President Donald Trump delivered his most forceful critique of Europe yet in a new National Security Strategy released quietly early Friday.
The strategy lays out a sweeping recalibration of U.S. policy toward Europe, urging European governments to reclaim national sovereignty, restore open debate, secure their borders, and reduce reliance on what Washington calls the EU’s centralized bureaucracy in Brussels.
In the document, the president portrays Europe as an over-regulated, increasingly censorious bloc that has lost “self-confidence” and is facing “civilizational erasure” because of years of uncontrolled immigration.
The strategy makes clear that what critics label an “offensive against Europe” is, in Washington’s view, a necessary course correction aimed at European policies and institutions that American officials say are weakening liberty, border integrity, and cultural stability across the continent — and eroding the broader Western alliance.
It accuses Europe of leaning heavily on American power while refusing to take responsibility for its own security and its long-term direction.
The new policy document argues that European institutions “undermine political liberty and sovereignty,” that speech restrictions and sweeping regulations suppress democratic discourse, and that immigration policies have fractured social cohesion, according to the text of the strategy.
It cites collapsing birth rates and fading national identities as evidence that Europe is heading toward a demographic and cultural breaking point.
“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” the document warns.
It adds that “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.”
European leaders pushed back almost immediately, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul telling reporters in Berlin that his country does not need “outside advice.”
France’s Valérie Hayer, who leads the Renew Europe centrist bloc in the European Parliament, called the strategy “unacceptable and dangerous” in a statement on X.
Evan Feigenbaum, a former adviser to two U.S. secretaries of state and an Asia expert, said in a post on X that “the Europe section is by far the most striking – and far more so than the China/Asia sections.”
He added that the strategy “feels inherently more confrontational and pits the U.S. as decisively opposed to the whole European project” through its call for “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”
The political friction between Washington and major European powers has been building for months.
Just weeks into the administration, Vice President JD Vance rattled European officials with a Munich Security Conference speech warning that freedom of expression was shrinking on the continent and aligning himself with voter movements such as Germany’s AfD that challenge entrenched political elites.
The new strategy’s focus on restoring the primacy of nation-states reinforces that message, according to analysts who reviewed the document.
Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said in an on-the-record interview that “what the Trump administration is telegraphing through this national security strategy is that it wants to see an entirely different Europe.”
She said the document’s questioning of certain European governments’ legitimacy amounts to “significant political attacks” on longtime U.S. allies, even as the administration insists it aims to strengthen European security during the war in Ukraine.
The section addressing free expression is central to that critique, with the administration denouncing “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” in Europe, a charge spelled out directly in the National Security Strategy and referencing moves by several governments to curb the rise of right-leaning parties.
For months, U.S. officials have publicly accused Germany, the U.K., and France of allowing human rights and civil liberties to deteriorate, citing statements from senior administration figures and press briefings.
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