The administration of US President Donald Trump announced on Friday, in a long-awaited new strategy, that the United States' historic international role will shift to a greater focus on dominance in Latin America and combating immigration.
The national security document outlining Trump’s unorthodox “America First” worldview marks a sharp shift from long-standing American calls to refocus on Asia, even though it still considers China its main rival.
The strategy also strongly criticized European allies and said the United States would support opponents of EU-led values, including those related to immigration.
Breaking with decades of efforts to monopolize the position of superpower, the strategy asserts that “the United States refuses to pursue the ill-fated principle of global domination.”
She noted that the United States would also prevent other powers from dominating, but added that “that does not mean wasting blood and money to limit the influence of all the world’s great and middle powers.”
The strategy pledged to “adjust our global military presence to deal with immediate threats in our part of the globe and move away from arenas whose relative importance to U.S. national security has declined in recent years or decades.”
The strategy speaks explicitly of strengthening US dominance in Latin America, where the Trump administration targets suspected drug traffickers at sea, intervenes against leftist leaders, and openly seeks control over key resources such as the Panama Canal.
The strategy showed Trump as working to update the two-century-old “Monroe Doctrine,” under which the then-new United States declared Latin America a no-go zone for rival powers, particularly those from Europe.
German Foreign Minister Johannes Wadephul stressed on Friday that his country does not need"advice from abroad" after the administration of US President Donald Trump published a new strategy that strongly criticizes Washington's European allies.
The minister said, “I believe that issues of freedom of expression or the organization of our free societies have no place (in the strategy), at least with regard to Germany.”
