New Delhi: US President Donald Trump sees China as a threat, backs the US, Australia, India, and Japan’s Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), and wants Europe to stand on its feet, his new National Security Strategy shows.
The 33-page document presents the Trump administration’s foreign policy. The strategy document is typically released once each term to shape the US government’s policy priorities.
The White House quietly released the Trump National Security Strategy Thursday, with scathing words not only for China but also Europe, which the document claims is in ‘civilisational decline’.
On China, the document claims that President Trump “single-handedly reversed more than three decades of mistaken American assumptions about China” after the previous government’s idea to stop China’s integration into global markets and supply chains, which would apparently have encouraged it to adopt a “rules-based international order.” Instead, it argues, China “got rich and powerful” and used its gains strategically, while American elites across four administrations enabled or ignored Beijing’s ambitions.
Status quo on the Taiwan question
The strategy document places significant emphasis on deterring conflict over Taiwan, given its centrality to semiconductor production and its control of the Second Island Chain—an area that divides Northeast from Southeast Asia. With one-third of global shipping passing through the South China Sea annually, the consequences for the US economy would be profound, the document states.
It says that the US administration pledges to preserve military overmatch to deter any attempt to “alter the status quo by force”. It also reiterates America’s longstanding declared policy—no support for any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
With the Indo-Pacific now generating almost half of global GDP (PPP) and poised to dominate the 21st century, the strategy states that the region would remain “among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds”.
US prosperity, it argues, depends on competing successfully there. It highlights Trump’s October 2025 agreements with key Indo-Pacific partners, deepening ties in commerce, technology, culture, and defense. It also reaffirms the commitment of Washington, DC, to a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
“Trump is building alliances and strengthening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific that will be the bedrock of future security”, it says.
China, it warns, has adapted to US tariffs by tightening its grip on supply chains, especially in low- and middle-income countries, which are “among the greatest economic battlegrounds of the coming decades”. Beijing’s exports to low-income countries doubled between 2020 and 2024 and are now nearly four times its exports to the United States.
Although China’s direct exports to the US have fallen from four percent to just over two percent of its GDP since 2017, Beijing continues to ship goods into the US market through intermediary nations, including Mexico.
The strategy, therefore, is to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China”, ensuring reciprocity and reducing strategic vulnerabilities.
India & the Indo-Pacific economy
The strategy designates India as a critical partner in countering predatory economic practices and maintaining US global leadership.
“We must continue to improve commercial (and other) relations with India to encourage New Delhi to contribute to Indo-Pacific security, including through continued quadrilateral cooperation with Australia, Japan, and the United States (’the Quad’),” the document states.
The document calls for joint efforts with India, Europe, and Asian partners to strengthen positions in the Western Hemisphere and in Africa’s “critical minerals” sector, steering economic ties towards a “managed cooperation tied to strategic alignment”.
One major security challenge highlighted is the potential control of the South China Sea by a competitor, which could allow a hostile power to impose tolls or even close the region’s vital shipping lanes. Preventing this, the document argues, will require expanded US naval investment and coordination with every nation at risk, including India and Japan.
NATO & Europe’s future
The strategy’s language on Europe is sharp. It warns that within decades, “certain NATO members will become majority non-European” before outlining a US policy that prioritises reestablishing stability in Europe and maintaining strategic stability with Russia.
It focuses on enabling Europe’s operation as aligned sovereign nations, which are responsible for their own defense, encouraging resistance within Europe to its “current trajectory”, and opening European markets to US goods while ensuring fair treatment for American workers.
The document also mentions strengthening central, eastern, and southern European states through commercial ties, along with weapons sales and cultural cooperation, ending the perception of NATO as a “perpetually expanding alliance”, and pushing Europe to counter mercantilist overcapacity, tech theft, cyber espionage, and other hostile economic behaviours.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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