Trump and the return of hemispheric nationalism

The Trump administration’s newly released National Security Strategy represents something far more consequential than another episodic shift in American foreign policy. What we’re witnessing is the formal codification of a worldview that rejects the animating premises of US grand strategy for the past three decades—and perhaps longer.

For those of us who have long questioned America’s endless interventions and the missionary zeal that has characterized Washington’s approach to the world since the end of the Cold War, there are elements in this document that resonate.

The explicit rejection of what the NSS calls the “fundamentally undesirable and impossible goal” of permanent American domination of the entire world is long overdue. The recognition that the Middle East need not dominate American foreign policy planning reflects a strategic realism that previous administrations lacked the courage to embrace.

But we must be clear-eyed about what this document represents. This is not a return to the prudent restraint of an Eisenhower or the calculated detente of a Nixon. Instead, we’re seeing the emergence of something altogether different: a transactional nationalism wrapped in the language of civilizational politics, combined with an assertive hemispheric interventionism that could prove as destabilizing as the global overreach it purports to reject.

The curious case of European “decline”

The NSS’s treatment of Europe is nothing short of extraordinary. The document warns of Europe’s “civilizational erasure” due to migration and declining birth rates, questioning whether future majority non-European NATO members would view their alliance with the United States in the same way.

The administration openly declares its intention to “cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations” and expresses optimism about the rise of what it terms “patriotic European parties.”

This represents a radical departure not just from Biden’s approach, but from every previous American administration’s relationship with Europe. We are no longer talking about burden-sharing disputes or trade disagreements.

The administration is explicitly aligning itself with right-wing nationalist movements against the democratically elected governments of allied nations, framing the issue in stark civilizational terms.

The irony is thick. An administration that claims to champion national sovereignty and non-interference announces its intention to actively meddle in European politics. An administration that decries the democracy promotion agenda of its predecessors embraces its own form of ideological intervention—just in service of a different ideology.

As someone who has criticized America’s hectoring of Middle Eastern allies about democracy and human rights, I must apply the same standard here. If we reject imposing liberal democratic values on Saudi Arabia or Egypt, what justifies promoting nationalist conservatism in Europe?

The principle of non-interference cannot be selectively applied based on whether we approve of the direction a nation is taking.

The “Trump Corollary” and hemispheric hegemony

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the NSS is its articulation of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The administration calls for a “readjustment” of US military presence toward the Western Hemisphere, including the use of lethal force against drug trafficking operations and a military buildup around Venezuela.

Here we see the fundamental contradiction at the heart of this strategy. The document criticizes past administrations for endless interventions and nation-building exercises, yet it proposes a potentially expansive military role in Latin America and the Caribbean. The administration that promised to end forever wars is conducting strikes on boats in international waters and contemplating regime change in Caracas.

The Western Hemisphere certainly deserves more attention in American strategic thinking than it has received in recent decades. But there’s a difference between constructive engagement with regional partners and the reassertion of hegemonic prerogatives through military force. The history of American interventionism in Latin America—a history the Monroe Doctrine helped enable—should give us pause about the wisdom of this approach.

Moreover, the economic logic is questionable. The NSS claims that reasserting hemispheric preeminence will help grow the US economy from 30 trillion to 40 trillion dollars in the 2030s. But economic growth depends on open trade relationships, technological innovation, and productive investment—not military dominance over neighboring countries.

If anything, heavy-handed interventionism in the hemisphere could undermine the commercial relationships the administration claims to prioritize.

The Middle East: right diagnosis, wrong prescription?

The NSS’s discussion of the Middle East contains perhaps its most cogent strategic analysis. The recognition that America’s energy dependence on the region has diminished, that the obsessive focus on Middle Eastern conflicts has been disproportionate to actual US interests, and that hectoring Arab monarchies about their internal governance has been counterproductive—these are all valid points that reflect a more realistic assessment of American interests.

The problem is what comes next. The document suggests that the US should “encourage and applaud reform when and where it emerges organically, without trying to impose it from without.” This sounds reasonable until you realize it means turning a completely blind eye to authoritarianism, so long as those regimes are willing to do business with Washington and maintain ties with Israel.

There’s a middle ground between neo-conservative crusading and pure realpolitik. We can acknowledge that America cannot and should not try to remake Middle Eastern societies while still maintaining some consistency in our principles.

The administration’s approach—simultaneously condemning European governments for their immigration and speech policies while cozying up to Gulf monarchies with far more restrictive social systems—suggests that principle matters less than transactional advantage.

China: the dog that didn’t bark

What’s most striking about this NSS is what it de-emphasizes. Unlike previous strategies from both Trump’s first term and the Biden administration, competition with China is not front and center. Instead, the document talks about maintaining a “mutually advantageous economic relationship” based on “reciprocity and fairness.”

This could represent a welcome dose of realism. The previous bipartisan consensus on China policy—treating Beijing as an existential threat requiring comprehensive confrontation—was leading toward a new Cold War that neither country could afford and the world couldn’t sustain. A more balanced approach that seeks to manage competition while maintaining economic ties makes strategic sense.

But here, too, the administration’s logic seems driven more by immediate economic concerns than by a coherent long-term strategy. The NSS barely mentions the ideological dimension of US-China competition, the technology rivalry or the regional security challenges in the Indo-Pacific beyond deterring conflict over Taiwan. This isn’t strategic restraint; it’s strategic agnosticism.

What’s missing: A coherent vision

The fundamental problem with this National Security Strategy is that it’s more a collection of grievances and transactional priorities than a genuine strategy. It knows what it’s against—the post-Cold War consensus, European weakness, illegal immigration, unfair trade practices. But what is it actually for?

The document speaks of American prosperity and power, but offers little vision of what kind of international order would best serve those interests. It rejects permanent global domination as a goal, but proposes assertive interventionism in the Western Hemisphere.

It criticizes alliances as ends in themselves, but provides no framework for when and how those alliances serve American interests. It celebrates national sovereignty, except when it comes to European nations whose political direction Washington disapproves of.

Previous National Security Strategies, whatever their flaws, attempted to articulate a vision of how American power could shape a more stable, prosperous, and peaceful world order. You might disagree with those visions—I certainly did with many aspects of them—but they represented attempts at grand strategy. This document reads more like a manifesto of grudges and grievances than a roadmap for American leadership.

The road ahead

Those of us who have advocated for restraint in American foreign policy face a dilemma. This administration claims to share our skepticism of endless interventions and our doubts about democracy promotion.

But the execution betrays the principles. You cannot champion non-intervention while conducting military strikes in the Caribbean. You cannot defend sovereignty while seeking to cultivate political movements against allied governments. You cannot claim to prioritize American interests while alienating the very partners whose cooperation those interests require.

What we’re witnessing is not strategic restraint but strategic incoherence dressed up in nationalist rhetoric. The challenge for genuine advocates of a more restrained foreign policy is to articulate an alternative that avoids both the overreach of the post-Cold War consensus and the transactional nihilism of the current approach.

America’s role in the world does need recalibration. The Middle East should not dominate our strategic thinking. Our European allies should shoulder more of their own defense burden. Trade relationships should be more balanced. But none of this requires abandoning alliances, embracing civilizational politics, or reasserting hegemonic control over our hemisphere through military force.

The tragedy of this National Security Strategy is that in rejecting one set of mistakes, it threatens to commit an entirely new set. The post-Cold War consensus deserved to be challenged. But this is not the answer. What we need is strategic restraint combined with principled engagement, not nationalist transactionalism combined with selective interventionism.

The question now is whether the gap between this document and the messy reality of international politics will force a recalibration—or whether we’re about to discover that the costs of this new approach match or exceed those of the old consensus it seeks to replace. History suggests the latter is more likely.

And that should worry anyone who cares about genuine strategic reform in American foreign policy.

Thisarticlewas originally published on Leon Hadar’s Global Zeitgeist and is republished with kind permission. Become a subscriberhere.