Trump is undermining his own National Security Strategy and the future of the West
The schizophrenia of the administration’s approach to Greenland and Canada risks handing Europe to the left and pushing us into the arms of China
The first weeks of 2026 have seen frenetic activity from the US on the international stage. Immediately following the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration has continued to ramp up pressure on Denmark and Europe in its attempt to annex Greenland. Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a deal to forge a new strategic partnership with China, reversing its 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs (first implemented in tandem with the US in 2024).
Viewed in the light of the US National Security Strategy (NSS), published in December and covered in the Pimlico Journal here, these episodes are peculiar. Whilst the NSS is not a strict policy document, and Trump himself is unlikely to have had much direct involvement in its creation, it does provide a set of foundations which inform the views of those staffing the State Department, as well as representing an attempt to divine a unifying set of underlying objectives from Trump’s often erratic actions. This article does not imply that one should expect the administration to follow the NSS to the letter. What it does suggest is that the NSS provides the basis for a far more rational foreign policy which remains consistent with Trump’s approach and objectives compared to that which has been pursued thus far during his second term.
The NSS urges a retrenchment from the American-led, globalist, free-trading model in favour of a focus on strict definitions of the national interest. It calls for an end to America’s shouldering of the burden of other countries’ defence, an end to systematic economic exploitation of America by other actors within the global system, and an end to the domination of international organisations which seek to undermine state sovereignty. It seeks to enhance US domination of the Western hemisphere and to prevent any non-hemispheric competitors from gaining influence in the Americas. It also seeks to prevent foreign actors (i.e. China) inflicting damage on the American economy, to prevent hostile powers controlling the Middle East (without getting bogged down in forever wars), and to restore Europe’s civilisational self-confidence and Western identity. All these are pretty rational aims, and you can see the influence of Michael Anton, identified as the NSS’s lead author, when reading it. The events of recent weeks, however, demonstrate a complete failure to intelligently pursue these goals.
The arguments that the US requires formal ownership of Greenland to meet its security requirements are entirely disingenuous. The idea that ‘non-hemispheric competitors’ such as Russia or China are poised for the imminent seizure of the territory by military force is pure fantasy, and if this ever did become likely there would be no barrier to an expansion of US military presence under the 1951 Greenland Defence Agreement. The strongest argument in favour of the administration’s position is that Greenlanders may vote for independence in the future, and subsequently may come under the influence of China, and that the US should take ownership of Greenland now to prevent this possibility from occurring. But to suggest that this justifies the current approach is to radically underestimate the capacity of US diplomatic and covert influence; previous generations of US foreign policy operatives, adept at patiently influencing elections and fomenting colour revolutions, would be turning in their graves. Even on a purely financial basis, the cost of decisively influencing elections in Greenland for the next century would almost certainly be less than the half a trillion price tag being floated as the cost of purchasing the territory today.
Trump’s belligerence is naturally creating an extremely hostile reaction from European states. Even Keir Starmer, who has diligently strained to maintain positive relations with the administration, has been forced into standing up to Trump in defence of Danish sovereignty. The NSS states that one of its key goals in Europe is ‘cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory [of overtaxation, overregulation, and, most importantly, demographic replacement] within European nations’ – but this clumsy, bullying attempt to annex the territory of a European ally discredits nationalist and right-wing parties in Europe and bolsters those of the liberal-internationalist establishment by granting them the opportunity to pose as defenders of national sovereignty, just as Trump’s posture towards Canada enabled eleventh-hour turnarounds in the polls that kept the left in power in that country and in Australia.
Canada’s new strategic partnership with China must, therefore, be seen in the light of Trump’s own annexation threats against them and others. The NSS states:
“[T]he United States must work with our treaty allies and partners—who together add another $35 trillion in economic power to our own $30 trillion national economy (together constituting more than half the world economy)—to counteract predatory economic practices and use our combined economic power to help safeguard our prime position in the world economy and ensure that allied economies do not become subordinate to any competing power”
Antagonising Canada into allowing Chinese EVs into North America is obviously the exact opposite of this. It is, nevertheless, an entirely understandable response. It was also completely avoidable. Had Trump begun his term by talking about how much he loves Canada and how excited he was to work towards the mutual interests of both countries, he would now be dealing with an entirely pliant and somewhat politically sympathetic Pierre Poilievre and a Canadian government which viewed China not as a guarantor of Canadian independence in the face of a hostile US but as an ideological enemy to be curtailed (for all the faults of that view).
A key blind spot of nationalist politics, especially in the oddly globalised world of 21st-century patriotism, is the failure to recognise that other countries have nationalists too, and that those forces will not continue to cheer on your assertions of national strength when they collide with their own interests, just because they share your views more broadly. This does not apply to everyone who adopts that label, but it is certainly the crucial flaw of the dumbest elements of MAGA. It seems as if a substantial portion of this faction genuinely expected European nationalists to cheer on attempts to rob them of their territory, ‘because imperialism is based’ or something. There is no recognition of the fact that these naked humiliation tactics will inevitably cause your counterparties to dig in in opposition.
This is made even more ridiculous by the fact that Greenland is not materially beneficial to Denmark; it is, in fact, a net cost as well as a needless security liability. It is not hard to imagine that a deal could have been struck, given that the sums of money purportedly involved surpass Denmark’s entire GDP, had the issue been approached in a non-confrontational manner. But this fact alone highlights the other crucial issue with the direction of American ‘nationalist’ politics: the myopic focus only on the negative side of the ledger. Yes, Denmark’s ownership of Greenland means that the US must subsidize Danish defence in order to maintain Western influence over the territory - but it also ensures that the US does not have to foot the bill for its largely unproductive population, over half of which are either unemployed or employed by the state. The same one-sided view characterises the administration’s assessment of the Dollar’s position as the global reserve currency, which has certainly harmed the competitiveness of American manufacturing, but which has also been the only reason that the US’s enormous deficit (which Trump himself has substantially expanded during both terms) has been sustainable.
The incoherence of American foreign policy is a result of the schizophrenic structure of the Trump administration. At the top, you have Trump himself – a political genius and an effective negotiator, but an entirely tactical operator with no deep policy thoughts beyond pursuit of what feels to him like winning in the immediate term. I wrote last year questioning whether Trump understands the true nature of power. Clearly, he understands some forms of power very well, but I think he fails to understand the form of power – a combination of hard and soft – that allowed the US to maintain hegemony in the postwar period. The worst half of his political coalition shares this misunderstanding, seemingly caring only about humiliating their enemies (foreign and domestic) without considering whether their political position or their ultimate goals are advanced by doing so.
Below Trump, you have a variety of more ideological people who have attached themselves to his banner, seeing him as the best vehicle for advancing their own agendas. The NSS’s focus on transforming Europe comes from Michael Anton, and you can see similar concerns reflected in JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last year. The intervention in Venezuela was clearly driven by Marco Rubio, while outside of foreign policy, immigration policy is driven by Stephen Miller.
The Greenland agenda, with its focus on symbolic victory regardless of political costs and the implicit disinterest in European ‘civilisational self-confidence’ seems like it must come from Trump himself. Naturally, others in the administration are not going to go against him on this, regardless of their private thoughts. There are many positive things to have come out of the Trump administration’s retreat from globalism, particularly the retargeting of the human rights apparatus to focus on concerns relevant to the right, including the harms caused by mass migration and the enforcement of DEI policies. Sarah Rogers, under secretary of state for public diplomacy, has consistently pushed for funds previously utilised by USAID to support leftist causes around the world to be redirected towards the right across Europe – this would be a serious boon if handled sensitively, avoiding exposing the right to charges of foreign influence.
The dilemma faced by the European right, then, is that the coalition delivering these victories is currently reliant on Trump himself to provide a unifying figure around which to co-ordinate. He is, therefore, a necessary condition for political reform, both at home in Europe and internationally. Nevertheless, his increasing lack of concern for what comes after the end of his Presidency means that he himself now poses the greatest risk to his own legacy. If this attitude is not overcome – and there is little reason to suspect it will be – then we should all be concerned: après Trump, le déluge.
This article was written by Will Solfiac, a Pimlico Journal contributor. You can find more of his work on his Substack. Have a pitch? Send it to pimlicojournal@substack.com.
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Pity the poor saps who ever believed Trump cared about anyone or anything but himself.