US President Donald Trump’s administration has argued that Europe faces “erasure of civilization” due to mass immigration, a rhetoric often used by far-right parties to drum up support in elections on the continent.
In a 33-page National Security Strategy document released late Thursday, the Trump administration accused the European Union of “undermining political freedom and sovereignty” and asserted the need for American “preeminence” in the Western Hemisphere.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Here’s what we know:
Is the Trump administration’s “strategy” consistent with Europe’s far right?
A section of the NSS document entitled “Promoting European Greatness” highlights the continent’s declining share of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), but argues that the continent’s economic decline is “overshadowed by the very real and grimmer prospect of civilizational extinction.”
The document states that Europe’s immigration policies are “transforming the continent and causing conflict,” including “censoring free speech and suppressing political opposition, soaring birth rates and a loss of national identity and self-confidence.”
Some European politicians argue that this message is strongly in line with the rhetoric of Europe’s far right. Far-right groups in Europe, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Spain’s Vox, France’s Popular Front and Italy’s Lega Nord, are campaigning on anti-immigration and xenophobic rhetoric.
Last Friday, former Swedish Prime Minister Karl Bildt wrote in a post on X that “Europe is facing ‘annihilation of civilization’ and Trump’s new security strategy places himself on the right side of Europe’s far right.”
Saying that Europe is facing “the annihilation of civilization,” Trump 🇺🇸’s new security strategy positions himself to the right of Europe’s far right. Otherwise, the language looks like something out of some weird brain in the Kremlin🇷🇺. pic.twitter.com/29vytDp6Hm
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) December 5, 2025
Gérard Araud, a former French ambassador to the United States, also wrote in X: “The impressive section devoted to Europe reads like a far-right pamphlet. It largely confirms this perception.”
European Security Party composes extreme pamphlets. Elle confirms the great realization. https://t.co/6Iig27QJZv
— Gerard Araud (@GerardAraud) December 5, 2025
Mark Sedgwick, a professor of Arab and Islamic studies at Denmark’s Aarhus University, told NBC that the language in the Trump administration’s national security strategy is consistent with language used by proponents of the “Great Alternative” conspiracy theory.
The conspiracy theory was first introduced by French author Renaud Camus in his 2011 book The Great Displacement, which claimed that France’s “elites” were trying to replace the white European population by encouraging immigration from Muslim-majority countries.
Since then, it has been used by far-right groups in Western countries, including the United States, to campaign against mass immigration.
Grégoire Rouss, head of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, said elsewhere in the Trump administration document “Western Europe is no longer a top priority for the United States.”
What this means is that the Trump administration now “looks (more) favorably on Central and Eastern Europe, which is politically close to it,” Ruth told Al Jazeera.
“Although they do not agree on everything, countries such as Slovakia and Hungary share views (with the US) on EU bureaucracy, non-European immigration as a threat to identity, and greater caution when it comes to siding with Ukraine in the war with Russia,” he added.
Why is Trump aligned with the European far right?
Relations between the United States and Europe’s far-right leaders have steadily improved since President Trump returned to office in January.
Late Thursday, the Trump administration called on the United States through the NSS to play a role in “nurturing resistance” in Europe and encouraged “our European political allies to foster a revival of this spirit.”
“We want Europe to remain Europe, to regain civilized confidence and abandon its failed focus on regulatory stifling,” the Trump administration added.
German AfD member Markus Frohnmayr said that President Trump’s NSS is “a foreign policy reality check for Europe, and especially for Germany,” according to a Dec. 5 report in the Associated Press.
But Roberto Folin, acting director of the Geneva-based Mixed Migration Center (MMC), told Al Jazeera that the Trump administration’s NSS doctrine was an “unapologetic defense of white people” and called it “supremacist discourse.”
“The aim of this government is to divide Europe and polarize the continent by weaponizing migration,” he said.
“This is another example of how the new U.S. administration is leading the race, not just on immigration, but on multiculturalism,” he added.
On December 4, German Foreign Minister Johann Vardepur told reporters in Berlin that Europe could deal with its own problems without foreign interference. He said that while the United States remains an important security partner in Europe, the alliance is “focused on addressing security policy issues” rather than on topics such as freedom of speech and expression on the continent.
“We believe that in the future we will be able to discuss and debate these issues completely on our own and will not need outside advice,” he said.
What else does the NSS in Washington say about Europe?
As Russia continues its war in Ukraine, the NSS document highlighted European officials’ “unrealistic expectations” for an end to the conflict and said the United States had a “core interest” in doing so.
According to Reuters, Pentagon officials told diplomats in Washington this week that the United States is still not satisfied with Europe’s defense spending as Russia continues its war in Ukraine, and that the United States could end its participation in NATO by 2027 if European countries do not increase investment.
The NSS said the U.S. government prioritizes “enabling Europe to stand on its own two feet and operate as a group of allied sovereign states, including assuming primary responsibility for its own defense, without being dominated by any hostile power.”
Amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, European countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom announced increased spending on defense and military. At the NATO summit in June, alliance members pledged to allocate up to 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to defense and related sectors by 2035.
But on December 3, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau stressed at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels that the EU should focus on “transforming defense commitments into capabilities” and avoid “protectionist and xenophobic policies that drive American companies out of the market” as they “undermine” NATO’s “collective self-defense,” a US official told Politico.
Will this strengthen the far right in Europe?
EU and NATO observers are likely to view the NSS as “confirmation of well-established concerns about the direction and style of US policy,” Ian Lesser, a fellow and head of the U.S. German Marshall Fund’s Brussels office, said in a report.
But he warned that this “could strengthen far-right views in Europe and also points to Europe’s cultural and demographic decline.”
“From Brussels’ perspective, this strategy highlights the reality of a regime that is not isolationist but extremely unilateralist,” he said.
