In Washington, every new administration arrives with its own ideological coalition and inevitably produces a document verbalizing its ideas of U.S. national security policy. The latest version of the National Security Strategy (NSS), which was released by the Trump administration last week, is very much part of that tradition. More significant, however, is the way in which the document is a departure: If past strategy documents reflected minor variations on a broad post-World War II and post-Cold War foreign-policy consensus, this one marks a dramatic rupture from that consensus.
Whether the document is a reliable guide to U.S. President Donald Trump’s future actions is unclear. But it is undeniably an important milestone in the evolution of the domestic debate about the United States’ relationship with the world—one that captures the worldview of the MAGA movement and reflects the changing American mood. For Asia, the document offers a revealing window into how the second Trump administration understands the Indo-Pacific, treats U.S. alliances, assesses China, and imagines U.S. leadership in an era of geopolitical competition.
In Washington, every new administration arrives with its own ideological coalition and inevitably produces a document verbalizing its ideas of U.S. national security policy. The latest version of the National Security Strategy (NSS), which was released by the Trump administration last week, is very much part of that tradition. More significant, however, is the way in which the document is a departure: If past strategy documents reflected minor variations on a broad post-World War II and post-Cold War foreign-policy consensus, this one marks a dramatic rupture from that consensus.
Whether the document is a reliable guide to U.S. President Donald Trump’s future actions is unclear. But it is undeniably an important milestone in the evolution of the domestic debate about the United States’ relationship with the world—one that captures the worldview of the MAGA movement and reflects the changing American mood. For Asia, the document offers a revealing window into how the second Trump administration understands the Indo-Pacific, treats U.S. alliances, assesses China, and imagines U.S. leadership in an era of geopolitical competition.
For one, the NSS clearly reflects the now-familiar sentiments of MAGA nationalism—a blend of restraint, nationalism, and the rejection of the internationalist worldview with its universalist missions. The document calls for a strategy that is “not grounded in traditional, political ideology.” Instead, “it is motivated above all by what works for America—or, in two words, ‘America First.’”
The NSS wants to pivot away from the expansive ambitions of U.S. primacy and toward a narrower definition of national interest that is rooted in domestic renewal. For those foreign capitals that have long been resentful of Washington’s sermonizing, this shift marks a welcome ideological recalibration.
For Asia, however, the new NSS brings good news and bad.
The first positive element is that the document puts Asia—or the Indo-Pacific, in modern strategic parlance—at the very top of U.S. foreign-policy priorities outside the Western Hemisphere, which remains the core of Trump’s strategy. The focus on Asia marks continuity with the Obama administration’s pivot, the first Trump administration’s “free and open Indo-Pacific,” and the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. The rise of China and the region’s enduring economic dynamism make this inevitable. Equally significant is the reaffirmation that the United States will oppose the domination of Asia by a single power. This has been a long-running theme of U.S. grand strategy, and its restatement in the NSS will be welcomed in Asian capitals anxious about China’s expanding power.
Second, the Trump strategy spares Asia from the shockingly harsh criticism that it showers on Europe. The NSS scolds Europe for decadence, dependency, and liberal overreach; but it treats Asia with apparent strategic respect. The NSS speaks of limited and selective intervention in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, in contrast to the promise of muscular activism in Europe to “save Western civilization” from decline. This is not because Trump likes Asia more than Europe. Rather, the MAGA ideological battle is essentially an internal Western civil war about political values and the future of liberalism. Asia, for now, sits outside this quarrel.
Third, Asia is less vulnerable to American criticism of supranational governance. The European Union’s bureaucratic and regulatory powers draw MAGA’s ire; Asia, with its regional institutional deficit, now looks far more compatible with a Trumpian worldview centered on national sovereignty and transactional cooperation. The liberal, internationalist emphasis on human rights and social standards always played badly with most Asian governments—not only in China but also in democratic yet deeply nationalist societies across the region. For them, the “America First” ideology’s insistence on national sovereignty and its conception of the world as a community of independent states is eminently sensible.
Fourth, some Asian governments—above all, Beijing—have long distrusted the post-Cold War rhetoric of a rules-based international order. The phrase sounded comforting in Western capitals but appeared coercive or hypocritical in parts of Asia, not least because Washington did not always abide by the rules it articulated. Trump’s emphasis on pragmatism and interests—diplomacy as kommerzpolitik—resonates widely. Asian governments, suspicious of liberal rhetoric on norms, are comfortable with transactionalism. The competition among Asian states to cut deals with Trump during his tour of the region this past autumn was telling: A transactional United States is easier to understand, engage, and bargain with.
Fifth, many Asian states welcome Trump’s recognition of China as a near-peer competitor and his call for a “mutually advantageous economic relationship” with Beijing. A large part of Asia benefited immensely from the Sino-U.S. entente since the 1980s and is deeply uneasy about the prospect of a new Cold War. The widespread sentiment of not wanting to choose between Washington and Beijing finds comfort in Trump’s apparent willingness to reengage China as a near peer. For non-allies like India, Trump’s call for major states to shoulder greater regional responsibility creates openings for them to raise their own strategic profiles.
Yet this good news is offset by troubling elements in the NSS and the operational dynamics of Trump’s foreign policy. The region sees opportunity, ambiguity, and risk in equal measure.
First, while Trump’s emphasis on sovereignty and non-intervention is welcome, Asia is acutely aware of Washington’s structural temptation to meddle in the affairs of others. This arises not from principle but from power. Great powers intervene because they can—and because domestic political constituencies often demand it. Trump’s threats against South Africa and Nigeria underline the persistent American impulse to punish and coerce. Declarations of restraint will not eliminate that impulse.
Second, although kommerzpolitik resonates in Asia, Trump pushes well beyond ordinary transactionalism. His demands on Japan and South Korea for massive new investments came with terms that can only be seen as extortionist. Equally troubling were the conditions he imposed on trade deals with Malaysia and Cambodia during the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. These arrangements have little to do with respecting sovereignty; they reflect power asymmetry and pressure. Asian states may welcome transactionalism, but they resent coercive mercantilism.
Third, Washington’s abandonment of the rules-based order may please realists in Asian foreign ministries, but this abandonment also comes with costs. If the United States refuses to stand up for the territorial integrity of nations, Asia’s weak states will be at the mercy of the strong. U.S. pressure on Ukraine to cede territory to Russia as part of a peace settlement raises immediate concerns about U.S. willingness to confront Chinese expansionism. Smaller Asian states want broad, predictable rules—not because they are liberal idealists, but because rules protect the weak from the strong. Meanwhile, the U.S. retreat from liberal values will disappoint dissident groups and civil society movements that have looked to U.S. support when facing repression.
Fourth, Trump’s emphasis on economic engagement with China creates unease about the potential trade-off between commercial interests and security commitments. The NSS affirms the need to deter China’s aggression in the Western Pacific, but the tension between economic interdependence and military competition is real and rising. U.S. military supremacy will become harder to maintain as China’s power grows. Beijing’s ability to drive wedges between Washington and its Asian partners will increase. Trump’s demand for greater defense spending by allies may push some toward extreme solutions—including revisiting nuclear options. The region’s anxieties are amplified by the perception that China is steadily shifting the military balance in its favor.
Fifth, the intense discussion around the NSS’s language on Taiwan underlines the central geopolitical fault line in Asia. Yet semantic debates offer little guidance on how Trump or any other U.S. president might behave in an actual crisis. Much will depend on the regional situation and American domestic politics at that moment. Washington’s pushback against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi after her remarks linking a Chinese attack on Taiwan to Japan’s security is a warning sign. Even as Trump demands more from Asian allies, he offers less clarity on what the United States will deliver in return. The strategic ambiguity of the past is giving way not to commitments but to uncertainty.
On balance, Asia—unlike Europe—may have more time and space to adapt to the changes in U.S. strategy. But its challenges are far weightier. Unlike Russia, whose hard-power potential is limited relative to Europe, China towers over Asia. The region’s security will depend heavily on how Washington navigates its complex relationship with Beijing—a relationship marked by geopolitical competition and economic interdependence. Ambivalence in U.S. policy toward China could have cascading consequences across the Indo-Pacific.
Asia must adjust to this new reality, for it can do little to influence the trajectory of U.S. domestic politics or the strategic evolution of Trumpism. Europeans may hope for the return of liberal internationalism and the restoration of Atlanticism. Asia has no such luxury. With China looming large and the United States redefining its international orientation, Asia must embrace a strategy of self-help—strengthening national capabilities, broadening partnerships beyond the United States, and building flexible coalitions. At the same time, the NSS proposes a “burden-sharing network” backed by Washington: “The United States will stand ready to help—potentially through more favorable treatment on commercial matters, technology sharing, and defense procurement—those counties that willingly take more responsibility for security in their neighborhoods.” Asia should seize the possibilities offered by this proposition.
