Trump Reboots US National Security Strategy, Foreign Policy

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram  and Kuhaneetha Bai Kalaicelvan

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 16 2025 (IPS) - The new US National Security Strategy (NSS) repositions the superpower’s role in the world. Hence, foreign policy will be mainly driven by considerations of ‘making America great again’ (MAGA).

Changing course

The new NSS no longer presumes US world leadership and alliances based on values. It breaks with earlier post-Cold War foreign policy, upsetting those committed to its sovereigntist unipolar world.

Quietly released on December 4, it is certainly not an easily forgettable update of long-established positions, cloaked in obscure bureaucratic and diplomatic parlance.

Mainly drafted under the leadership of ‘neo-con’ Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio, it is already seen as the most significant document of Trump 2.0.

It asserts, “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.” Instead, foreign policy should now prioritise advancing US interests.

New priorities

The NSS implies the US will no longer be the world’s policeman. Instead, it will exercise power selectively, prioritising transactional rather than strategic considerations.

It emphasises economic strength as key to national security, rebuilding industrial capacity, securing supply chains and ensuring the US never relies on others for critical materials.

Even if the Supreme Court overrules the President’s tariffs, the US has already secured many concessions from governments fearful of their likely adverse impacts.

The NSS is ostensibly based on MAGA considerations involving immigration control, hemispheric dominance, and cultural ethno-chauvinism.

Mainstream commentators complain it lacks the supposedly enlightened values underlying foreign policy in the US-dominated world order after the Second World War.

They complain the new NSS is narrow in focus, redefining interests, and sharing power. Its stance and tone are said to be more 19th-century than 21st-century.

Besides pragmatic imperatives, mixed messages may be due to unsatisfactory compromises among rival factions in Trump’s administration.

MAGA foreign policy

Long-term observers see the NSS as unprecedented and blatantly ideological.

White supremacist ideology influences not only national cultural politics but also foreign policy. The NSS unapologetically promotes Judaeo-Christian chauvinism despite the constitutional separation of church from state.

MAGA’s ‘America First’ priority is evident throughout. Border security is crucial as immigration is deemed the primary national security concern.

For Samuel Huntington, immigration threatens the US by making it less WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).

The NSS blames social and economic breakdown on immigration. Inflows into the Western Hemisphere, not just the US, must be urgently stopped by all available means.

Ironically, the US has long been a nation of immigrants, with relatively more immigrants than any European country. Its non-white numbers are almost equal to whites.

Trump’s neocolonial interpretation of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine emphasises the Americas as the new foreign policy priority.

Foreign rivals must not be allowed to acquire strategic assets, ports, mines, or infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean, mainly to keep China out.

Trump’s NSS prioritises the Western Hemisphere, with Asia second. Africa receives three paragraphs, primarily for its minerals.

Europe is downgraded to third, due to its ostensible immigration-induced civilizational decline. Surprisingly, the NSS urges halting North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) expansion.

China near peer!

The NSS policy on China is widely viewed as unexpectedly restrained. China remains a priority, but is no longer its primary antagonist; it is now a peer competitor.

Now, the US must rebalance its economic relationship with China based on mutually beneficial reciprocity, fairness, and the resurgence of US manufacturing.

The US will continue to work with allies to limit China’s growth and technological progress. However, China is allowed to develop green technologies due to US disinterest.

Meanwhile, US hawks have ensured a military ‘overmatch’ for Taiwan. The NSS emphasises Taiwan’s centrality to Indo-Pacific security and world chip production.

The NSS warns China would gain access to the Second Island Chain if it captured Taiwan, reshaping regional power and threatening vital US trade routes.

With allied support, the US military will seek to contain China within the First Island Chain. However, Taiwan fears US support will wane after TSMC chip production moves to the US.

The NSS expects the ‘Quad’ of the US, Australia, Japan and India to enhance Indo-Pacific security. For Washington, only India can balance China in Asia, and is hence crucial to contain China in the long term.

Regional reordering

The NSS also downgrades the Middle East (ME). Conditions that once made the region important have changed.

The ME’s importance stemmed from its petroleum and Western guilt over Israel. Now, the US has become a significant oil and gas exporter.

Critically, the US strike on Iran in mid-2025 is believed to have set back Tehran’s nuclear programme.

The ME seems unlikely to continue to drive US strategic planning as it has over the last half-century. For the US, the region is now expected to be a major investor.

As US foreign policy is redefined, the world worries. The ME has been downgraded as Latin America has become the new frontline region.

Much has happened in less than a year of Trump 2.0, with little clear or consistent pattern of continuity or change from his first term. But policies have also been quickly reversed or revised.

While the NSS is undoubtedly important and indicative, it would be presumptuous to think it will actually determine policy over the next three years, or even in the very near future.

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Available online at: Trump Reboots US National Security Strategy, Foreign Policy

Continued Inaction Despite G20 Report on Worsening Inequality

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram  and Kuhaneetha Bai Kalaicelvan

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov 26 2025 (IPS) - Although inequality among countries still accounts for a far greater share of income inequality worldwide than national-level inequalities, discussions of inequality continue to focus on the latter.

South African initiative

The G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality, chaired by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, was commissioned by South Africa’s 2025 presidency of the G20, the group of the world’s twenty largest national economies.

South Africa (SA) and Brazil, the previous G20 host, have long had the world’s highest national-level inequalities. However, their current governments have led progressive initiatives for the Global South.

Although due to take over the G20 presidency next year, US President Trump refused to participate in this year’s summit, inter alia, because of alleged SA oppression of its White minority.

Inequality growing faster

The G20 report utilises various measures to show the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

National-level inequality is widespread: 83% of countries, with 90% of the world’s population, have high Gini coefficients of income inequality above 40%.

While income inequality worldwide is very high, with a Gini coefficient of 61%, it has declined slightly since 2000, primarily due to China’s economic growth.

Meanwhile, wealth concentration has continued. Wealth inequality is even greater than income inequality, with the richest 10% owning 74% of the world’s assets.

The average wealth of the richest 1% grew by $1.3 million from 2000, accounting for 41% of new wealth by 2024! Private wealth has risen sharply since 2000, while public assets have declined.

Besides income and wealth, the report reviews other inequalities, including health, education, employment, housing, environmental vulnerability, and even political voice.

Such inequalities, involving class, gender, ethnicity, and geography, often ‘intersect’. The promise of equal opportunity is rarely meaningful, as most enjoy limited social mobility options.

The report thus serves as the most comprehensive and accessible review of various dimensions of economic inequality available.

Harmful effects

The G20 report condemns ‘extreme inequality’ for its adverse economic, political, and social consequences.

Inadequate income typically means hunger, poor nutrition and healthcare. Economies underperform, unable to realise their actual potential.

Inequality, including power imbalances, influences resource allocation. Such disparities enhance the incomes of the rich, often at the expense of working people.

Natural resources typically enrich owners while undermining environmental sustainability and social well-being.

The report argues that economic inequality inevitably involves political disparities, as the rich are better able to buy influence.

New rules and policies favour the rich and powerful, increasing inequalities and undermining national and worldwide economic performance.

High inequality, due to rules favouring the wealthy, also undermines public trust in institutions. The declining influence of the middle class threatens both economic and political stability, especially in the West.

Drivers of inequality

The report argues that public policy can address inequalities by influencing how market incomes are initially distributed and how taxes and transfers redistribute them.

Market income distribution is determined by asset distribution (mediated by finance, skills, and social networks) and among labour, capital, and rents. Returns to shareholders are prioritised over other claims.

Increased inequality in recent decades is attributed to weakened equalising policies, or ‘equilibrating forces’, and stronger ‘disequilibrating forces’, including wealth inheritance.

New economic policies over recent decades have favoured the wealthy by weakening labour via market deregulation and restricting trade unions.

Tax systems have become less progressive with the shift from direct to indirect taxes, lowering taxes paid by large corporations and the wealthy. Fiscal austerity has exacerbated the situation, especially for the vulnerable.

Financial deregulation has also generated more instability, triggering crises, with ‘resolution’ usually favouring the influential.

Privatisation of public services has also favoured the well-connected, at the expense of the public, consumers, and labour.

International governance

International economic and legal institutions have also shaped inequality.

More international trade and capital mobility have lowered wages, increased income disparities and job insecurity, and weakened workers’ bargaining power.

Liberalising financial flows has favoured wealthy creditors over debtors, worsening financial volatility and sovereign debt crises.

International inequalities have adverse cross-border effects, especially for the environment and public health.

Overconsumption and higher greenhouse gas emissions by the rich significantly worsen planetary heating.

International health inequalities have been worsened by stronger transnational intellectual property rights and increased profits at the expense of poorer countries.

International tax agreements have enabled the wealthy, including transnational corporations, to pay less than those less fortunate. Meanwhile, Oxfam reported that the top one per cent in the Global North drained the South at a rate of $30 million per hour.

Inaction despite consensus?

The report claims a new analytical consensus that inequality is detrimental to economic progress, and reducing inequality is better for the economy.

Inequality is attributed to policy choices reflecting moral choices and economic trade-offs. It argues that combating inequality is both desirable and feasible.

Recent research from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has criticised growing national inequalities.

However, there is no evidence of serious efforts by the G20, IMF, and OECD to reduce inequalities, especially inter-country, particularly between North and South.

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Available online at: Continued Inaction Despite G20 Report on Worsening Inequality

World Must Pay to Make America Great Again

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram 

MANILA, Philippines, Nov 11 2025 (IPS) - US President Trump’s economic strategy for his second term aims to get the rest of the world, especially its wealthy allies with greater means, to pay more to help strengthen the US economy.

Recent US initiatives have undoubtedly accelerated de-dollarisation but these have largely been unavoidable consequences of its own actions rather than due to any conspiracy by others to that end.

De-dollarisation distraction

Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff recently observed, “We are absolutely at the biggest inflection point in the global currency system since the Nixon shock to end the last vestige of the gold standard.”

After the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, the gold price was set at $35 per ounce. In August 1971, US President Richard Nixon ended this gold-dollar parity.

De-dollarisation has gradually continued since, with occasional brief spurts and reversals. For example, capital flows abroad rose following the 2008-09 global financial crisis.

Growing weaponisation of economic relations has probably accelerated de-dollarisation. Rogoff observed, “this was happening for a decade before Trump. Trump is an accelerant.”

Governments, central banks and BRICS countries have been de-dollarising. Even US dollar hegemony advocates no longer deny alternatives to the dollar’s role as global reserve currency.

Meanwhile, private foreign investors, including foreign asset managers, investment banks and pension funds, do not want to be left behind.

Investment fund managers are increasingly ‘de-risking’ by cutting exposure to dollar-denominated assets.

Mar-a-Lago plan

Economist Stephen Miran has proposed a new Trump initiative to require other governments to pay the US for services purportedly rendered.

First appointed chair of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, Miran has since been appointed to the US Federal Reserve Board.

A few days after Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs on April 2, Miran articulated five expectations. These expect other nations to pay the US for ‘public goods’ services it ostensibly provides the world.

Allies will be expected to pay the US more for the ‘security umbrella’ it provides to NATO and other allies. The US also expects those buying Treasury bonds to pay more for the ‘privilege’

In November 2024, Miran’s A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System proposed the Mar-A-Lago accord, named for Trump’s exclusive Florida island resort and residence.

He also referred to the Plaza Accord, which the Reagan administration imposed on its G5 allies in September 1985. Then, the US forced Japan and Germany to appreciate their currencies against the dollar.

The yen’s appreciation fuelled a massive Japanese asset price bubble that burst with devastating consequences in 1989, ending its post-war boom.

Trump now seeks the appreciation of other major currencies. Already, he has succeeded in getting his European allies to agree.

However, it seems unlikely that Trump will get China and other BRICS economies to do so, as they are aware of how the Plaza Accord affected Japan.

Century bonds

Other national monetary authorities buying US Treasury bonds to stabilise their own currencies have long caused dollar appreciation.

They are now expected to help depreciate the dollar. Miran has proposed that the US issue century, i.e., 100-year bonds, at very low interest rates, well below the current rates for US Treasury securities.

Miran wants foreign central bank reserve currency managers to sell off their dollar-denominated assets. They should “term out” their “remaining reserve holdings” and refinance short-term debt with long-term borrowings.

Miran is explicit: “The US Treasury can effectively buy duration back from the market and replace that borrowing with century bonds sold to the foreign official sector.”

His plan thus intends to force foreign holders of US government debt (‘Treasuries’) to extend the duration of their loans.

Very low interest rates for century bonds will ensure that foreign bondholders effectively pay the US more for the ‘privilege’ of borrowing dollars.

For Miran, the appreciation of other currencies against the dollar will also strengthen the American economy. US manufacturing will strengthen as its exports become more competitive.

Thus, his Mar-A-Lago accord plan expects other nations to pay more to strengthen the world’s largest and richest economy.

Miran’s Mar-A-Lago plan is not yet official US policy. However, this can change with Miran’s likely appointment as the next Fed chair, replacing Trump 1.0 appointee Jerome Powell.

BRICS de-dollarisation?

However, Miran’s declared plan to strengthen the US economy by depreciating the dollar against other major currencies has also accelerated de-dollarisation.

In recent years, the BRICS have been accused of conspiring to accelerate de-dollarisation worldwide, but this is certainly not a shared ambition.

Lacking significant trade surpluses, Brazil and South Africa have long advocated de-dollarisation. But Russia’s complaints have more to do with recent NATO weaponisation of financial instruments against it.

There is no comparable enthusiasm among other BRICS member states, which have much healthier trade surpluses and more dollar assets.

Its recent membership expansion will make an official BRICS de-dollarisation stance even more unlikely.

Nevertheless, Trump’s leadership relies on the American public believing the rest of the world is conspiring against them.

Available online at: World Must Pay to Make America Great Again