President Donald Trump’s national security priorities for his second term zero in on technological dominance and economic strength while growing the U.S. presence in the Western Hemisphere.
Released Thursday by the White House, Trump’s 33-page national security strategy offers a formal explanation and statement of his administration’s priorities. Federal law requires each administration to submit a national security strategy to Congress, typically on an annual basis.
One of Trump’s “core, vital interests” is ensuring that “U.S. technology and U.S. standards – particularly in AI, biotech, and quantum computing – drive the world forward.”
A frequent mention in the strategy refers to making the United States’ the world’s most “technologically advanced” nation. Specifically, Trump called the U.S. technology sector the “most advanced, most innovative, and most profitable” in the world, and emphasized its importance to the U.S. economy, military, and global influence.
To bolster the nation’s economy, the strategy calls for supply chain protections, including expanding American access to critical minerals and materials, while directing members of the Intelligence Community to monitor key supply chains and technological advances made by other countries to mitigate threats and vulnerabilities.
The plan also calls for “reindustrialization” through “strategic use of tariffs and new technologies that favor widespread industrial production.”
Supply chains have long been a concern in Washington, with both sides of the aisle pointing to easy disruptions that could come from Russia or China. Last week, House lawmakers heard from experts who urged for stronger export controls on American-made chips used in advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Trump’s policy on chip exports to China has shifted in recent weeks. Following a recent bilateral summit, Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed that the United States would concede key export controls to China for a year, after recent tariff and export control escalations.
That move suspended the “affiliates rule,” which expanded export control restrictions to cover Chinese entities owned 50% or more by blacklisted companies on the U.S. federal government’s Entity List.
The national security strategy calls for rebalancing the nation’s economic relationship with China to prioritize “reciprocity and fairness.”
Building up the U.S. economic posture in the Western Hemisphere will come from “commercial diplomacy,” according to the plan, which specifically includes tariffs and reciprocal trade agreements.
That also means limiting the ability of adversarial nations to exert economic influence. To do this, Trump said that the National Security Council will create an interagency process to identify strategic points and resources in the Western Hemisphere for protection and development.
Beyond bolstering relationships with allied nations, Trump also pointed to domestic public-private partnerships, noting the importance of those relationships in helping to maintain surveillance of U.S. networks and critical infrastructure.
“This in turn enables the U.S. Government’s ability to conduct real-time discovery, attribution, and response … while protecting the competitiveness of the U.S. economy and bolstering the resilience of the American technology sector,” the plan states.
The plan also calls for more investment in research to advance cutting-edge military and dual-use technology, such as nuclear, space, AI, quantum computing, and autonomous systems, while shoring up the energy needed to fuel those innovations.
Trump’s budget proposal earlier this year called for significant cuts in federal research funding, but it made exceptions for advanced technologies such as AI and quantum computing.