Experts Comment on Trump's National Security Strategy

Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) experts unpack the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) for President Trump's second term.

Wendy Cutler — Senior Vice President, ASPI

The NSS underscores the growing bipartisan view that economic security is an integral part of our overall national security. However, the NSS frames economic security more in the context of reciprocity, fairness, and sovereignty instead of working closely with our allies and partners to achieve our objectives.

The China portion balances the need to become less reliant on China economically, while continuing to engage. The rest of Asia is given short shrift in this document, with more focus on Latin America and Europe.

Farwa Aamer — Director of South Asia Initiatives, ASPI

The 2025 U.S. NSS throws a lifeline to the Quad, signaling that Washington still sees India as an important player in keeping the Indo-Pacific secure and stable, even after a year without a leaders’ summit that drew in uncertainty about the future of the Quad. If the Quad needs an anchor going forward, the NSS points to it: critical minerals cooperation.

Interestingly, the NSS casts India not just as an Asian partner, but as someone the U.S. wants alongside in the Western Hemisphere and even Africa when it comes to critical minerals. Unsurprisingly, the NSS mentions the India–Pakistan May episode alongside other peace deals to convey that crisis management is now a central pillar of U.S. strategy. Any potential future escalation in the region may see a similar U.S. mediation action.

Emma Chanlett-Avery — Director of Political-Security Affairs, ASPI

The NSS released today appears somewhat divorced from Trump's recent moves in the Indo-Pacific. If deterring conflict over Taiwan is a priority, why no support from the White House for Takaichi's comments on Japan's role in defending Taiwan? If strengthening the Quad is important, why did Trump sabotage a Quad leader meeting by stoking tension with India?

A point of consistency? The NSS emphasis on pressing allies and partners to spend "far more" of their GDP on defense, enshrining 5% as a minimum. But much of the language on alliances indicates a shift from broad, comprehensive and values-based alliances to "targeted partnerships" on specific issues, as well as calls from U.S. leadership for allies to take "primary responsibility" for their neighborhoods.

To Asian allies and partners, the "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine makes it crystal clear: America's core foreign policy interests are in the Western Hemisphere. In Donald Trump's world, the U.S. has reversed the pivot.

Lizzi C. Lee — Fellow on Chinese Economy, ASPI's Center for China Analysis

The emerging NSS language appears to reposition China less as an overarching existential threat and more as a long-term economic and strategic competitor, reflecting both the realities of deep U.S.-China interdependence and the administration’s desire for room to negotiate on trade. The explicit statement that U.S. policy is “not grounded in traditional political ideology,” along with the absence of the usual “rules-based order” framing, suggests a shift toward a more pragmatic, interest-based approach rather than a values-driven one.

Lyle Morris — Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and National Security, ASPI's Center for China Analysis

What was most striking was the dichotomous signals on China regarding trade and defense issues. On trade, the eye-catching phrase was that the Trump administration believes in the possibility of a “mutually advantageous economic relationship with China,” despite rhetoric elsewhere in the document about China’s unfair trade practices. But on China’s military ambitions and policy towards Taiwan and the South China Sea, the NSS struck a more hawkish tone. For example, the document said "deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority."

On the South China Sea, it stated that “strong measures must be developed along with the deterrence necessary to keep those lanes open, free of 'tolls,' and not subject to arbitrary closure by one country.”

Finally, on U.S. policy towards Taiwan, the document underscored that the U.S. will “maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait."

In totality, and compared to the Biden administration’s NSS, which said the PRC “harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit,” this recent NSS appears to moderate a hard-edged approach to China, while maintaining military superiority over Beijing. The fact that it reaffirms the United States’ enduring policy towards Taiwan about maintaining the current status quo should ease fears in Taipei that Trump may be considering a change to U.S. policy in that regard.