The White House has released President Donald Trump‘s 2025 National Security Strategy, outlining an “America First” blueprint to safeguard US territory, economy, and military dominance amid rising threats like migration, cartels, and foreign espionage.
The document, which charts a roadmap for the US’ security plan moving forward, highlighted the need for American “pre-eminence” in the Western Hemisphere, according to Al Jazeera.
What’s in the documents?
The 33-page document prioritised homeland security, economic reindustrialisation, and a robust nuclear deterrent, including next-generation missile defences dubbed the “Golden Dome”, according to the White House.
Trump’s plan emphasises protecting against military attacks, predatory trade, drug trafficking, and cultural subversion while building the world’s most lethal military and dynamic economy through tax cuts, deregulation, and energy unleashing.
It targets grand-scale IP theft, supply chain vulnerabilities, and fentanyl precursors, particularly from China, advocating containment of its global ambitions alongside fair trade reciprocity. The strategy pushes reindustrialisation to control supply chains and bolster the middle class, contrasting sharply with multilateral alliances.
Key differences from Biden’s 2022 strategy
Biden’s National Security Strategy, released October 12, 2022, framed a world entering a “new era of competition” between democracies and autocracies, with China as the “pacing challenge” and Russia as an “acute threat.”
The 48-page document pursued three strategic moves: investing in U.S. strengths like infrastructure and technology; building coalitions via alliances such as NATO, AUKUS, and Quad; and shaping 21st-century rules on tech, cyber, trade, and climate.
It integrated all national power, diplomacy, defence, economic statecraft, to protect Americans, expand prosperity, and defend democratic values against coercion and aggression, according to NSA Archives.
Trump’s version downgrades China from “primary threat,” redirects focus to border security and cartels via enhanced Coast Guard/Navy presence, and invokes a modern Monroe Doctrine for the Western Hemisphere, proposing lethal force against cartels and reduced Middle East commitments.
It urges Europe to shoulder more Ukraine burden-sharing and Indo-Pacific allies to deter Taiwan conflict, rejecting Biden’s emphasis on climate, democracy promotion, and equity in global engagement, according to the official document.