The White House on Thursday quietly released President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy, a 33-page document that elevates his “America First” doctrine and sets out the administration’s realignment of US foreign policy. The document took an unprecedentedly confrontational posture toward Europe.
The strategy blames European officials for blocking US-backed efforts to end the conflict. It also dropped the language of past administrations describing Russia as a threat, says European nations regard Moscow as “an existential threat,” and casts Washington as the central broker in re-establishing “conditions of stability within Europe and strategic stability with Russia.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov appeared to applaud the strategy and praised the American president, calling him “strong.”
The document formalizes some of the administration’s previous criticism of Europe. In a speech in Munich, Germany, in February, Vice President JD Vance told European leaders that the biggest threat to their security was “from within,” rather than from China or Russia.
Following the release of the document, President Donald Trump criticized Zelensky yesterday as talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators over the weekend ended with few new developments.
“We’ve been speaking to [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin and we’ve been speaking to Ukrainian leaders, including… President Zelensky, and I have to say that I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelensky hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago,” Trump said.
He added that Russia would prefer to have all of Ukraine and that he believes Moscow is “fine” with the peace plan, but “I’m not sure that Zelensky’s fine with it.”