Trump’s new National Security Strategy boosts India partnership and refocuses power on the Americas |
President Donald Trump’s newly released National Security Strategy (NSS) lays out an assertive and wide-ranging vision of US global engagement, but with a striking focus that contrasts sharply with the priorities of previous administrations. While the document addresses global rivals and traditional regions of concern, it devotes exceptional attention to the Western Hemisphere and casts India as a cornerstone of Washington’s long-term Indo-Pacific calculus. The 33-page strategy, quietly published by the White House, offers one of the clearest windows yet into Trump’s foreign policy worldview in his new term – a worldview shaped by border security, resource competition, great-power rivalry, and a recalibration of alliances.
One of the most notable features of Trump’s strategy is its heavy emphasis on the Western Hemisphere. While previous administrations treated Latin America and the Caribbean as secondary theatres, Trump’s NSS frames the region as central to US national security. The rationale is blunt and, in some passages, unprecedented for such a formal strategic document: “border security is the primary element of national security.”
The strategy argues that the threats emanating “closest to home” – irregular migration, narcotics trafficking, transnational crime, and the encroachment of geopolitical competitors – require a larger US military, intelligence, and diplomatic footprint across the hemisphere. Trump makes the case that adversarial actors are seeking footholds in America’s neighborhood, a thinly veiled reference to China’s growing investments and political influence from Mexico to the Caribbean to South America.
This hemispheric focus aligns with Trump’s long-standing political priorities.........