The Trump administration says the United States will seek to "restore Europe's civilisational self-confidence and Western identity" as part of a sweeping new strategy document that reframes the US's proposed role in world affairs.
The document, released by the White House on Friday but dated November 2025, makes no mention of the AUKUS pact between the US, Australia and the UK, recently described as "historic and ambitious" by a Pentagon spokesperson.
Australia rates just three mentions overall: as a member of the Quad, as one of several countries that should be encouraged to reshape global trade with China, and as a target of American pressure to increase its defence spending.
The 2025 version of the US National Security Strategy — a distillation of foreign policy aims and principles undertaken by every administration during its first year in office — does address security issues in the wider Indo-Pacific region, which it says it intends to keep "free and open" through a "robust and ongoing focus on deterrence to prevent war".
"Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority," the document says, using stronger language than the first Trump administration did in 2017.
"We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain … we will also harden and strengthen our military presence in the Western Pacific."
China views Taiwan as its own, and Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
While the United States has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Washington is the island's most important international backer and is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.
The US will nevertheless maintain its longstanding policy of opposing any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, according to the document.
Europe must 'correct trajectory' on migration
Where this administration's aims differ vastly from those of its predecessors, however, is when it comes to Europe, which the document heavily criticises for its migration policies.
"[Europe's] economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure," the strategy says.
"Migration policies … are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
"Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less."
The document states America's goal should be to "help Europe correct its current trajectory" by standing up for "unapologetic celebrations of European nations' individual character and history".
"America is, understandably, sentimentally attached to the European continent — and, of course, to Britain and Ireland," it says.
"The character of these countries is also strategically important because we count upon creative, capable, confident, democratic allies to establish conditions of stability and security. We want to work with aligned countries that want to restore their former greatness.
"Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European."
The language in the new strategy has alarmed some of America's allies in Europe, who have pointed out that it echoes the talking points of European far-right parties, which have grown to become the main opposition to governments in Germany and France.
Indeed, the Trump administration praises the growing influence of what it calls "patriotic European parties", saying it gives "cause for great optimism" that the continent will be able to achieve a "revival of spirit".
Against the backdrop of Vice-President JD Vance's speech to the Munich Security Conference in February, urging Europeans to combat "the threat from within", and the Trump administration's increasingly extreme rhetoric against immigrants of colour in the United States, the strategy will particularly concern European leaders who fear the US is more concerned with preserving demographics than preserving democracy.
German foreign minister Johann Wadephul, a conservative, told journalists at a press conference on Friday that Germany did not want advice on how to organise its society "from any country or party".
The US is Germany's most important NATO ally, he said, but "questions like freedom of expression, freedom of opinion and how we organise our liberal society … are not part of that".
Carlo Calenda, a pro-EU, centre-left Italian senator, said on Friday that the document shows Mr Trump is an "enemy of Europe" and an "enemy of democracy".
"He's a bully, and you cannot face a bully by being warm and kind," he told The New York Times.
Strategy may undercut Ukraine talks
One foreign policy area where the new strategy may have an immediate impact is on America's support for Ukraine.
US and Ukrainian officials are currently negotiating in Florida over the wording of a peace proposal the two countries intend to put to Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.
A previous round of negotiations that took place in Geneva was hampered by reports that Russia overly influenced the agreement's initial wording.
The new strategy document says it is in the US's strategic interest to negotiate a quick resolution to the war raging in the country, adding that re-establishing "strategic stability" with Russia is a "core interest" of the United States.
"The Trump administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments," the document says.
"A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments' subversion of democratic processes."
Mr Trump has a history of making positive and admiring comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has long prompted criticism that he is "soft on Russia".
ABC/Reuters
