The Daily – Trump’s Plan to Reorder the World

Podcast: The Daily (The New York Times)
Episode Date: December 12, 2025
Host: Natalie Kitroeff
Guest: David Sanger, NYT National Security Correspondent

Episode Overview

This episode examines the Trump administration's newly released national security strategy, offering a first detailed rationale for the president’s sweeping and controversial foreign policy moves in his second term. Guest David Sanger deciphers the document and the so-called “Trump Doctrine,” discussing its major shift away from traditional U.S. global leadership to an unflinching “America First” approach. The episode explores the implications for allies, adversaries, and the shape of world order itself.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. What is the New National Security Strategy?

• Required by Congress: Every administration must publish such a plan.

• Defining Feature: The Trump document signals a sharp retreat from the post-WWII bipartisan consensus that emphasized defending liberty and supporting democracies.

• Memorable Quote:

  • “There’s an absence in this strategy of a sort of moral mission for the United States... to defend human rights, to defend free speech or free press. Almost all of that is gone.”
    —David Sanger (03:15)

• Pivotal Statement:

  • “‘The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas, are over.’”
    —Quoted by Sanger from the document (03:54)

2. The New Priority: Wealth and Self-Interest

• Focus shifts from defending liberty or opposing adversaries to building American wealth and power.
• Sanger: “It is a document very heavy on how the United States will try to order the world for its benefit.” (04:41)
• Economic leadership is prioritized, with Trump taking Biden-era reshoring policies “to the next level,” centering all U.S. policy on wealth and economic security. (05:06)

3. A Radical Departure from 2017 (and Trump’s Own Past)

• Past strategy (2017) emphasized counterterrorism and managing threats from superpowers like Russia and China.
• The new document nearly omits major threats like North Korea and gives “only the briefest mention” to Iran, focusing little on traditional adversary management. (07:44)
• Sanger: “In the new document, there’s no mention of North Korea... and Iran gets only the briefest mention.” (07:44)

4. A Tougher (and Colder) Stance Toward Europe

• America signals exhaustion with “propping up” Europe, demanding allies shoulder their own defense.

• Sanger: “America is tired of supporting the allies... that it won’t put up with Europe’s trade blocs anymore... can’t necessarily be supporting them in their conventional defense.” (08:48)

• Notable Milestone: European defense spending leapt from 2% to an expected 5% of GDP in response to Trump administration pressure—a “huge win” but with possible long-term cost. (09:58)

5. Dismissing the Russian Threat — and Framing Europe’s “Real Problem” as Migration

• The Trump doctrine frames migration and societal change—not Russia—as Europe’s existential threat.
• Controversial language:
  • The report warns of Europe’s “civilizational erasure” due to migration—a phrase that “really resonated in Europe,” Sanger notes. (12:37)
  • “Many read that line as a complaint that there is a diminishment of the white European allies that the president imagines when he thinks of Europe.” (13:45)
• The Trump administration links migration to threats against “common values” and accuses Europe of ignoring or suppressing its own voters and right-wing movements. (14:38–15:55)

6. A New America–Europe Relationship

• The U.S. claims a right to actively influence allied politics, seeking to “cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” though details remain vague. (17:43)
• Sanger: “You emerge from reading the document thinking that the United States is carving out an exception for itself to step in and intervene in Europe to get to the kind of society that President Trump and his allies think they want.” (18:53)

7. Pivot to the Western Hemisphere: Reviving the Monroe Doctrine

• The administration advocates “complete and total dominance of the Western Hemisphere,” calling for a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. (22:21–23:21)
• Key points:
  • Expanding U.S. military presence in the region
  • “Kicking out” other global powers (code for China), especially in economic and technological domains.
  • Using “lethal force” against cartels and drug trafficking, justifying recent U.S. military actions in the Caribbean. (24:56–26:44)

8. The Spheres of Influence World

• Sanger outlines Trump’s vision as a 19th-century, “spheres of influence” world: U.S. dominates the Americas, China the Pacific, Europe/Eurasia is left for others—perhaps Russia. (30:23)
• Sanger warns: “This is a vision that coincides with another world leader’s idea of how the globe should be organized. And that’s Putin himself.” (30:56)

9. Is This Isolationism? Or Unilateralism?

• Sanger argues the new strategy isn’t isolationist, but “unilateralist”—seeking freedom of action everywhere.
• Sanger: “Trump is really not an isolationist. He never has been. He’s actually more of a unilateralist.” (31:45–32:24)

10. Enduring Change to U.S. Foreign Policy?

• Sanger compares Trump’s policies to construction on the White House—not all is permanent, but the fundamental structure is changed.
• Sanger: “At this point the world is going to assume that the United States always has the ability to turn back in on itself... the fundamental trust in the US as the defender of a certain set of concepts of the west has been shattered for some time.” (33:36–34:59)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“There’s an absence in this strategy of a sort of moral mission for the United States... to defend human rights, to defend free speech or free press. Almost all of that is gone.”
— David Sanger (03:15)

“‘The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas, are over.’”
— Quoted by Sanger from the document (03:54)

“America is tired of supporting the allies... that it won’t put up with Europe’s trade blocs anymore... can’t necessarily be supporting them in their conventional defense.”
— David Sanger (08:48)

“You emerge from reading the document thinking that the United States is carving out an exception for itself to step in and intervene in Europe to get to the kind of society that President Trump and his allies think they want.”
— David Sanger (18:53)

“[The Monroe Doctrine] declared that the Western Hemisphere would essentially be closed to European colonization... What this document is saying is it’s time to come home again and to focus on our home region.”
— David Sanger (23:21–24:31)

“Trump is really not an isolationist. He never has been. He’s actually more of a unilateralist.”
— David Sanger (31:45)

“The fundamental trust in the US as the defender of a certain set of concepts of the west has been shattered for some time.”
— David Sanger (34:55)

Timeline of Key Segments

• 00:31–02:46 — Overview of recent Trump actions & introduction to the national security strategy
• 04:06–06:13 — Shift to “America First,” focus on American economic benefit
• 07:44–08:48 — Minimization of traditional adversaries in new document
• 08:48–12:37 — Criticism and reframing of the U.S.-Europe alliance; pressure on Europe for defense, migration as Europe’s key threat
• 13:01–18:53 — “Civilizational erasure,” right-wing European movements, U.S. intent to “cultivate resistance” in Europe
• 22:05–26:44 — “Monroe Doctrine 2.0,” U.S. regional dominance, military expansion in Latin America and the Caribbean
• 28:49–31:45 — Spheres of influence vision, isolationism vs. unilateralism
• 33:36–34:59 — Durability of Trump’s changes to U.S. foreign policy

Tone and Style

• Informational, analytical, and at times foreboding.
• David Sanger brings historical depth and context, emphasizing the magnitude of the policy shift.
• Candid, unsparing about both the strategy’s ambitions and its internal contradictions.

Summary Takeaways

The Trump administration’s national security strategy is a defining break with the past: abandoning moral leadership, focusing on American enrichment, withdrawing (and undermining) traditional alliances—especially in Europe—while reviving U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere under a new “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The document suggests the emergence of a “spheres of influence” world and signals a lasting, possibly irreversible change in how America is seen—and sees itself—on the world stage.

For listeners:
This episode is essential for understanding a potential realignment in global power, the rise of a transactional and domestically-focused U.S. foreign policy, and the unnerving implications for both America’s allies and adversaries.