Trump NSS declares Europe faces "civilizational erasure," launches Monroe Doctrine for Western Hemisphere

The Trump administration released its 33-page National Security Strategy on Dec. 4, 2025 — the capstone foreign policy document every administration publishes to define its global priorities. The document was developed under National Security Advisor MWMike Waltz, who had been ousted on May 1, 2025, after 101 days following 'Signalgate': he accidentally added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to a classified Signal group chat discussing military strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently assumed the dual role of National Security Advisor — the first person since Henry Kissinger in the 1970s to hold both positions simultaneously.

The strategy's Europe section is its most provocative departure from any prior U.S. foreign policy document. It declares Europe faces 'the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure' due to immigration policies, declining birthrates, 'censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition,' and 'loss of national identities and self-confidence.'

It warns: 'Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.' The document explicitly endorses 'the growing influence of patriotic European parties' — a reference widely understood to mean France's National Rally, Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the UK's Reform Party — as 'cause for great optimism.'

The strategy calls for 'cultivating resistance within European nations' and characterizes the European Union as 'a source of regulatory suffocation and a threat to political liberty and sovereignty.' Critics immediately identified these phrases as justifying U.S. covert or overt support for far-right parties trying to break up the EU or undermine liberal democratic norms.

Former French Ambassador to the U.S. GAGérard Araud wrote on X that the Europe section 'reads like a far-right pamphlet.' Former Swedish PM CBCarl Bildt said the language 'one otherwise only finds coming out of some bizarre minds of the Kremlin' and placed the U.S. 'to the right of the extreme right in Europe.'

The NSS formalizes a 'Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,' explicitly invoking the 1823 doctrine that opposed European interference in the Western Hemisphere but now applies it to China. The strategy states the U.S. will 'deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.'

The primary target is China's $1.3 billion Chancay megaport in Peru — constructed by COSCO Shipping with a 60% Chinese stake and exclusive operating rights, inaugurated by XJXi Jinping in November 2024. Former U.S. Southern Command chief LRLaura Richardson had warned Congress the port could become a dual-use Chinese naval facility.

On cartels, the NSS calls for '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 designates the Sinaloa Cartel, MS-13, and Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, providing legal authority for military engagement on or near foreign soil. As of Dec. 4, the administration had already conducted 22 strikes killing 87 people on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific — operations conducted without formal Authorization for Use of Military Force from Congress.

NATO policy in the NSS is a study in simultaneous demand and skepticism. The strategy calls for 'ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance' — meaning no path to membership for Ukraine or 🍑Georgia — while demanding allies spend 5% of GDP on defense, more than double the previous 2% target.

NATO allies agreed at the June 2025 Hague Summit to reach 5% by 2035.

The NSS then warns: 'Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades, certain NATO members will become majority non-European. As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.'

On Ukraine, the NSS prioritizes 'an expeditious cessation of hostilities' and Ukraine's 'survival as a viable state' — language that represents a dramatic retreat from prior U.S. commitments to Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. The strategy calls for 'increasing diplomatic relations with Moscow to reestablish conditions for regional strategic stability.'

On China, the document makes economics the 'ultimate stakes,' dropping sweeping language about democracy versus authoritarianism in favor of seeking 'a mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing' based on 'reciprocity and fairness.' Taiwan deterrence remains a stated priority through 'preserving military overmatch,' but the ideological framing is conspicuously absent.

The NSS declares 'The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over' and elevates Latin America over Asia as the primary U.S. strategic theater — a reversal of the Obama, Trump I, and Biden 'pivot to Asia' strategies. Chinese policy experts characterized the Trump Corollary as 'New Monroism' and 'hegemonic exclusion.'

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences warned it 'forces Latin American nations to choose between sovereignty and development.' Vice President Vance's Feb. 14 Munich Security Conference speech — arguing Europe's principal danger came from 'the threat from within' rather than Russia or China — previewed the NSS and generated sharp pushback from German Chancellor OSOlaf Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.