Excerpt From Heather Cox Richardson -
(you can go to her Facebook page to read the full daily synopsis that she provided for Friday, December 5.)
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December 5, 2025 (Friday)
Late last night, the Trump administration released the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America. It did so quietly, although as foreign affairs journalist at Politico Nahal Toosi noted, the release of the NSS is usually accompanied by fanfare, as it shows an administration’s foreign policy priorities and the way it envisions the position of the U.S. in the world.
The Trump administration’s NSS announces a dramatic reworking of the foreign policy the U.S. has embraced since World War II.
After a brief introduction touting what it claims are the administration’s great successes, the document begins by announcing the U.S. will back away from the global engagements that underpin the rules-based international order that the World War II Allies put in place after that war to prevent another world war. The authors of the document claim that the system of institutions like the United Nations, alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and free trade between nations that established a series of rules for foreign engagement and a web of shared interests around the globe has been bad for the U.S. because it undermined “the character of our nation.”
Their vision of “our country’s inherent greatness and decency,” requires “the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health,” “an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward to a new golden age,” and “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.”
Observers referred to the document as National Security Council Report (NSC) 88 and noted that it could have been written in just 14 words. White supremacists use 88 to refer to Adolf Hitler and “fourteen words” to refer to a popular white supremacist slogan.
To achieve their white supremacist country, the document’s authors insist they will not permit “transnational and international organizations [or] foreign powers or entities” to undermine U.S. sovereignty. To that end, they reject immigration as well as “the disastrous ‘climate change’ and ‘Net Zero’ ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threatened the United States, and subsidize our adversaries.”
The document reorients the U.S. away from traditional European allies toward Russia. The authors reject Europe’s current course, suggesting that Europe is in danger of “civilizational erasure” and calling for the U.S. to “help Europe correct its current trajectory” by “restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.” Allowing continued migration will render Europe “unrecognizable” within twenty years, the authors say, and they back away from NATO by suggesting that as they become more multicultural, Europe’s societies might have a different relationship to NATO than “those who signed the NATO charter.”
In contrast to their complaints about the liberal democracies in Europe, the document’s authors do not suggest that Russia is a country of concern to the U.S., a dramatic change from past NSS documents. Instead, they complain that “European officials…hold unrealistic expectations” for an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine, and that European governments are suppressing far-right political parties. They bow to Russian demands by calling for “[e]nding the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.”
In place of the post–World War II rules-based international order, the Trump administration’s NSS commits the U.S. to a world divided into spheres of interest by dominant countries. It calls for the U.S. to dominate the Western Hemisphere through what it calls “commercial diplomacy,” using “tariffs and reciprocal trade agreements as powerful tools” and discouraging Latin American nations from working with other nations. “The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity,” it says, “a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.”
The document calls for “closer collaboration between the U.S. Government and the American private sector. All our embassies must be aware of major business opportunities in their country, especially major government contracts. Every U.S. Government official that interacts with these countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed.”
It went on to make clear that this policy is a plan to help U.S. businesses take over Latin America and, perhaps, Canada. “The U.S. Government will identify strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region and present these opportunities for assessment by every U.S. Government financing program,” it said, “including but not limited to those within the Departments of State, War, and Energy; the Small Business Administration; the International Development Finance Corporation; the Export-Import Bank; and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.” Should countries oppose such U.S. initiatives, it said, “[t]he United States must also resist and reverse measures such as targeted taxation, unfair regulation, and expropriation that disadvantage U.S. businesses.”
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