “reinforce U.S.
and allies’ capacity to deny any attempt to seize Taiwan or create a balance of
forces that is so unfavorable to us that defending the island becomes
impossible.” This language is stronger than in any prior NSS concerning
Taiwan's defense.
Equally noteworthy is the recent context: the president’s
signing of the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act and the announcement of a
$330 million package for advanced U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
In a similar vein, South Korean concerns about North Korea
being mentioned seventeen times in the first Trump administration’s NSS but not
at all in this one are unfounded. It is clear that Pyongyang has not been a top
priority for Washington since the inconclusive Hanoi summit in 2019; however,
the United States is reaffirming its alliance with South Korea and remains
committed to deterring threats from the North.It says: “The Indo-Pacific is
already the source of almost half the world’s GDP based on purchasing power
parity (PPP), and one third based on nominal GDP. That share is certain to grow
over the 21st century. Which means that the Indo-Pacific is already and will
continue to be among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds.
To thrive at home, we must successfully compete there—and we are.”
President Trump recalled signing major agreements during his
October 2025 travels that further deepen their ties of commerce, culture,
technology, and defense, and reaffirm their commitment to a free and open
Indo-Pacific.
The report says that “President Trump is building alliances
and strengthening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific that will be the bedrock of
security and prosperity long into the future.
“Since the Chinese economy reopened to the world in 1979,
commercial relations between our two countries have been and remain
fundamentally unbalanced. What began as a relationship between a mature,
wealthy economy and one of the world’s poorest countries has transformed into
one between near-peers, even as, until very recently, America’s posture
remained rooted in those past assumptions.
“China adapted to the shift in U.S. tariff policy that began
in 2017 in part by strengthening its hold on supply chains, especially in the
world’s low- and middle income (i.e., per capita GDP $13,800 or less)
countries—among the greatest economic battlegrounds of the coming decades.
China’s exports to low-income countries doubled between 2020
and 2024. The United States imports Chinese goods indirectly from middlemen and
Chinese-built factories in a dozen countries, including Mexico. China’s exports
to low-income countries are today nearly four times its exports to the United
States.
When President Trump first took office in 2017, China’s
exports to the United States stood at 4 percent of its GDP but have since
fallen to slightly over 2 percent of its GDP. China continues, however, to
export to the United States through other proxy countries.
Trump says going forward, he will rebalance America’s
economic relationship with China, prioritizing reciprocity and fairness to
restore American economic independence. “Trade with China should be balanced
and focused on non-sensitive factors. If America remains on a growth path—and
can sustain that while maintaining a genuinely mutually advantageous economic
relationship with Beijing—we should be headed from our present $30 trillion
economy in 2025 to $40 trillion in the 2030s, putting our country in an
enviable position to maintain our status as the world’s leading economy.
“Our goal is to lay the foundation for long-term economic
vitality accompanied by a robust and ongoing focus on deterrence to prevent war
in the Indo-Pacific. This combined approach can become a virtuous cycle as
strong American deterrence opens space for more disciplined economic action,
while more disciplined economic action leads to greater American resources to
sustain deterrence in the long term.”
The document persuades to improve commercial (and other)
relations with India to encourage New Delhi to contribute to Indo-Pacific
security, including through continued quadrilateral cooperation with Australia,
Japan, and the United States (“the Quad”). “Moreover, we will also work to
align the actions of our allies and partners with our joint interest in
preventing domination by any single competitor nation.”
The United States must at the same time invest in research
to preserve and advance our advantage in cutting-edge military and dual-use
technology, with emphasis on the domains where U.S. advantages are strongest.
These include undersea, space, and nuclear, as well as others that will decide
the future of military power, such as AI, quantum computing, and autonomous
systems, plus the energy necessary to fuel these domains.
The United States must execute robust diplomatic and private
sector-led economic engagement in those countries where the majority of global
economic growth is likely to occur over the coming decades, the report says.
America First diplomacy seeks to rebalance global trade relationships.
“We have made clear to our allies that America’s current
account deficit is unsustainable. We must encourage Europe, Japan, Korea,
Australia, Canada, Mexico, and other prominent nations in adopting trade
policies that help rebalance China’s economy toward household consumption,
because Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East cannot alone absorb
China’s enormous excess capacity.
“The exporting nations of Europe and Asia can also look to
middle-income countries as a limited but growing market for their exports.
China’s state-led and state-backed companies excel in building physical and
digital infrastructure, and China has recycled perhaps $1.3 trillion of its
trade surpluses into loans to its trading partners. America and its allies have
not yet formulated, much less executed, a joint plan for the so-called “Global
South,” but together possess tremendous resources.
“President Trump’s May 2025 state visits to Persian Gulf countries demonstrated the power and appeal of American technology. There, the President won the Gulf States’ support for America’s superior AI technology, deepening our partnerships. America should similarly enlist our European and Asian allies and partners, including India, to cement and improve our joint positions in the Western Hemisphere and, with regard to critical minerals, in Africa.
“With the world’s deepest and most efficient capital
markets, America can help low income countries develop their own capital
markets and bind their currencies more closely to the dollar, ensuring the
dollar’s future as the world’s reserve currency.
“A national security strategy is, therefore, essential.
Deterring Military Threats In the long term, maintaining American economic and
technological preeminence is the surest way to deter and prevent a large-scale
military conflict. A favorable conventional military balance remains an
essential component of strategic competition.
“There is, rightly, much focus on Taiwan, partly because of
Taiwan’s dominance of semiconductor production, but mostly because Taiwan
provides direct access to the Second Island Chain and splits Northeast and
Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters. Given that one-third of global
shipping passes annually through the South China Sea, this has major
implications for the U.S. economy. Hence deterring a conflict over Taiwan,
ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.
“We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy
on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral
change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. We will build a military capable
of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain. But the American
military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone. Our allies must step up
and spend—and more importantly do—much more for collective defense.
“A related security challenge is the potential for any competitor to control the South China Sea. This could allow a potentially hostile power to impose a toll system over one of the world’s most vital lanes of commerce or—worse—to close and reopen it at will. Either of those two outcomes would be harmful to the U.S. economy and broader U.S. interests. Strong measures must be developed along with the deterrence necessary to keep those lanes open, free of “tolls,” and not subject to arbitrary closure by one country.
“This will require not just further investment in our
military—especially naval—capabilities, but also strong cooperation with every
nation that stands to suffer, from India to Japan and beyond, if this problem
is not addressed.
“Given President Trump’s insistence on increased
burden-sharing from Japan and South Korea, we must urge these countries to
increase defense spending, with a focus on the capabilities—including new
capabilities—necessary to deter adversaries and protect the First Island Chain.
“We will also harden and strengthen our military presence in the Western Pacific, while in our dealings with Taiwan and Australia we maintain our determined rhetoric on increased defense spending. Preventing conflict requires a vigilant posture in the Indo-Pacific, a renewed defense industrial base, greater military investment from ourselves and from allies and partners, and winning the economic and technological competition over the long term.”
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