Trump's New "America First" Security Strategy: What to Know

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - It's long been a key slogan for Donald Trump, but "America First" appears closer to reality than ever, after the release of a key US strategy document outlining the administration's foreign policy.

"In everything we do, we are putting America first," reads an introductory letter signed by the president in a recently-released 29-page document, titled "National Security Strategy of the United States of America."

It sets out the US strategy as being "pragmatic without being 'pragmatist,' realistic without being 'realist,' principled without being 'idealistic,' muscular without being 'hawkish,' and restrained without being 'dovish.'"

What is Donald Trump's new National Security Strategy?

The National Security Strategy (NSS) does not determine policy but rather sets out the government's foreign policy vision. It can, of course, be overtaken by world events. For example, as US foreign policy expert Andrew Payne points out, the 2022 version released during Joe Biden's tenure made no significant mention of the Middle East.

But the NSS has a clear impact on how government resources are allocated and gives foreign governments a steer on US intentions.

"Whether or not the administration itself follows the principles and priorities laid out here, it is about the best source available to policymakers overseas seeking clarity on the direction of travel of an administration that has so far been inconsistent and unpredictable," Payne, a research director at the international affairs think tank Chatham House, told DW.

What does the National Security Strategy document say?

As well as plenty of self-congratulation and a rejection of traditional US foreign policy, Trump lays out a much stronger "America First" blueprint than he did in his first NSS in 2017.

"After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country," the introduction states. "Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests."

As such, the broad strokes of the strategy are a move away from American intervention abroad, multilateralism and international bodies, and towards national self-determination, at least where that suits the US.

The NSS calls for the US to have:

• full control of its borders, 
• the "world's most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military," 
• "the most dynamic, most innovative, and most advanced economy" and 
• a "soft power" grip across the world for its own gain.

In global terms, it calls for a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, established in 1823 and concerned with self-determination for the US amid European intervention. It references preventing "an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East" and notes that ending the Russia-Ukraine war is a key goal, along with fighting drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, while calling for other nations to take on more of the burden in global matters.

The document also says Europe faces the "prospect of civilizational erasure," that some European countries will be "unrecognizable in 20 years or less" and questions whether they are "strong enough to remain reliable allies." 

The overall message of American isolationism is not always consistently applied. The NSS calls for US "preeminence" in the Western Hemisphere, and Latin America in particular, stating that: "We will reward and encourage the region's governments, political parties, and movements broadly aligned with our principles and strategy."

Is this a new foreign policy direction for the US?

While these strategic goals will not necessarily become policy, the explicit stating of them marks a sea change from the NSS released by Biden in 2022. Payne said it "represents a fundamental and explicit rejection of the national security strategies that have been developed since at least the end of the Cold War," before adding that: "It is clearest in what it is not: the traditional liberal internationalist orthodoxy that has sustained US grand strategy for decades."

It is, naturally, closer to Trump's last attempt in 2017. But for Dr. Rubrick Biegon, an international relations lecturer at the University of Kent in England, that's consistent with the broader changes in his second term.

"It does seem in keeping with the kind of shifts from Trump to Trump 2.0. I think that the strategy document is closer to Trump's idiosyncratic worldview than the 2017 one," he told DW, adding that this was partly because "Trump is more comfortable in his position this time around and has more of his own team around him, rather than establishment figures."

European reactions to US strategy: 'to the right of the extreme right'

In Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov welcomed the document as "largely consistent with our vision" and a "positive step."

Others in Europe were considerably more troubled. Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt said the document "places itself to the right of the extreme right".

The reaction from active European politicians has generally been to downplay the document. This is despite it doubling down on Trump's attacks on Europe at his UN speech earlier this year when he said: "Europe is in serious trouble. They have been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody has ever seen before."

Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said his country does not need "outside advice" after the NSS was released but that the US remained "our most important ally in the [NATO] alliance" before adding that: "I believe questions of freedom of expression or the organization of our free societies do not belong [in the strategy], in any case at least when it comes to Germany."

EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, struck a similar tone.

"I think we haven't always seen eye to eye on different topics, but I think the overall principle is still there," Kallas said. "We are the biggest allies, and we should stick together."

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