US national security strategy ditches the role of world’s policeman

Trump's war on drugs, for example, can therefore be seen as being more about geopolitics than public policy, with Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean treated as security extensions of America's borders. Here as elsewhere, aid and trade are tied to compliance, sovereignty becomes conditional, independence becomes largely theoretical, and any resistance is met with sanctions or the threat of force. Venezuela provides the most explicit illustration of this logic.

Asserting US interests

Nicolás Maduro's regime is being targeted not because it is authoritarian or dysfunctional, but because of its ties to Russia, China, and Iran. For the White House, this constitutes a geopolitical breach within America's sphere. Sanctions, isolation, military threats, and the seizure of oil tankers all act as 'sticks,' while dangled carrots include a willingness to strike oil deals, should behaviour change. The objective of all this is to return Venezuela to a state of geopolitical obedience, not to rescue its people or to build a viable state.

The same logic governs Washington's approach to the Middle East, though with greater political clarity. The region is treated as an arena to be managed in ways that serves American interests—including protecting Israel and containing Iran. As such, the war in Gaza is not approached as a humanitarian catastrophe or a test of international law, but as a security file assessed by its impact on regional deterrence.

Unconditional American support for Israel, and tolerance of the scale of destruction in Gaza, do not reflect an absence of alternatives, but rather a conviction that the political and moral costs are lower than losing an ally regarded as a cornerstone of the American sphere of influence.

Iran, by contrast, is framed as a central threat not because of the nature of its regime, but because of its capacity to disrupt this arrangement through its network of proxies. Beyond those in America's backyard or those that affect Israel, conflicts are either frozen or else managed, rather than resolved. If costs rise, the US is always ready to walk away.

China remains the only rival that cannot be ignored, but under Trump, confrontation with Beijing is neither ideological nor values-based, but commercial and technological. China is seen as a threat not because it is authoritarian, but because it competes with the US economically. Washington tackles the problem by employing tariffs, technological restrictions, and pressure on allies, alongside a constant willingness to strike deals that secure immediate American advantage—even if this comes at the expense of the global trading system or the stability of Asian partners.

Out with the old

At its core, then, the National Security Strategy reduces the world to rigid spheres of influence. These spheres include an inner circle secured by force and walls; a regional circle in the Western Hemisphere sealed against intrusion; and an outer circle governed by transactional logic, where no commitments are permanent, no alliances are sacred, and where democracy, human rights, and international law are set aside when they clash with strategic interests.

The result is not the emergence of a new international order, but the gradual dismantling of the existing one, including the erosion of United Nations institutions. Europe is pushed to the margins, forced to militarise without unified leadership, while Ukraine is reduced to a bargaining chip, Gaza is an arena for impunity, and Latin America returns to the status of a security subordinate. China is confronted not for what it is, but for what it might carve out of American influence.

In the final analysis, Trump's world is not devoid of logic but of constraints. There are no shared rules, no universal values, and no free protection; only maps of influence, backyards, harsh bargains, and a blunt message: whoever approaches America's vital spheres will pay the price, and whoever asks Washington to defend a system it no longer believes in should expect to be disappointed.