Europe Asia News

The 33-page document extols Trump’s “America First” doctrine and sets out how the administration is reshaping U.S. foreign policy — from redirecting military resources in the Western Hemisphere to adopting an unprecedentedly confrontational posture toward Europe.

The strategy focuses on Trump’s call to “reorder” the U.S. military presence in the Western Hemisphere in order to counter what he describes as migration, drug trafficking and the rise of hostile forces in the region.

The document outlines plans for a larger Coast Guard and Navy presence in the region and for “deployments, including, when necessary, the use of lethal force to secure the border and defeat the cartels.” It frames this as part of the “Trump Choruses,” presented as a continuation of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, a presidential call for European powers to respect the U.S. sphere of influence in the West.

The document states: “As a condition for our security and prosperity, the United States must be the leading power in the Western Hemisphere; this condition allows us to project ourselves with confidence where and when we are needed in the region.”

This comes as the administration is waging a lethal campaign against ships alleged to be drug-running vessels in international waters; it has destroyed at least 23 ships and killed 87 people so far. Outside legal experts and some members of Congress have questioned the legality of this effort.

The European section of the strategy represents a more dramatic escalation, warning that European countries face an “economic downturn” that could be overshadowed by “the real and even more striking possibility of the erasure of civilization.”

The document says that “in the long term, within at most a few decades, it is quite likely that the majority of some NATO members will have become non-European countries,” raising “an open question” as to whether they will continue to view their alliance with the United States in the same way.

The administration’s strategy also argues that “the Ukraine war has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe’s external dependencies, particularly those of Germany,” and claims that “a large European majority wants peace, but this desire is largely not translated into policy because these governments are undermining democratic processes.”