By Charles A. Ray
(FPRI) — The first official National Security Strategy (NSS) of the second Trump administration, dated November 2025 and publicly issued in early December 2025, is a document that some will hate and some will love. But many will scratch their heads in bewilderment as they try to determine what it means for global security for the next three years, and perhaps beyond. The new strategy, based on a doctrine of “Civilizational Realism” and “Hard Sovereignty,” completely reimagines America’s role in the world, rebuking the idea of global leadership through alliance networks, trade integration, and the promotion of democratic values. It paints a picture of the United States as a country “under siege,” not just from foreign adversaries like China but also from “internal subversion” and a crisis of cultural identity, completely obliterating the post-Cold War consensus that shaped American foreign policy for over 70 years.
While the new strategy does address foreign issues, the principal focus is on the survival of the United States as a “sovereign republic,” emphasizing the nation-state as the only legitimate political unit and rejecting supranational obligations. The primary external focus is on what the strategy terms “The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” a revival of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine with a specifically anti-Chinese and anti-Russian focus, and an aim to restore absolute American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.
Regarding Europe, the NSS echoes the rhetoric of European nationalist and nativist movements, warning of the “stark prospect of civilizational erasure” in Europe, due to mass migration, the regulatory suffocation imposed by the EU, and the European suppression of far-right speech and protests. The use of the term “civilizational erasure” echoes the “Great Replacement” theory, often used by nativist elements in Europe and the United States. It also warns of reduced US support for NATO if other NATO allies don’t spend 5 percent of GDP on defense, which is more than double the previous 2 percent target that many nations have struggled to meet, and that is 1.5 percent higher than the US percentage of GDP on defense spending during peacetime. It also calls for a halt to NATO expansion, which aligns with Russian demands. Neither of these proposals is likely to go over well with our European allies, especially the statement that nations like Germany or Belgium would lose Article 5 protection if they fail to meet the funding threshold. The document criticizes European leaders who support Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression, declaring that a “swift end to the war” is a vital US interest and implying a settlement based on Ukraine ceding occupied territory to Russia in exchange for an end to hostilities.
The Indo-Pacific is identified in the NSS as the main theater for future American power, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the primary rival. The competition, though, is defined as economic rather than ideological, and enshrines economic nationalism as a core component of national security, rejecting globalism and free trade. It codifies the tariff policies introduced by previous executive orders, with a universal baseline tariff of 10 percent on all imports and higher, punitive tariffs targeted at countries with large trade surpluses with the United States.
The Middle East and Africa, especially Africa, are given short shrift in the NSS, with the adoption of a policy of transactional realism that ends the era of nation-building and human rights conditionality. Under the new strategy, the United States will accept the regions, their leaders, and their nations, “as they are.” This indicates US acceptance of authoritarian partners, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), that prioritize stability and energy security over political reform.
The NSS views Africa as a “battleground for resource competition with China,” focusing on critical minerals essential to the energy transition and the defense industrial base. While this means that specific US initiatives in Africa will receive attention, the continent as a whole, and the issues inhibiting social, political, and economic development, will be ignored. The Lobito Corridor, a railway project to transport minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to the Atlantic coast, will be supported, bypassing Chinese-built routes. Efforts to resolve conflicts, such as the DRC-Rwanda conflict and the civil war in Sudan, will be undertaken to achieve the stability required for resource extraction. And the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) will be repurposed to focus on reciprocal trade agreements.
The aforementioned notwithstanding, a review of the NSS leaves the impression that Africa is viewed as an asset in the supply chain, with no regard for the continent’s social and economic development, even though it will constitute 25 percent of the global population by 2050. The transactional emphasis on commercial interests is short on details describing how the NSS goals will be accomplished. In a 33-page document, Africa is relegated to a half-page at the very end.
The ongoing conflict in Sudan is an example of long on rhetoric but short on specifics. President Donald Trump has written on social media that Sudan “has become the most violent place on earth” and opined that he and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had talked about using Saudi influence to stop the war. Given that both sides in the conflict are supported by US partners, it’s not at all clear how the United States will play a role in ending it. The United States would have to put pressure on countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which would seem to conflict with the policy of accepting nations and leaders “as they are.”
The United States brokered a “peace deal” between the DRC and Rwanda in June 2025, which was “finalized” in a formal signing ceremony in Washington, DC, on December 4. But fighting continues in the eastern DRC, where the minerals in the US-DRC minerals agreement are located.
The NSS is silent on the implementation details for ending both of these conflicts.
The NSS says nothing about two of the most significant developments in US-African relations during 2025: increased tensions with the continent’s two largest economies, South Africa and Nigeria. While these two conflicts—the one in South Africa relating to unsupported claims of persecution of the white Afrikaner minority and South Africa’s actions toward Israel; and in Nigeria, more unsupported claims of persecution of Christians—have nothing to do with America’s competition with China for influence in Africa, they have the potential to impact that competition by driving these two countries closer to China. This could also influence other countries on the continent—in particular, those countries that, because they have no resources of interest to the United States with its transactional, “make commercial deals” policy, are ignored.
At the beginning of the Trump administration, a research paper by the African Narratives think tank, based in Cairo, predicted that a second Trump administration was likely to adopt a hardline approach to US-African relations, undoing the progress made by previous administrations. The administration’s actions from the outset, including withdrawing from international climate agreements, imposing punishing tariffs and stricter immigration policies, and ending development aid, have validated the think tank’s concerns about the administration’s approach, and the NSS has further supported this view. While the NSS is not law, and Congress still can modify some of these policy positions using the power of the purse—if it chooses to do so—some of the damage has already been done. Africa has always been the lowest priority in American strategic thinking, and this NSS only solidifies that, with a vengeance. Its transactional approach, treating Africa as a resource base, and its willingness to commit military force to protect commercial interests but not to provide resources for human development are likely to alienate a large number of African nations. Cozying up to the continent’s autocrats risks exacerbating tensions, setting back progress toward more representative governance, and driving more of the continent into the arms of China, which will only imperil US national security in the long run.
The focus on the use of military force to deal with Africa’s extremist problem, without addressing the underlying issues that cause extremist groups to form, is a continuation of a failed policy from previous administrations and a waste of resources.
The only positive outcome of the NSS, and even that’s not certain, is that it could inspire the nations of Africa to accelerate actions to solve the continent’s problems internally, and develop more self-sufficiency. That would be a win for Africa, but the United States risks alienating a large portion of the continent and could find itself on the outside looking in when it comes to exerting influence on a more unified Africa.
- About the author: Charles A. Ray, a member of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Africa Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, served as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Republic of Zimbabwe.
- Source: This article was published by FPRI
