Trump’s National Security Strategy Is Pax Americana With a MAGA Twist

Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy, which formalizes the ideological shift that U.S. foreign policy has taken under Trump 2.0, has won praise in Moscow but stunned European allies.

Indeed, the strategy document, which was published on December 4, 2025, sent political shock waves through the whole of Europe as European leaders and political analysts grasped how Trump’s radical reconception of U.S. foreign policy is now being applied to Europe and its leaders — namely, by reshaping Europe’s political landscape through open support for far right European parties.

Brando Benifei, a member of the European Parliament for the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and chair of the European Union’s (EU) Delegation for Relations with the U.S., responded by saying that the U.S., not the EU, is “going in a bad direction,” while French political analyst Sylvie Matelly described the section on Europe in the Trump’s strategy document as “three pages full of vitriol.”

Trump’s National Security Strategy holds a curious mirror to the U.S.’s younger imperialist self. It does so because it comes straight out of the trash can of fascist ideology and propaganda. It presents us with deconstructed fascism, imperialist aggression, and racist rage.

Trump’s National Security Strategy comes straight out of the trash can of fascist ideology and propaganda.

To start with, the National Security Strategy calls for the pursuit of aggressive policies throughout the Western Hemisphere. It invokes the Monroe Doctrine and adds a “Trump Corollary.” It is a call for a return to the classical age of imperialism, as the document states clearly that the strategic aim here is to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.” The Trump administration identifies migration, drugs, and China as the perceived main threats to the hemisphere, and the readjustment and expansion of U.S. military presence in the region are considered to be of the utmost importance for addressing these challenges.

Trump’s strategy document goes on to assert that rolling back outside influence in the Western Hemisphere requires the pursuit of such goals as “Enlist and Expand,” which entails enlisting governments and even political parties and movements in the Trump administration’s war against mass migration (which Trump frames as an existential threat to the security of the United States) and drug trafficking while also expanding partnerships between the U.S. government and various actors, and discouraging countries from seeking collaboration with others.

It will come as no surprise that in tandem with its call for military imperialism, Trump’s strategy also promotes economic imperialism. The National Security Strategy specifies that there needs to be “a closer collaboration between the U.S. Government and the American private sector” and asserts that the primary goal of U.S. officials in countries in the Western Hemisphere should be to “help American companies compete and succeed.”

In tandem with its call for military imperialism, Trump’s strategy also promotes economic imperialism.

Trump’s plan also identifies Indo-Pacific as a region of vital interest to the United States as it is “the source of almost half the world’s GDP based on purchasing power parity.” Subsequently, his National Security Strategy asserts that this inevitably makes the Indo-Pacific a site of major economic and geopolitical conflicts. The document further contends, however, that the U.S. can successfully compete in the Indo-Pacific region, and already does so, on account of possessing “the world’s strongest economy and military.” But it finds it necessary to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China” by bringing allies and adversaries into line with U.S. interests. In other words, it argues that countries in the Indo-Pacific region must be compelled, one way or another, to align themselves with the geopolitical and geoeconomic interests of the United States. After all, putting “America First” is the vision behind Trump’s plan, and the Indo-Pacific strategy revolves almost exclusively around China. There is no reference at all to the Philippines, while Japan, South Korea, and even India attract very little attention.

While the National Security Strategy downplays the Trump administration’s ideological differences with China, it does the exact opposite with regard to the U.S.’s European allies, skewering European leaders for their alleged unwillingness to protect their national identities and their “unrealistic expectations” for a solution to the war in Ukraine. After highlighting Europe’s economic decline, which is attributed to regulations, Trump’s strategy report attacks European governments as weak and ineffective, accusing leaders of pushing the European continent toward “civilizational erasure” due to mass migration.

Funnily enough given the Trump administration’s own blunt authoritarianism and open flirtation with fascism, his strategy document also accuses the European Union of “undermining political liberty” and engaging in “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition.” It’s a true statement, to be sure, but for the wrong reasons.

Across Europe, governments have been cracking down on protests and suppressing public resistance. But the problem is that the Trump administration actually wants to destroy liberal democracy, not expand it, and is keen to see far right parties in power across Europe implementing his immigration policies and promoting white supremacy.

President Trump has made no secret of his affinity for Hungary’s autocratic leader Viktor Orbán, who is hostile to immigration and LGBTQ rights, and who promotes an explicitly white and Christian vision for Hungary and Europe alike.

The alignment of Trump’s National Security Strategy with Europe’s far right is too obvious to miss. Indeed, as Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to the U.S., observed on X: “The stunning section devoted to Europe reads like a far-right pamphlet.”

But it gets worse. Trump’s strategy plan not only launches a direct attack on Europe and its institutions, which undoubtedly made Vladimir Putin do a dance, but also calls for direct interference in European political affairs. While labeling Europe weak and in decline, and criticizing European governments for their continued support for the war in Ukraine, the new security doctrine acknowledges that the continent remains strategically, economically, and culturally vital to the United States. As such, it asserts that the United States can “not afford to write Europe off” but “must help Europe correct its current trajectory.”

Naturally, given Europe’s traditional subservience to Washington, the reaction from most of the continent’s active political leaders has been to downplay the Trump administration’s new security doctrine.

A few European leaders, however, such as European Council President António Costa, reacted with dismay and warned against interference in Europe’s affairs. Nicolai von Ondarza, the head of the EU/Europe Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, went even further by saying that the new U.S. security doctrine not only represents “a fundamental shift in transatlantic relations” but leaves “open US backing for regime change” in Europe.

Trump’s National Security Strategy is loaded with imperialist aims while envisioning the creation of an authoritarian, neofascist world.

With regard to the Middle East, however, not only is there not the slightest hint at regime change, but Trump’s National Security Strategy calls instead for respect of the traditions and the “historic forms of government” of the Gulf states. The document also claims that the days when the Middle East dominated U.S. foreign policy are over and implies that the Trump administration has either resolved all of the major conflicts in the region or lessened their intensity, including the situation in Gaza. As surreal as this may be in light of the fact that the Israeli occupation and brutal violence continue, Trump’s strategy document asserts, with regard to Gaza, that the ceasefire represents “progress toward a more permanent peace.”

Trump’s foreign policy has been described by some mainstream analysts as representing the end of “Pax Americana” — the world order the United States constructed after World War II and the era of relative peace that followed under U.S. economic and military dominance. But in reality, the message behind the new U.S. security doctrine is that the Trump administration intends to keep U.S. capitalism in the global driver’s seat and that it will rely not only on diplomacy but also on military might to attain that goal. Moreover, it will interfere in the political affairs of European countries to assert on European soil the Trumpist goal of “restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.”

Trump’s National Security Strategy is loaded with imperialist aims while envisioning the creation of an authoritarian, neofascist world. Let’s call it Pax Americana with a MAGA twist.