The Trump 2025 National Security Strategy

Dated November 2025 and Released December 4

Selected Passages and Commentary

The Trump 2025 National Security Strategy is radically different from past annual National Security Strategy documents. Although it narrows core national interests, it is far more comprehensive on the economic and social environment necessary for renewed national energy and true national security. Immigration and the nation’s traditional family, moral, and spiritual strengths are rightly elevated to important aspects of national well-being and national security. Increased emphasis is given to economic, financial, and industrial strengths. It also rightly re-joins foreign policy and defense policy. Clausewitz (1780-1831), who wrote On War 1816-1831 and fought against Napoleon with the Russian Army at Borodino in 1812, would be pleased.

The date of this compilation and commentary is ironic: Sunday, December 7, an anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday,  December 7, 1941.

The 2025 National Security Strategy is 9,660 words, but I have selectively reduced it to slightly more than 2,500 words for introductory convenience.

“Peace Through Strength—Strength is the best deterrent. Countries or other actors sufficiently deterred from threatening American interests will not do so. In addition, strength can enable us to achieve peace, because parties that respect our strength often seek our help and are receptive to our efforts to resolve conflicts and maintain peace. Therefore, the United States must maintain the strongest economy, develop the most advanced technologies, bolster our society’s cultural health, and field the world’s most capable military.”

“Predisposition to Non-Interventionism—In the Declaration of Independence, America’s founders laid down a clear preference for non-interventionism in the affairs of other nations and made clear the basis: just as all human beings possess God-given equal natural rights, all nations are entitled by “the laws of nature and nature’s God” to a “separate and equalization” with respect to one another. For a country whose interests are as numerous and diverse as ours, rigid adherence to non-interventionism is not possible. Yet this predisposition should set a high bar for what constitutes a justified intervention”

“Balance of Powers—The United States cannot allow any nation to become so dominant that it could threaten our interests. We will work with allies and partners to maintain global and regional balances of power to prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries…”

“The Era of Mass Migration Is Over—No a country admits into its borders—in what numbers and from where—will inevitably define the future of that nation. Any country that considers itself sovereign has the right and duty to define its future. Throughout history, sovereign nations prohibited uncontrolled migration and granted citizenship only rarely to foreigners, who also had to meet demanding criteria. The West’s experience over the past decades vindicates this enduring wisdom. In countries throughout the world, mass migration has strained domestic resources, increased violence and other crime, weakened social cohesion, distorted labor markets, and undermined national security. The era of mass migration must end. Border security is the primary element of national security. We must protect our country from invasion, not just from unchecked migration but from cross-border threats such as terrorism, drugs, espionage, and human trafficking. A border controlled by the will of the American people as implemented by their government is fundamental to the survival of the United States as a sovereign republic.”

“Realignment Through Peace—Seeking peace deals at the President’s direction, even in regions and countries peripheral to our immediate core interests, is an effective way to increase stability, strengthen America’s global influence, realign countries and regions toward our interests, and open new markets. The resources required boil down to presidential diplomacy, which our great nation can embrace only with competent leadership. The dividends—an end to longstanding conflicts, lives saved, new friends made—can vastly outweigh the relatively minor costs of time and attention”

Pro-American Worker—Pro-American policy will be pro-worker, not merely pro-growth, and it will prioritize our own workers. We must rebuild an economy in which prosperity is broadly based and widely shared, not concentrated at the top or localized in certain industries or a few parts of our country.

Fairness--From military alliances to trade relations and beyond, the United States will insist on being treated fairly by other countries. We will no longer tolerate, and can no longer afford, free-riding, trade imbalances, predatory economic practices, and other impositions on our nation’s historic goodwill that disadvantage our interests. As we want our allies to be rich and capable, so must our allies see that it is in their interest that the United States also remain rich and capable…”

Competence and Merit--American prosperity and security depend on the development and promotion of competence. Competence and merit are among our greatest civilizational advantages: where the best Americans are hired, promoted, and honored, innovation and prosperity follow. Should competence be destroyed or systematically discouraged, complex systems that we take for granted—from infrastructure to national security to education and research—will cease to function. Should merit be smothered, America’s historic advantages in science, technology, industry, defense, and innovation will evaporate. The success of radical ideologies that seek to replace competence and merit with favored group status would render America unrecognizable and unable to defend itself. At the same time, we cannot allow meritocracy to be used as a justification to open America’s labor market to the world in the name of finding “global talent” that undercuts American workers. In our every principle and action, America and Americans must always come first.”

“Economic Security – Finally, because economic security is fundamental to national security, we will work to further strengthen the American economy, with emphases on:

Balanced and Fair Trade.

Securing Access to Critical Supply Chains and Materials.

Reindustrialization--The future belongs to makers. The United States will reindustrialize its economy, “re-shore” industrial production, and encourage and attract investment in our economy and our workforce, with a focus on the critical and emerging technology sectors that will define the future. We will do so through the strategic use of tariffs and new technologies that favor widespread industrial production in every corner of our nation, raise living standards for American workers, and ensure that our country is never again reliant on any adversary, present or potential, for critical products or components.”

Reviving our Defense Industrial Base—Strong, capable military cannot exist without a strong, capable defense industrial base. The huge gap, demonstrated in recent conflicts, between low-cost drones and missiles versus the expensive systems required to defend against them has laid bare our need to change and adapt. America requires a national mobilization to innovate powerful defenses at low cost, to produce the most capable and modern systems and munitions at scale, and to re-shore our defense industrial supply chains. In particular, we must provide our warfighters with the full range of capabilities, going from low-cost weapons that can defeat most adversaries up to the most capable high-end systems necessary for a conflict with a sophisticated enemy. And to realize President Trump’s vision of peace through strength, we must do so quickly. We will also encourage the revitalization of the industrial bases of all our allies and partners to strengthen collective defense.

Energy Dominance—Restoring American energy dominance (in oil, gas, coal, and nuclear) and reshoring the necessary key energy components is a top strategic priority. Cheap and abundant energy will produce well-paying jobs in the United States, reduce costs for American consumers and businesses, fuel reindustrialization, and help maintain our advantage in cutting-edge technologies such as AI… We reject the disastrous “climate change” and “Net Zero” ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States, and subsidize our adversaries.

Preserving and Growing America’s Financial Sector Dominance--The United States boasts the world’s leading financial and capital markets… Preserving and growing our dominance entails leveraging our dynamic free market system and our leadership in digital finance and innovation to ensure that our markets continue to be the most dynamic, liquid, and secure and remain the envy of the world.”

“The purpose of national security policy is the protection of core national interests—some priorities transcend regional confines. For instance, terrorist activity in an otherwise less consequential area might force our urgent attention. But leaping from that necessity to sustained attention to the periphery is a mistake.”

“Western Hemisphere: The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine--After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We 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. This “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests. As we deepen our partnerships with countries with whom America presently has strong relations, we must look to expand our network in the region. We want other nations to see us as their partner of first choice, and we will (through various means) discourage their collaboration with others…”

Commentary: The National Security Strategy seems to abandon the past de facto unrealistic and dangerous goal of global hegemony for hegemony in the Western Hemisphere—which will have its own controversies.

China—A favorable conventional military balance remains an essential component of strategic competition. There is, rightly, much focus on Taiwan, partly because of Taiwan’s dominance of semiconductor production, but mostly because Taiwan provides direct access to the Second Island Chain [that] splits Northeast and Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters. Given that one-third of global shipping passes annually through the South China Sea, this has major implications for the U.S. economy. Hence deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.”

Promoting European Greatness—American officials have become used to thinking about European problems in terms of insufficient military spending and economic stagnation. There is truth to this, but Europe’s real problems are even deeper. Continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP—down from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today—partly owing to national and transnational regulations that undermine creativity and industriousness.”

 “But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”

“The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”

 “As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

“This lack of self-confidence is most evident in Europe’s relationship with Russia. European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons. As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant U.S. diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”

“It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.

“The Ukraine War has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe’s, especially Germany’s, external dependencies. Today, German chemical companies are building some of the world’s largest processing plants in China, using Russian gas that they cannot obtain at home. The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis.”

“Yet Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States. Transatlantic trade remains one of the pillars of the global economy and of American prosperity. European sectors from manufacturing to technology to energy remain among the world’s most robust. Europe is home to cutting-edge scientific research and world-leading cultural institutions. Not only can we not afford to write Europe off—doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve.”

“Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, 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.”

Commentary: Seven priorities are listed for assuring European prosperity and stability including these two:

“Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”

“Ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance”

The Middle East: Shift Burdens, Build Peace--For half a century at least, American foreign policy has prioritized the Middle East above all other regions.”

Commentary: The Section on the Middle East is primarily on Israel and is over 7 percent of the 9,660 words and 37 pages of the 2025 National Security Strategy. This portion seems to indicate that the Middle East and Israel will no longer be a priority and favorable diplomatic relations will be spread more evenly between Israel and our other largely Muslim allies in the region, e.g. the Arab Emirates, etc.

Overall Commentary and Possible Trouble Spots:

The new U.S. Foreign Policy under Trump will concentrate on the two American continents possibly with a far more vigorous application of the Monroe Doctrine than Monroe himself intended. This could lead to conflict with Brazil especially, which is a growing  global economic power and member of BRICS. There are many other possible conflicts in the region including Venezuela, Colombia, and others. The Strategy also lists the Golden Dome Missile Shield as a priority—depending on the cost, this could be controversial. The commentary on Europe may not be popular with the present German, French, British, and Belgian regimes, but it is accurate and absolutely necessary. These unpopular European leaders and Neocon members of the U.S. Congress will not be happy with the comments on Ukraine, but they will soon have to embrace the reality of misguided intelligence agency agendas and delusions.

The 9,660 word version:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

“A strong character is one that will not be unbalanced by the most powerful emotions.”
― Carl von Clausewitz, On War.