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After serving as a peacekeeper in the Canadian Armed Forces deployed to Cyprus as part of the UNFICYP mission, Quebec native Ronald Hatto turned to academic research, obtaining his doctorate in political science at Sciences Po Paris with a thesis on «Sharing the burden of transatlantic security: Franco-American relations put to the test by the war in the former Yugoslavia (1991-1995)», which was awarded the Dalloz Prize and the Le Figaro Prize. Qualified to supervise research since 2012, he has held various positions at the University of Montreal and Sciences Po. Currently a lecturer at the Centre for International Studies (CERI) and the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) at Sciences Po, he studies international security, peacekeeping, American and French foreign policy, and military sociology.
By making public on 4 December last year the National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025 In the United States, President Trump has sparked comments around the world, particularly in Europe.
This document, the first since President Biden's SNS in December 2022, is presented by Donald Trump as «a roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most prosperous nation in human history and the home of freedom on earth».
Spanning 29 pages after the brief introduction by the president, the SNS mentions the Monroe Doctrine, set forth in 1823 by the 5th president, four times.e President of the United States, who banned any intervention by the young state in Europe and any European intervention in North and South America. On the 47the The US president intends to adapt it to his world view with a «Trump corollary» that targets foreign influence in Latin America. And outside their continent, the United States is expressing its desire to interfere in European affairs.
Asked to comment on passages in the document concerning Europe, Ronald Hatto believes that this strategy «echoes the language of Russian propaganda» and «clearly seeks to weaken the European Union», even though «Europe as a non-unified continent remains vital to the United States».
THE SNS ASSERTS THAT THE UNITED STATES WILL «REAFFIRM AND ENFORCE A «TRUMP COROLLARY» TO THE MONROE DOCTRINE». DOES THIS COROLLARY MARK A BREAK WITH AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY?
It is President Trump's entire National Security Strategy 2025 that marks a break, not only in US foreign policy, but also in the way such a document is presented. Before discussing the Monroe Doctrine, I would like to draw attention to the document itself. The layout gives the impression that it is the end-of-semester assignment of a first-year university student. The introduction is only 32 lines long, merely listing everything the president is supposed to have accomplished over the past nine months, and the document has no conclusion. It would be difficult to project a more disorganised image.
As for the «Trump corollary» to the Monroe Doctrine, it seems to me that it mainly concerns the poorly named «Western Hemisphere», in other words the Americas. This is the most substantial part of the SNS and is mainly aimed at reorienting US foreign policy towards Latin America (Canada is mentioned only once in the document). On page 5 of the document, the Western Hemisphere comes first among the Trump administration's priorities, followed by the Indo-Pacific. Europe is only in third place.
«Discourage collaboration with other states»
Non-hemispheric competitors are not relevant, as in the 19th century.e century, Europeans, but rather China. This part of the document targets the latter without naming it, and contrary to what some observers have written, the rivalry with China in Latin America is not, according to the SNS, solely economic. Pages 15 to 19 indirectly refer to China, and the topics discussed involve the protection of waterways – the Panama Canal immediately comes to mind (p. 16) – or the establishment of new partnerships to discourage collaboration with other states outside the hemisphere. US aid to existing partner states is now conditional on the end of external influence, seen as control of military installations and infrastructure such as ports, or the purchase of strategic resources (p. 17).
On the same page, the SNS emphasises that certain foreign influences will be difficult to remove, due to the proximity of certain Latin American governments to certain foreign actors. Here, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are probably being targeted, but Russia is never mentioned. After emphasising the need for the United States to update the hidden costs (espionage, debt traps) of foreign aid to partners (p. 18), the section on the Western Hemisphere concludes by stressing the need to seek to oust (to push out) foreign companies building infrastructure in the region. Once again, the target of these attacks in this part is China.
SINCE «EUROPE REMAINS VITAL, BOTH STRATEGICALLY AND CULTURALLY, FOR THE UNITED STATES», THE LATTER INTENDS TO «PROMOTE EUROPEAN GREATNESS», WHILE AFFIRMING THE «PRIMACY OF NATIONS». ISN'T THAT PARADOXICAL?
Europe as a non-unified continent remains vital to the United States. Trump defends the primacy of nations. There is nothing paradoxical about this reasoning, given that Trump advocates a quasi-imperial vision of international relations. A great power has every interest in negotiating bilaterally with smaller powers because, from its point of view, multilateralism is a tool used by weaker nations seeking to join forces to stand up to the more powerful ones.
The European Union (EU) is therefore an obstacle for Trump, who prefers to divide and conquer by interacting with each European state individually. This puts the United States in a position of strength to impose its will. Strategically, Europe remains vital to the United States because of its economic and scientific power – trade between the two sides of the Atlantic is one of the pillars of the global economy and American prosperity (p. 26).
Culturally, it is vital because despite repeated attacks on the Old Continent, Trump is aware of the cultural ties that continue to bind his country to Europe. His electoral base is mainly composed of descendants of Europeans (Germans like himself, British, Spanish, French, Irish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, etc.).
«THIS BUSINESSMAN PRESIDENT HAS NO INTEREST IN WEAKENING EUROPE TOO MUCH.»
Furthermore, despite its contempt for democracy, the United States (and Canada) has much more in common with Europe than with other regions of the world. The ties forged during the two world wars continue to play a role in maintaining a common identity that Trump cannot simply brush aside.
Thus, this businessman-president has no interest in weakening Europe too much, as it remains an almost indispensable partner. This is especially true given that the United States no longer enjoys the economic, industrial and military supremacy it had just a few decades ago. In order to be able to face the geopolitical threats of the 21st century,e century, Trump will need allies. That is why the brutality and condescension with which he treats his allies such as Canada, Europe, Japan and South Korea may backfire on him.
As long as the United States promised to defend its allies, it could expect economic and other benefits in return. On the other hand, the virulence of the attacks against the United States' most loyal allies and doubts about the reliability of its security guarantees could reconfigure the geostrategic landscape in a way that would not benefit the United States in the medium and long term. This is why Trump does not want a united European Union capable of defending itself.
«THE BROADER PROBLEMS FACING EUROPE INCLUDE THE ACTIVITIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND OTHER TRANSNATIONAL BODIES THAT UNDERMINE POLITICAL FREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNTY»: IS THE UNITED STATES SEEKING TO WEAKEN THE EU? HOW?
As Russian-born American military historian Max Boot has just said, the part of SNS 2025 concerning Europe appears to have been written by far-right trolls, or Russian trolls, one might say. This document clearly seeks to weaken the EU. Trump is repeating the talking points of Russian propaganda and allowing himself to interfere in European affairs. The thinly veiled reference to President Macron on page 26 is telling in this regard: «European leaders who, perched atop unstable minority governments, harbour unrealistic expectations about war.»
How would the United States react if an official document from the EU or any European country dared to «promote growing influence for certain types of political parties among its American ally»? The document goes so far as to say that one of the goals of this strategy is to help Europe correct its current trajectory. Page 27 proposes a list of policies to be implemented with regard to Europe.
Firstly, to restore stability between Europe (but not the EU) and Russia. Moreover, the second point on this list mentions that Europe must operate as a group of sovereign nations. Direct interference comes third, with the desire to cultivate resistance to current trends within European nations.
The fourth point takes us back to the era of President George W. Bush's administration (2001–2009) and his opposition between «new» and «old» Europe. Here, Trump talks about strengthening the nations of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. What about Western Europe or Scandinavia? The goal is probably the same as under Bush Jr.: to create division within the European Union in order to weaken it.
«WE WILL OPPOSE THE ANTI-DEMOCRATIC RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED BY THE ELITES ON FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS IN EUROPE»: ON WHAT CRITERIA IS THIS ASSESSMENT OF «RESTRICTIONS» BASED, AND HOW COULD THIS COMMITMENT BE TRANSLATED INTO ACTION?
I am not sure I understand the criteria Donald Trump is using to accuse European elites. He is once again repeating the false Russian narrative that the majority of the population in Europe wants peace, while certain unstable minority governments – France, probably – continue to have unrealistic expectations of Russia.
President Trump's desire to put an end to this trajectory is quite clearly detailed, as we showed in the previous answer. He will do so by interfering in the domestic politics of European states. This situation is very worrying, as it traps Europe between two major powers – the United States and Russia – that threaten it.
Given President Trump's instability and his numerous about-turns, he could decide to withdraw American troops from the European continent altogether in order to exert pressure to get what he wants. He did not hesitate to deprive Ukraine of US intelligence in an attempt to force President Zelensky to make concessions. He could also decide to punish Europeans authoritatively if they do not bow to his will.
IN LIGHT OF THIS NEW US STRATEGY, WHAT MEASURES DO YOU THINK EUROPE SHOULD TAKE TO ASSERT ITS DEFENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY?
As we have just seen, President Trump's national strategy positions itself almost as an adversary of Europe. Such an approach will certainly be more detrimental to American interests in the medium and long term than to Europe.
The power of a state is based on natural factors such as geography, possession of natural resources or a large population. These natural factors can be accentuated, modified or weakened by other factors: tangible sources of power, such as the level of industrial development or the degree of qualification of the population; but also intangible sources of power, such as the image of the country (the famous soft power mentioned four times in the SNS), national cohesion and the quality of political leadership.
However, President Trump's narcissism prevents him from perceiving the deterioration of his country's tangible and intangible sources of power. Before answering the question of how Europe can assert itself, I would like to highlight the deterioration in the perception of the United States around the world since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Even before that, from the mid-1990s onwards, several specialists in international political economy (Princeton University professor Princeton Robert Gilpin among others) were concerned about the size of the US debt and the deterioration of the country's production capacity.
«TRUMP'S GOVERNANCE WILL HAVE REPERCUSSIONS ON THE INTERNAL STABILITY OF THE UNITED STATES»
Since Donald Trump's return to the White House in January 2025, the purges he has carried out in several departments (ministries), in institutions responsible for development aid, and the creation of an immigration police force (Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE) have greatly affected the country's image. The main consequence of his governance is undoubtedly the perception of the quality of leadership: the Trump administration is made up of individuals who are often inexperienced and whose only qualities are their loyalty to their leader. This situation will have repercussions on the internal stability of the United States.
What can and must Europe do? Demonstrate that it is united and prepare militarily to respond alone to any Russian aggression. This is easier said than done, given that the continent is under attack from Russian and now American propaganda. The main advantage of the United States and Russia over Europe is their national unity. This also applies to the military. What Europe lacks is a leader accepted by all.
Within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), leadership was American and acceptable to (almost) everyone. Geographical distance, military power and the absence of a history of aggression (as in the case of Germany) made the United States a natural leader. Today, no one seems able to play such a role in Europe. However, Europeans will have to find a way out of their military and political impotence, which leaves them dangerously exposed to the changes in the international order of the 2020s.
After the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the situation was dire. Following the publication of the 2025 US National Security Strategy, the situation risks becoming desperate if Europe fails to unite to face the dangers looming in the East and West.
To find out more:
National Security Strategy of the United States of America, on the White House website
