The U.S. government recently released the latest version of its National Security Strategy (NSS) with little fanfare. This is a highly significant document, as it reflects major shifts in the country’s strategic direction. The report signals a move away from the ambition to permanently dominate the world, and instead emphasizes a reordering of priorities centered on core national interests. The focus is shifting from a global pivot to one that seeks to strengthen ties within the Americas. These changes largely confirm the predictions made by the ANBOUND since 2024, which have highlighted trends such as the "Century of the Americas" and "Trumpism’s America First policy".

This heavyweight NSS report begins by directly stating that the U.S. has veered off course with its strategy over the past several decades. The report asserts that the post-Cold War goal of permanent global dominance, which has been championed by American elites, is both “undesirable and impossible”. It criticizes both Democratic and Republican elites, emphasizing that their ideas have been serious misjudgments that not only weakened the American middle class and harmed the country’s industrial base but also eroded national power, wealth, and civilization. In response, the report outlines a new direction that the U.S. will reverse these strategic errors, focusing resources on building the world’s most powerful, dynamic, innovative, and advanced economy, while also working to restore and revitalize the nation’s “spiritual and cultural health”.

The report also states in clear terms that Trump’s foreign policy is pragmatic without being “pragmatist,” realistic without being “realist,” principled without being “idealistic,” muscular without being “hawkish,” and restrained without being “dovish”. In short, it embodies an “America First” ethos. It reiterates that the political traditions established by historic documents such as the Declaration of Independence will continue to serve as the spiritual foundation of U.S. foreign and security policy. The basic orientation of American foreign policy will be to strike a balance between non-interventionism and real interests, using the nation’s own core interests and citizens’ rights as the ultimate frame of reference. This guiding strategic mindset is essentially a natural outgrowth of the broader trend toward deglobalization. From it, one can clearly see that the U.S. will adopt differentiated strategies across various regions of the world.

First, the new NSS elevates the strategic importance of the Western Hemisphere and introduces what it calls the “Trump Corollary”. According to the report, Trump plans to maintain a significantly larger U.S. military presence in the hemisphere to counter migration flows, narcotic-related problems, and the rise of hostile actors in the region. It states that the United States will reassert and enforce the historically significant Monroe Doctrine in order to restore its dominant position in the Western Hemisphere, safeguard homeland security, and secure access to key geographic locations. The report summarizes America’s goals in the hemisphere as “enlist and expand”, i.e., establishing itself as the region’s leading power and broadening cooperation networks to block extra-regional major powers from expanding their influence in Latin America. In this sense, ANBOUND’s earlier assessments about a coming “Century of the Americas”, including the rising importance of countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico in the global layout of U.S. capital, are effectively institutionalized in this document. The “Trump-era Monroe Doctrine” has now been formalized as Washington’s official American policy.

Secondly, in contrast to its policy posture toward the Western Hemisphere, the NSS report clearly downgrades and recasts the role of Europe. The language throughout the report highlights deep ideological rifts between the U.S. and Europe. It suggests that the two are heading down divergent paths and no longer share a common set of values. The NSS bluntly warns that Europe faces the grave prospect of civilizational decline due to its immigration policies and other internal challenges. It criticizes Europe’s governance choices and frames the top priority of U.S. policy toward Europe as helping “Europe correct its current trajectory”. Such phrasing strikes directly at the heart of Europe’s political and value sensitivities and echoes JD Vance’s public critiques of European progressivism at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year. The report’s treatment of the Ukraine issue is another notable point. It identifies a swift, negotiated end to the Ukraine crisis as a core interest of the U.S. and calls for rebuilding strategic stability with Russia. At the same time, it urges Europe to assume greater defense responsibilities and challenges the long-standing assumption of NATO as a permanently expanding alliance. Together, these statements signal a redefinition and recalibration of the traditional U.S.–Europe security relationship.

Next is the United States’ strategic posture in the Middle East and Africa. In the Middle East, the U.S. plans to scale back direct military involvement and encourage regional partners to assume greater security responsibilities, signaling the end of an era in which the region was treated as a top policy priority. The report emphasizes that the Middle East should no longer be seen as a place defined by conflict and crisis, but rather one characterized by partnership, friendship, and investment. Regarding Africa, the document advocates for a shift from traditional aid-driven engagement to cooperation centered on trade and investment, with a particular focus on energy and critical mineral resources to safeguard strategic supply chains. Notably, the report devotes relatively limited attention to both the Middle East and Africa, an indication of their declining geopolitical weight and of the United States’ broader strategic retrenchment amid a trend toward deglobalization.

Finally, when it comes to the section on China and Asia, compared with the NSS reports issued under the Biden administration and during Trump’s first term, this edition places greater emphasis on trade and economic issues rather than geopolitical rivalry. In the ranking of U.S. foreign-policy priorities, it is also evident that Asia now comes after the Western Hemisphere. The latest NSS states that, in order to rebalance the U.S.–China economic relationship, the U.S. will take measures such as ending “unfair” trade practices including intellectual property theft, curbing state-led subsidies and industrial policies, addressing supply-chain vulnerabilities related to critical resources such as rare earths, preventing the inflow of fentanyl precursors into the U.S., and countering ideological and cultural influence. The Trump administration also indicates that the U.S. will work with allies and partners—including Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and others to adopt similar trade policies and jointly “rebalance China’s economy toward household consumption” while “preventing domination by any single competitor nation”. The NSS further notes that, moving forward, the U.S. aims to “ensure that U.S. technology and U.S. standards—particularly in AI, biotech, and quantum computing—drive the world forward”.

Regarding the Taiwan issue, the NSS report mentions “Taiwan” eight times across three paragraphs. Reuters noted that the wording is stronger than that used during Trump’s first term, but distinct from that of the Biden administration in that it largely avoids indicating how the U.S. would respond to any future conflict. The report states that the Taiwan issue, particularly the implications for shipping routes in the South China Sea, has significant economic consequences for the U.S., making deterrence of a Taiwan Strait conflict a top priority. It also reaffirms the long-standing U.S. position of not supporting “any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait”.

It is worth noting that although the NSS softens its ideological confrontation with China at the rhetorical level, the U.S. still views China as a key competitor when it comes to geopolitical and economic interests in the Western Hemisphere. The emphasis on economic interests is unmistakable, aligning closely with the broader framework of the NSS, which prioritizes the Western Hemisphere and emphasizes an “Americas-first” policy. On one hand, the U.S. no longer seeks to exert comprehensive pressure on China across every global front. On the other hand, within what it defines as its core strategic depth, i.e., the Americas, the U.S. will be far more assertive in countering the expansion of Chinese capital and projects. This exclusionary posture is, of course, driven primarily by economic considerations.

From a chronological perspective, the newly released NSS contains little that is genuinely novel. Its main function is to present, articulate, reinforce, and emphasize policy tendencies that have already become evident over the past several years. Trump’s re-election, the Republican consolidation of domestic power, Vance’s public break with European progressivism at Munich, and the U.S.’ renewed policy focus on Latin America all form the practical foundations of this strategic document. Many of the earlier forecasts made by ANBOUND regarding “Trumpism” can, in fact, find direct echoes in this report. It is essential to recognize that the U.S. is no longer seeking to lead the world through unilateral power as it once did. Instead, it is shifting to a less ambitious posture, replacing global multilateralism with major-power relations, prioritizing leadership within the Americas, scaling back ideological proselytization in favor of maximizing concrete interests. While it does not necessarily balance China across every global domain, it is still likely striving to exclude China wherever maritime routes or Western Hemisphere strategic interests are involved.

We believe that the United States’ future strategic logic, pace, and priorities will revolve around this newly reshaped framework. It represents a concrete expression of Trumpism and is likely to become the dominant guiding principle within the continuing wave of American conservatism.

Final analysis conclusion:

The U.S. government’s newly released National Security Strategy report is a significant document that clearly reflects a major shift in its strategic focus. From abandoning the ambition of permanent global primacy to emphasizing a hierarchy of priorities centered on core national interests, and from spreading its commitments worldwide to re-consolidating the U.S. and the broader Americas, these changes largely confirm ANBOUND’s earlier forecasts and assessments regarding the coming “Century of the Americas” and the “Americas-focused policy” embedded in Trumpism.

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Zhijiang Zhao is a Research Fellow for Geopolitical Strategy programme at ANBOUND, an independent think tank.