The new US National Security Strategy (NSS), unveiled on 5 December, has been influenced by various interest groups and personalities, from those in Washington who prioritize containing China and Russia, to those who want to expand Make America Great Again (MAGA) to Europe – and those who wish to dominate the Western Hemisphere.
On the latter, ‘sovereigntists’ have gained ground in the NSS – a trend that, according to Jennifer Mittelstadt, ‘asserts liberty from international agreements and institutions that threaten to limit the sovereign jurisdiction and governance of the US’.
The strategy states that the Western Hemisphere must be controlled by the US politically, economically, commercially, and militarily. It is the ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine – an 1823 policy which established that European powers should not intervene in Latin America. This paved the way for US pre-eminence in the region until well into the 20th century. However, Washington neglected it in the last three decades.
According to the Trump Corollary, the US has the right to resuscitate the Monroe Doctrine. To that end, it will readjust its military presence in the region, increase naval forces to control migrant routes and illicit trafficking, and carry out deployments at borders. In addition, it will use ‘the military system superior to any other country in the world’ to gain access to energy and mineral resources in the region.
The NSS wants a hemisphere ‘free from hostile foreign incursions or ownership of key assets’; to control ‘critical supply chains’; and to ensure ‘continued access to key strategic locations’.
It proposes that the US be ‘preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition for our security and prosperity…allowing us to assert ourselves with confidence where and when necessary.’ To this end, it will carry out ‘targeted deployments to secure the border and defeat the cartels’.
Linked to drug crime and border control is migration. Migration flows, the NSS warns, will lead to ‘civilisational erasure’ in Europe. That reflects the views of ideologues of Make America Great Again (MAGA), such as the deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller and Vice President JD Vance who posted on X on 7 December that mass migration ‘is theft of the American Dream’. In this respect Kori Schake describes the NSS as part of ‘a cultural war’.
Latin America is on the front line: many immigrants from the ‘Western Hemisphere’ come from there. The NSS says that national leaders in the region will be ‘enlisting regional champions’ and alliances with like-minded governments will be ‘expanded’ to cooperate in the fight against ‘narco-terrorists, cartels and other transnational criminals’ and ‘help us stop illegal and destabilizing migration’.
Strange priorities
The NSS devotes much more attention to migration and organized crime than to the challenges posed by China or the significance of the war in Ukraine for Western security. As Michael Kimmage writes, ‘Trump’s strategy risks militarizing problems that are not military in nature’.
Migration overshadows traditional security issues such as the growth of nuclear arsenals, responses to the military strategies of China and Russia, and relations with Europe, Japan and Australia.
Even within its passages on the Western Hemisphere, the NSS is confusing and has striking omissions. When referring (in 5 pages out of 31) to the ‘Western Hemisphere,’ the document deals only with Latin America, without mentioning Canada (which Trump has previously said should accept annexation by the US). Neither does it address ties with Mexico or Brazil, nor the collapse of Haiti.
This disordered, contradictory and vague plan has several problems – not least of which, as Juan Gabriel Tokatlian points out, is that ‘hegemony is not the same as domination’.
A hegemonic leader makes agreements with subordinate states, provides and obtains benefits, and uses persuasion and sometimes coercion. In the past the US invested, offered credit, and supported democracy and free markets in the region, and used coercion when its interests were threatened.
Trump proposes a different approach: access to resources without compensation; using coercion instead of negotiation with local elites (through tariff wars and cutting development aid); providing funds to like-minded governments (as he has done with Argentina); and threatening military intervention, as now in Venezuela, without respecting international law.
This is in contrast to China, which has been providing investment and credit in exchange for access to resources for more than two decades – without imposing conditions. (The NSS states that the US should use ‘leverage in finance and technology to induce countries’ to reject ‘low-cost foreign assistance’).
Latin America’s reaction
Faced with the choice between the two powers, governments and voters may adopt pragmatic positions, candidates favourable to Trump may reach agreements on natural resources with the US, but still try to pursue economic relations with China (and other partners in Europe and the Global South).
Others may respond differently. Brazil and Mexico, for instance, are strengthening their relations to develop options to the Trump Corollary. Other countries could follow their example. So far, Latin American leaders have said little about the NSS publicly.