The White House has released the 2025 National Security Strategy under President Donald Trump’s second administration, framing U.S. policy around an 'America First' doctrine, a renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere, and a sharper critique of Europe. The document presents his new term as the start of a “new golden age” for American power, sovereignty, and influence.
The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), issued by the White House during President Donald Trump’s second administration, sets out a plan to reshape U.S. foreign and security policy around an updated 'America First' approach. Coverage by outlets including The Daily Wire and major international newspapers describes the strategy as a break from post–Cold War assumptions and from the 2017 Trump-era NSS, with an emphasis on sovereignty, reduced global commitments, and reasserting U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
The new strategy opens with a broad narrative of U.S. renewal under Trump’s return to office, echoing themes from his 2025 inaugural address in which he pledged that a “golden age of America” was beginning and vowed to put America first every day of his administration.
The NSS criticizes previous U.S. leaders for overextending American power and resources overseas, arguing that past policies fostered economic dependence and weakened national sovereignty. According to reporting by the Financial Times and The Washington Post, the document broadens the definition of national security beyond traditional military threats to include concerns such as mass migration, demographic change, espionage, predatory economic practices, organized crime, propaganda, and what it describes as cultural or civilizational erosion in the West.
The strategy affirms that border control and immigration enforcement are central to national security and links domestic enforcement to efforts to reduce migration pressures abroad, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. This focus builds on the Trump White House’s early second-term messaging, which placed border security and action against cartels among its top priorities.
Militarily, the NSS calls for maintaining and modernizing U.S. nuclear forces and strengthening missile defenses, including the proposed "Golden Dome" system, a space-focused, multi-layered missile shield that Trump announced earlier in 2025. Separate reporting on Golden Dome describes it as a long‑term project intended to protect against ballistic and hypersonic missile threats, with costs and timelines subject to significant debate.
The document also stresses the need for more resilient critical infrastructure and improved defenses against cyber and other non‑traditional attacks. At the same time, it signals a desire to reduce some overseas military commitments, pressing allies to take on more responsibility for their own defense.
On the economic front, the NSS emphasizes reindustrialization, securing supply chains, and greater self‑reliance in energy, highlighting fossil fuels and nuclear power as key pillars of U.S. prosperity and leverage. It frames economic policy as an instrument of security, calling for protection of critical technologies and industrial capacity and for limiting foreign influence over strategic sectors.
The strategy calls for maintaining U.S. leadership in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, and advanced manufacturing. It ties this to a mix of regulatory changes and stronger protections for intellectual property, though detailed implementation steps are not fully spelled out in the public reporting on the document.
Culturally, the NSS links national strength to what it describes as a renewal of shared values, patriotism, and social cohesion rooted in families and civic institutions. It argues that foreign policy should be guided by clear national interests, a preference for peace through strength, and caution toward large‑scale, open‑ended interventions.
The document adopts a skeptical stance toward multilateral institutions and global governance frameworks, casting them as potential constraints on U.S. sovereignty. It calls for stricter reciprocity in alliances, including within NATO, and argues that partners should increase their defense contributions and assume greater responsibility for regional security.
Regionally, the NSS places the Western Hemisphere at the top of U.S. priorities. Multiple outlets report that the strategy invokes a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, signaling an intent to reassert U.S. primacy in the region, counter rival powers’ influence, and intensify efforts against drug trafficking and irregular migration. The document envisions a larger U.S. presence and influence in the Caribbean and Latin America, with tools ranging from security cooperation and Coast Guard deployments to trade and financial instruments.
In the Indo‑Pacific, the strategy continues to treat Taiwan’s security and the balance of power in the South China Sea as key interests. However, according to analyses in the Financial Times and The Washington Post, the new NSS generally portrays China more as an economic and systemic competitor than as an immediate military adversary, while giving comparatively less emphasis to Russia than previous U.S. strategy documents. It maintains existing U.S. security ties with partners such as Japan, India, and Australia but signals an overall desire to limit long‑term defense commitments.
In Europe, the strategy marks a sharp rhetorical shift. Press accounts note that the NSS warns of "civilizational erasure" on the continent, faults European governments over migration, demographic trends, and their handling of the war in Ukraine, and suggests that some NATO countries could become majority non‑European in coming decades. It accuses certain European leaders of ignoring domestic constituencies that favor a negotiated end to the conflict and suggests the United States should cultivate political forces in Europe that share Washington’s new priorities. European officials and analysts have sharply criticized this framing, describing it as an intervention in internal politics and a departure from longstanding alliance norms.
In the Middle East and Africa, the document appears to de‑emphasize democracy promotion and large‑scale military engagements. Instead, it stresses pragmatic partnerships in areas such as energy, trade, and security cooperation, while encouraging commercial ties and resource development over traditional aid models, especially in parts of Africa and the broader Global South.
Across all regions, the NSS presents a vision of a United States that seeks to shape stability and advance its interests primarily through what it describes as disciplined strength, economic leverage, and tighter control of its immediate neighborhood. Supporters argue that this approach corrects decades of overreach and restores focus on core American priorities, while critics contend that it undermines traditional alliances, downplays threats from Russia, and signals a retreat from global leadership.
