Werner Rügemer, writer and lecturer

In his National Security Strategy, US President Donald Trump calls for intervention by the “God-given nation” on all continents. He is (still) holding back against Russia and China, but vassals such as those in Europe are to bleed even more than they already do.

“Make America Great Again”: Trump has now summarized his campaign slogan in a comprehensive strategy. He presents himself as a peacemaker. But “peace” as in the Middle East is primarily a pretext for new investments. With his younger, more aggressive capital faction, which still has little global presence, he is looking for gaps in the globalization process to date. The major conflicts are being saved for later.1

Principles for renewed world leadership

“America, with its God-given natural rights… remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history and the home of peace on earth,” Trump’s memorandum begins. Following the mistakes of Democratic Party administrations—Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden—the US’s leadership position should not only be restored. Rather, in order to “make our country even greater than it has ever been,” Trump sets out the following guidelines:

• Military:

“To protect our national interests, we want the most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military in the world. We want to recruit, train, equip, and deploy it to prevent wars or, if necessary, win them quickly and decisively, with as few casualties as possible for our own forces.”

• Economy:

“We want the strongest, most dynamic, most innovative, most advanced economy in the world, the cornerstone of our global leadership and necessary for our military, with the most robust industrial base, including for military production.”

• Energy:

“We want the most robust, productive, and innovative energy sector in the world, not only for American economic growth, but also as one of our leading export industries.”

• Soft power:

“We want to maintain the United States as a unique ‘soft power’ with which we can exert our influence throughout the world in our national interest. Long-term national security is only possible with spiritual and cultural health, i.e., with religion, patriotism, family… To this end, we want to honor our glorious deeds and heroes and look forward to a new golden age.”

Modernization of the Monroe Doctrine

Trump refers to the Monroe Doctrine: He is updating it for the present.

In 1823, the US Congress adopted the “Monroe Doctrine,” named after then-President James Monroe. He was one of the founding fathers of the United States. The doctrine establishes the “prohibition of intervention by foreign powers”: The US, founded with 13 states on the east coast of North America and now expanded to 24 states, must not be hindered by other states in its further military, economic, and political expansion on North American territory towards the east coast, according to the doctrine! This was directed primarily against the European colonial powers of England and France.

“National interest” as understood by the US and according to the Monroe Doctrine therefore means that the US may expand beyond its existing territory by any means necessary, including military assistance. If other states attempt to prevent the US from doing so, war may be waged against them.

This also included the right to expropriate, expel, and, if necessary, kill the inhabitants of conquered territories, i.e., genocide: this was initiated in the wake of the Monroe Doctrine in 1830 by the Indian Removal Act.

It also included the right to wage war, for example against the state of Mexico, to take territories from it, to form new US states such as New Mexico, California, Utah, and Nevada, and to reintroduce slavery there, which had been abolished in Mexico.2

In summary: “National” security for the US means access not only to the US state, but to the entire world, in principle to all other states, and with practices that apply in the US itself.

The Department of Defense is once again called the War Department

Trump himself refers specifically to two important 19th-century US politicians who represent these structural US practices:

• Alexander Hamilton; he was one of the founding fathers of the US. He was the first Secretary of the Treasury, founded the first US bank, increased the national debt, and imposed tariffs on imports.
• William McKinley; this US president waged war against the colonial power Spain at the end of the 19th century; in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine, the US expanded to include the Philippines (US protectorate until 1945), Puerto Rico, and Guam (annexed by the US to this day), secured access to Cuba, occupied the island of Hawaii, and later made it another state.

Thus, since its inception, the US has been the only major country without a foreign ministry, but rather a state ministry: the “national interest” of the US government refers to every area of the world defined by the US itself.

For this reason, the US has also never had a Department of Defense since its founding, but rather a Department of War: it was only renamed the Department of Defense in 1947 as a euphemism for the wars and regime changes waged after World War II. But with the updated Monroe Doctrine, the Trump administration has renamed the department back to the Department of War, as it was in Monroe’s time and for most of its history.

The younger, more aggressive capitalist faction, with Trump as its political leader, is therefore not doing anything fundamentally new, but is simply expressing the traditional US practice more openly, returning to its roots and to the practices that have been in place for the longest time anyway.

That is why Trump’s National Security Strategy states that the “Cold War” is finally over. That is also why, for example, “development aid” is coming to an end: now it’s time to invest! That is also why the euphemistic babble of ‘defense’ is coming to an end: now it’s time for war again!

However, the “great war” is being scaled back for the time being. In the coming years, the vassals in Europe and Asia are to arm themselves, rearm themselves, and buy US military equipment to counter the most important adversaries, Russia and China. They are to be built up as US proxy warriors, as Ukraine and Israel have already been.

Penetration of the “Western Hemisphere”

“What do we want in and from the world?” Trump’s National Security Strategy continues. The answers are structured according to the most important US spheres of influence in the world and their order of importance.

First and foremost is the “Western Hemisphere.” These are the “rich countries,” traditionally known as the “West,” which has been led by the US since the end of World War II: militarily, but also with the presence of banks, corporations, foundations, consultants, agencies, and, last but not least, secret services.

These allies or vassals are supposed to support the US in the fight against “mass migration, drug terrorists, and other criminal organizations.” These are the directly right-wing narratives that also apply to the Trump administration in the US. In reality, however, the main issue is this: the “Western Hemisphere” should remain free from “enemy forces” gaining access to important property. And the US allies are to protect important supply chains and “secure permanent access to key strategic positions” for the US. On this basis, the US should be able to expand its multifaceted, comprehensive leadership position. The “hostile forces” are primarily China, which, however, is treated with caution and not mentioned by name out of pragmatic insight.

Trump has already shown his support for nationalist, reactionary, even fascist forces in his racist, nationalist, right-wing extremist group around Ukrainian President Zelensky, as well as in his fundamental support for the government of his most important political friend of three decades, his “Bibi” Netanyahu in Israel.

Merz & Co. submit to the most powerful right-wing extremist in the world

In Germany, Trump has lured the AfD, okay. Our broken mainstream media are getting upset about that. But Trump has long been pursuing his right-wing extremist realpolitik with Europe’s leading politicians, including Friedrich Merz/Germany, Macron/France, Starmer/England, Tusk/Poland, and Kaja Kallas and Ursula von der Leyen/EU:

• Doubling the defense budgets of European NATO members to five percent of GDP, with the help of extreme government debt and social cuts
• Deindustrialization with the relocation of parts of companies to the US, with high subsidies and low energy prices there
• Agreement to tariffs on cars, steel, and aluminum from Europe
• Even more purchases of US military equipment and expensive and extremely environmentally harmful US fracking gas
• Digitization of EU countries by large US digital corporations, which also pass on their data to US authorities and pay virtually no taxes in EU countries.

Submission to Trump’s Israel policy

And last but not least: strong support for the genocide and the policy of expropriation and expulsion of the racist, nationalist, fascist US proxy warrior Israel, and now also support for the fake Gaza “peace plan,” under which the expulsion, starvation, and killing of Palestinians continues, in Gaza and increasingly in the West Bank.

Europe: Not involved in Ukraine negotiations

The European US vassals are complaining that Trump is not involving them in the ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine. But that is the situation: the US has been preparing and financing this war for three decades, organized the definitive regime change in 2014, and has been waging the war ever since.

And the vassals who are now complaining agreed to this and have increasingly helped according to US specifications. The US, with British help, trained the military, supplied most of the weapons, and also decided which missiles would be supplied and which would not. And the US is also conducting Ukraine’s war operationally via US missiles in space, US intelligence agencies, and the Military Command in Wiesbaden.

Never heard of it, Mr. Merz?

The Asian vassals are also being used

Trump’s National Security Strategy puts the Indo-Pacific in second place: “The Indo-Pacific, with its central sea lanes, must be kept open and free” against “foreign actors who damage the American economy.” “Reliable supply chains” must be guaranteed, as must “access to critical materials.” To put it mildly, this is directed against China and linked to armament and investment by US allies in Asia.

The Trump administration is forcing Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines to increase their military budgets and invest in the US. These are the countries of the “first island chain” closest to China. Like the European NATO countries, they are to increase their military spending to five percent of GDP. They themselves are suffering from economic decline, as is Germany in particular in Europe, but are also expected to invest even more in the US. And they are to accept even more US military personnel, either directly or as advisors.

This also applies in a different way to Australia. Incidentally, the “German” arms manufacturer, whose leading shareholders now come from the US and which now operates most of its branches in the US, is building a new branch there for the construction of tanks adapted to local conditions.

Middle East: Greater Israel with Arab states

The National Security Strategy states in its third point on the Middle East: “We want to prevent an adversary from invading the Middle East, gaining access to its oil and gas reserves, and blocking the chokepoints of the sea lanes.”

This includes the transformation of the Middle East by Israel, which also expanded its existing occupation zone in Syria during the Gaza war and operates half a dozen military bases. Israel bombs Syria and Lebanon with or without US approval, and bombed Iran, which the US government escalated with Operation Midnight Hammer.

The Gaza “ceasefire agreement” orchestrated by Trump does not even bring about a ceasefire, has actually expanded Israel’s military occupation of Gaza, and does not recognize any Palestinian representation.

With the help of the Abraham Accords, Trump has gradually reconciled Gulf and other Arab and Muslim states with Israel (somehow) since his first term in office and ended support for the Palestinians. Continuing and completing what Democratic administrations in the US, with EU support, have been preparing for decades: Israel now exercises (proxy) “imperial power” in the Middle East after the Gaza war: Even the leading US media outlet, the New York Times, notes this: “‘Imperial Israel’ in the New Middle East”: “Israel’s reach extends almost everywhere, as it constantly bombs regional enemies.3

With the help of the US proxy warrior, the expanded Middle East is to be opened up as a new investment area: not only the Gaza Strip initially, but also the West Bank. Above all, however, the leading US digital, defense, energy, and tourism companies are active in the Gulf states. They have to say goodbye to oil and gas anyway, but are also investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the US. The US government agreed with the Prince of Saudi Arabia that his sovereign wealth funds would invest at least one trillion (in the US: “trillion”) dollars in the US, including in defense.4

From December 8 to 10, 2025, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) organized what it called “the world’s largest media event” at the palace of the oil company Adnoc, with 60,000 participants from 132 countries, including media representatives, PR agencies, and companies in the fields of digital media, gaming, music, and marketing, “to transform journalism” – certainly an urgent desire of Trump’s, and not only his.5

Global South: US even more aggressive

Trump’s memorandum states: “America and its allies have not yet developed a common plan for the so-called Global South, including with regard to its vast resources.” . It goes on to say that although Europe, Japan, South Korea, and others have invested seven trillion dollars there, and “multinational banks” have loans there, the US in particular has hardly any presence, and China has long since made inroads.

Traditionally, Latin America’s “backyard” is actually closest to the US empire. But according to Trump, the digital corporations promoted primarily by the Democratic Party and its governments have criminally neglected it in their globalization efforts. He now wants to make up for this as quickly as possible, selectively and uncertainly. The strategy statement does not provide any further details.

Panama Canal

Trump’s wish was relatively easy to fulfill: We want Panama back, it belonged to us for over 100 years! The first step was made possible by BlackRock, now the largest US investor. Although he was closely associated with the US administrations of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, and became big thanks to them, he quickly declared his support for Trump. BlackRock bought the two ports of the Panama Canal in early 2025, meaning that the fees end up in the US and the US controls passage through the canal.

Argentina: Billions in aid for chainsaw politicians

As in Europe and around the world, Trump seeks out nationalist, right-wing extremist, even fascist media, partners, and parties. For example, he promoted Elon Musk imitator and chainsaw neoliberal Javier Milei in Argentina: although the country is one of the most indebted countries after Ukraine, it received $20 billion in extra aid from the Trump administration that it would not have received from any bank.6

Venezuela: Military regime change

Venezuela’s development into a postcolonial, sovereign state, especially since President Hugo Chavez, has been opposed by all US administrations, with the help of NGOs in Venezuela as well as external sanctions, including the US-funded alternative president Guaido, who ultimately failed. Trump wants to depose the current president, Nicolas Maduro, and has offered a $50 million reward for his arrest.7 Conspiracy-practical pretext: Maduro is the drug lord of South America and thus threatens the “national security” of the US.

The US military has now sunk several ships and killed hundreds of people, including survivors of such attacks. In the annexed US territory of Puerto Rico, Trump has revived the military base and stationed thousands of soldiers there. The US secret services are involved. A military strike will be carried out as soon as it is considered promising.

The fact that the drug conspiracy is only a pretext is also confirmed in public: Trump has pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez. The former president of Honduras was abducted to the US and sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking. Now, after four years, he is a free man again—and a hoped-for accomplice of Trump in Latin America.8

Africa and peripheral regions

The Trump administration is also looking for further gaps in the current globalization process, in “peripheral regions” on all continents. Everywhere, the aim is to push back China. The exact measures are not mentioned at all in the strategy concept, especially here.

In Africa, the initial focus is on rare earths and other “critical minerals,” which are needed even more than before for the AI hype that has been greatly accelerated by Trump’s capitalists. The rising US proxy warrior, the United Arab Emirates—home to the Gulf Air Warfare Center, a US military base central to the Gulf region—is therefore supporting the terrorist paramilitary organization Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan.9

As in the well-known case of the Gaza “peace agreement,” Trump has developed a method of bringing together conflicting parties at short notice, proclaiming ‘peace’ or “ceasefire,” and thereby securing long-term investments for US companies in his circle—even if the conflicts continue. This applies, for example, to Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Trump has secured the long-term operation of the Sangesur Corridor. The same applies to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, India and Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo.10

The limits of Trump’s national global strategy

The vast majority of investors, entrepreneurs, speculators, and real estate sharks in Trump’s circle, many of whom are also represented in the government, have so far had little global presence. Elon Musk, who was briefly involved in the government, was an exception. Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner do have golf courses in Scotland and the Gulf states, as well as real estate in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. But they also want to catch up globally with large corporate investments. That is why they are looking for gaps, and that is why they are more aggressive.

But they are misjudging the situation, not in all cases, but in principle. Trump’s model of the unhindered rise of a great power in the 19th century, the direct combination of military, expropriation, investment, and regime changes in Latin America and then also in Asia’s backyard—that is nostalgia.

Sure, the UN, historically humanity’s greatest achievement for international order, has become increasingly helpless in all major wars and conflicts – but yes, above all because of the co-founder, the US itself. From the beginning, the US has increasingly waged its wars and regime changes alongside and also against the UN, with “coalitions of the willing” convened for each, or even without them. Trump was able to make fun of this so ostensibly during his appearance before the UN in September 2025 that even the otherwise Trump-obedient German mainstream media recognized the fakes.11

However, the “rest of the world,” which Trump mentioned in passing in his memorandum, has been gradually organizing itself for about three decades, even alongside the UN. The fact that the US did not succeed with the corrupt first head of government of post-socialist Russia, Boris Yeltsin, but is now confronted with an increasingly sovereign, important, and globally networked state under Putin’s successor government was one of the beginnings of the end of US hegemony. This was to be overturned with the US proxy warrior Ukraine – but even the Trump team now has to admit that this has not succeeded, and is trying to extract a few advantages from it at the expense of its European “friends.”

Above all, the non-military, economic, cooperative, rapidly expanding and deepening multipolarity with the formats BRICS, CELAC (Latin America), FOCAC (Africa), SCO (Asia), and EEF (East Asia) practice an alternative structure that the US can no longer counter – which makes it all the more dangerous.12

1 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, The White House, November 2025

2 For more details on the following, see Werner Rügemer: Verhängnisvolle Freundschaft (Fateful Friendship), 4th updated edition, Cologne 2024, pp. 12–89

3 ‘Imperial Israel’ in the New Middle East, New York Times November 28, 2025

4 Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Solidifies Economic and Defense Partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, The White House November 18, 2025

5 Bridge Summit Looks to Become the Largest Cross-Sector Media Event in the World, New York Times, November 28, 2025

6 Trump supports Milei with $20 billion, www.amerika21.de October 14, 2025

7 US doubles reward for Maduro’s arrest, tagesschau.de August 8, 2025

8 Pardon by Trump – Honduras’ former president released from prison, Der Spiegel December 2, 2025

9 Why is the UAE involved in Sudan’s bloody war? https://www.middleeasteye.net November 4, 2025

10 How many wars has President Trump really ended? bbc.com/news October 15, 2025

11 Trump at the UN General Assembly. A speech full of false claims, https://wwwtagesschau.de September 24, 2025

12 Werner Rügemer: Trump’s “America First” – A Change in US Strategy, World Marxist Review 2/2025, https://dx.doi.org/10.62834/8j5fth62

Dr. Werner Rügemer, Köln/Germany, interventionist philosopher, Member of the Council of World Association for Political Economy; member of the editorial board of World Marxist Review.  www.werner-ruegemer.de