The new National Security Strategy for the United States released today by the Trump administration describes Europe as a continent in decline and warns that European nations are facing “civilisational erasure” because of immigration.
The strategy proposes to “cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations” in order that the continent “remain European”, “regain its civilizational self-confidence” and “abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”
Ireland was name checked along with Britain as countries on the European continent to which America is “understandably, sentimentally attached”.
“American officials have become used to thinking about European problems in terms of insufficient military spending and economic stagnation. There is truth to this, but Europe’s real problems are even deeper,” the strategy said.
“Continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP—down from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today—partly owing to national and transnational regulations that undermine creativity and industriousness.”
“But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that 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,” the strategy continued.
And the Trump administration claimed that “should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path.”
“We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation,” the strategy said.
It claimed that Europe’s “lack of self-confidence” is most evident in its relationship with Russia. “European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons. As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat.”
It was claimed that “managing European relations with Russia will require significant U.S. diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”
The Trump administration said it was a “core interest” for the United States to “negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.”
“The Ukraine War has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe’s, especially Germany’s, external dependencies. Today, German chemical companies are building some of the world’s largest processing plants in China, using Russian gas that they cannot obtain at home,” the strategy continued.
“The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. 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. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis.”
The strategy said that “Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States” and that “transatlantic trade remains one of the pillars of the global economy and of American prosperity. ”
“American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history. America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism,” it continued.
“Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory. We will need a strong Europe to help us successfully compete, and to work in concert with us to prevent any adversary from dominating Europe,” the U.S. Security Strategy spelled out.
“America is, understandably, sentimentally attached to the European continent— and, of course, to Britain and Ireland. 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. As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.”
The strategy said that the “broad policy for Europe” the following would be prioritized:
• Reestablishing conditions of stability within Europe and strategic stability with Russia;
• Enabling Europe to stand on its own feet and operate as a group of aligned sovereign nations, including by taking primary responsibility for its own defense, without being dominated by any adversarial power;
• Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations;
• Opening European markets to U.S. goods and services and ensuring fair treatment of U.S. workers and businesses;
• Building up the healthy nations of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe through commercial ties, weapons sales, political collaboration, and cultural and educational exchanges;
• Ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance; and
• Encouraging Europe to take action to combat mercantilist overcapacity, technological theft, cyber espionage, and other hostile economic practices.
Irish MEP Barry Andrews hit out at the strategy, saying “This new Trump US Security Strategy document is shocking” and adding “Europe, we need to wake up”.
After a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February this year, U.S. Voice President which he warned that “mass migration” was the most urgent threat to “our shared civilisation” and blamed an openness to non-European asylum seekers for terrorist violence in European cities, US Vice President JD Vance met with Alternative for Germany leader Alice Weidel – shunning Germany’s then-chancellor, Olaf Scholz.