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The U.S. administration of Donald Trump quietly released its 2025 National Security Strategy recently. The new version excoriates the belief of “foreign policy elites” in the U.S. that “permanent American domination of the entire world” was in the best interest of the country. The document appears to announce to the world that the Trump administration is willing to give up the pursuit of global hegemony. However, it also says that the U.S. will build the world's most robust economic and industrial base while pursuing military and nuclear superiority.
Moreover, the report underlines the idea that the U.S. will safeguard its network of allies and develop “unmatched soft power.” It is a policy document that is full of contradictions, reflecting the enormous tensions in the U.S. between seeking a “post-hegemonic order” and maintaining its global dominance. Simply put, the Trump administration wants a “strategic contraction” but also an expansion in the meantime.As a wounded superpower, the U.S. is attempting to follow a strategy of “hiding strength and biding its time” — an approach designed to regain its power, consolidate its control of the Western Hemisphere and reshuffle its alliances. It's more of a strategic withdrawal in order to advance in the long run.
Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has become the main supplier of international public goods. Maintaining its global leadership has long been the core ideology of its foreign policy. But Trump and his staff have never disguised their dissatisfaction with the liberal international order and America's long pursuit of global hegemony. Trump believes that the U.S. role in maintaining the existing global order has harmed American interests. In his view, both the Democratic elites who hold to globalism and the neoconservatives within the Republican Party have misled U.S. foreign policy, wasted resources and neglected the real interests of the American people. As Ishaan Tharoo, a columnist on the foreign desk of the Washington Post, wrote of Trump: “He looks out at an international arena and sees a United States that has been asked to do too much, has been hoodwinked by its allies and exploited by its adversaries.”
Many senior officials in Trump's orbit are also promoting this idea. “The postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio remarked at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing in January 2025. According to Rubio, a “unipolar world” with the U.S. as the only superpower is a product of the Cold War, and the world will eventually reach back to multipolarity. In this new multifaceted world, America's policy goal must first be furthering its own interests, not serving as a global government to address global issues.In May last year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed that the Trump administration is not interested in “the moralistic and preachy approach to foreign policy of the past” and asserted that the president's approach is “grounded in common sense and national interests built on a willingness to work with others while respecting mutual self-interest.”
Against this backdrop, notable shifts have emerged in Trump's second-term assessment of the international order. The phrase “multipolar world” has become a key in Washington's foreign policy narrative. But the Trump administration won't accept an equal multipolar world. It continues to emphasize great power competition.During his commencement address to the graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy in May last year, U.S. Vice President JD Vance criticized past U.S. foreign policy for overlooking the real threat from other powers. “We're returning to a strategy grounded in realism and protecting our core national interests,” Vance said, adding that the nation should use its power more precisely in great power competition where core national interests are concerned rather than on protracted and futile efforts such as the exporting of democracy.
The new National Security Strategy reflects the Trump administration's admiration for power, interest-based logic and adherence to transactional negotiation. As it states, the U.S. cannot allow any nation to become so dominant that it could threaten its interests. Although this document does not explicitly describe China as a threat, it does mention China more than 20 times, revealing (between the lines) Washington's anxiety over the China challenge.China is believed to be a “near-peer,” and so economic and technological competition constitutes a central dimension of the China-U.S. rivalry. This strategy clearly articulates, for example, that deterring conflict in the Taiwan Strait is the top priority of the Trump administration and that the U.S. will interlink maritime security issues along the First Island Chain. This implies that the U.S. seeks to deepen linkages in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and the East China Sea and will expand its forward military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region. Not long after the strategy was released, the Trump administration announced more than $11 billion in potential arms sales to Taiwan.
The Trump administration claims a belief in “peace through strength” and anchors its national security strategy in competition for critical minerals, ports and dominance of waterways. The report details the “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” saying that the U.S. will ensure dominance over strategic resources in the Western Hemisphere, expand military relationships with countries concerned and cripple “hostile foreign influence” on Latin American states. Although it claims that the U.S. “stands for the sovereign rights of nations” and prefers nonintervention, Trump's cabinet has been increasing pressure on Venezuela, seeking regime change in that nation.
For Trump, acquiring key minerals and controlling strategic resources, including ports and waterways, are key to the “Make America Great Again” ideology and also key to the great power competition with China. In addition, the U.S. attaches importance to cooperation with Middle East countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which it deems helpful in keeping America in the leading position in AI and other high-tech areas.The document devotes only three paragraphs to Africa, expressing keen interest in energy resources and critical minerals. It promises to support American businesses in the development of nuclear energy, liquid petroleum gas and liquified natural gas technologies in Africa. The Trump administration underlines that it will partner with African states that are “committed to opening their markets to U.S. goods and services.” It has been reported that Rubio mentioned within his department that competing for dominance over all forms of energy and resources is a “centerpiece” of U.S. diplomacy.
There's no doubt that the 2025 National Security Strategy reveals many policy preferences of the Trump administration, such as attaching more importance to interests than values and downplaying the role of Europe. Nonetheless, this document in no way indicates that the U.S. will abandon its pursuit of global hegemony. Trump's cabinet attempts, pragmatically, to consolidate the foundation of U.S. power and reduce its burden in safeguarding the international order — thereby creating a low-cost hegemon.
