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https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/has-trump-redefined-and-will-he-shrink

https://theduran.com/has-trump-redefined-and-will-he-shrink-the-u-s-empire

Has Trump redefined, and will he shrink, the U.S. empire?

6 December 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Yesterday, on Friday, a Reuters exclusive news-report about a potentially mega-historic change in America’s international relations and the world’s future, headlined “Exclusive: US sets 2027 deadline for Europe-led NATO defense, officials say” and opened:

The United States wants Europe to take over the majority of NATO's conventional defense capabilities, from intelligence to missiles, by 2027, Pentagon officials told diplomats in Washington this week, a tight deadline that struck some European officials as unrealistic.

The message, recounted by five sources familiar with the discussion, including a U.S. official, was conveyed at a meeting in Washington this week of Pentagon staff overseeing NATO policy and several European delegations.

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The shifting of this burden from the U.S. to European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would dramatically change how the United States, a founding member of the post-war alliance, works with its most important military partners.

Hours later, Russia’s RT News placed this event into an optimistic historical perspective (for Russia) by headlining  “US gives NATO’s European members self-defense deadline – Reuters” and reporting:

European NATO members are facing a US deadline to take more responsibility for the military bloc’s intelligence gathering and missile production, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pentagon officials warned delegations from several European countries this week that if they fail to meet the 2027 deadline, the US could scale back participation in certain NATO defense activities, according to sources cited by the news agency.

The report comes as Washington moves to reduce its direct involvement in Europe.

“Allies have recognized the need to invest more in defense and shift the burden on conventional defense from the US to Europe,” a NATO official speaking for the military bloc told Reuters, declining to comment on the 2027 deadline.

Also on December 5th, Politico headlined “Trump reveals what he wants for the world”, and reported:

President Donald Trump intends for the U.S. to keep a bigger military presence in the Western Hemisphere going forward to battle migration, drugs and the rise of adversarial powers in the region, according to his new National Security Strategy. …

The Trump National Security Strategy, which the White House quietly released Thursday, has some brutal words for Europe, suggesting it is in civilizational decline, and pays relatively little attention to the Middle East and Africa.

It has an unusually heavy focus on the Western Hemisphere that it casts as largely about protecting the U.S. homeland. It says “border security is the primary element of national security” and makes veiled references to China’s efforts to gain footholds in America’s backyard.

“The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity — a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region,” the document states. “The terms of our alliances, and the terms upon which we provide any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence — from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined.”

The document describes such plans as part of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. …

Trump’s paper, as well as a partner document known as the National Defense Strategy, have faced delays in part because of debates in the administration over elements related to China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed for some softening of the language about Beijing, according to two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. Bessent is currently involved in sensitive U.S. trade talks with China, and Trump himself is wary of the delicate relations with Beijing.

The new National Security Strategy says the U.S. has to make challenging choices in the global realm. “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests,” the document states. …

The Trump strategy suggests the president’s military buildup in the Western Hemisphere is not a temporary phenomenon. (That buildup, which has included controversial military strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs, has been cast by the administration as a way to fight cartels. But the administration also hopes the buildup could help pressure Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to step down.)

The strategy also specifically calls for “a more suitable Coast Guard and Navy presence to control sea lanes, to thwart illegal and other unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking, and to control key transit routes in a crisis.”

The strategy says the U.S. should enhance its relationships with governments in Latin America, including working with them to identify strategic resources — an apparent reference to materials such as rare earth minerals. It also declares that the U.S. will partner more with the private sector to promote “strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region.” …

The National Security Strategy spends a fair amount of time on China, though it often doesn’t mention Beijing directly. Many U.S. lawmakers — on a bipartisan basis — consider an increasingly assertive China the gravest long-term threat to America’s global power. But while the language the Trump strategy uses is tough, it is careful and far from inflammatory. …

“We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” it states. …

Overall it pulls punches when it comes to Russia — there’s very little criticism of Moscow.

Instead, it reserves some of its harshest remarks for U.S.-allied nations in Europe. In particular, the administration, in somewhat veiled terms, knocks European efforts to rein in far-right parties, calling such moves political censorship.

“The Trump administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the [Ukraine] war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition,” the strategy states. …

“Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,” it states. “As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.” …

The strategy struggles at times to tamp down what seem like inconsistencies. It says the U.S. should have a high bar for foreign intervention, but it also says it wants to “prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries.” …

I notice that the document itself says on its page 5: “To ensure that America remains the world’s strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for decades to come, our country needs a coherent, focused strategy for how we interact with the world.” In short: everything else in it that pretends to reduce the U.S. Government’s control over its colonies (‘allies’, such as in America’s anti-Russian military alliance NATO) takes a back seat to the national ‘security’ strategy of the U.S. Government that became instituted by President Truman on 25 July 1945 and has not been changed snce then, of America’s ultimately coming to control the entire world — “hegemony,” “global dominance,” being the center of the first-ever all-encompassing global empire (ensuring “that America remains the world’s strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for decades to come”).

This is not necessarily to deny that Trump might be so stupid that he isn’t aware of his own (self-) contradictions. However, it is to say that to the extent that Trump will need to choose between terminating or even simply reducing America’s global dominance, versus doing what is good for the American public (which would benefit enormously if its Government reduced instead of further-expanded its empire), he will probably do what he has always done — adhere to serving America’s billionaires (who benefit enormously from expanding their empire) instead of serving the American public. 

Trump’s National Security Strategy states that “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country.” It tries to imply that Trump won’t continue operating in support of “American foreign policy elites” and against the American people. Perhaps Trump is stupid enough to think that that’s what he would prefer to do if push comes to shove. However, his past record is consistent ONLY in its serving FIRST the wants of his megadonors. I expect him to continue that way.  Optimists about Trump (except ones who are neocons) have almost always been severely disappointed by his actual behavior, whenever push has come to shove. 

I doubt that Trump will be any less dangerous to Russia, China, and Iran, than in the past, but that he will simply be even more dangerous to other nations in the Western Hemisphere than prior U.S. Governments have been.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.