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 33-page document is a rare formal explanation of Trump’s foreign policy worldview by his administration. Such strategies, which presidents typically release once each term, can help shape how parts of the U.S. government allocate budgets and set policy priorities.

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. The latter is the notion set forth by President James Monroe in 1823 that the U.S. will not tolerate malign foreign interference in its own hemisphere.

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.

In an introductory note to the strategy, Trump called it a “roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history, and the home of freedom on earth.”

But Trump is mercurial by nature, so it’s hard to predict how closely or how long he will stick to the ideas laid out in the new strategy. A surprising global event could redirect his thinking as well, as it has done for recent presidents from George W. Bush to Joe Biden.

Still, the document appears in line with many of the moves he’s taken in his second term, as well as the priorities of some of his aides.

That includes deploying significantly more U.S. military prowess to the Western Hemisphere, taking numerous steps to reduce migration to America, pushing for a stronger industrial base in the U.S. and promoting “Western identity,” including in Europe.

The strategy even nods to so-called traditional values at times linked to the Christian right, saying the administration wants “the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health” and “an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes.” It mentions the need to have “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.”

As POLITICO has reported before, the strategy spends an unusual amount of space on Latin America, the Caribbean and other U.S. neighbors. That’s a break with past administrations, who tended to prioritize other regions and other topics, such as taking on major powers like Russia and China or fighting terrorism.

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.”

Such business-related pledges, at least on a generic level, could please many Latin American governments who have long been frustrated by the lack of U.S. attention to the region. It’s unclear how such promises square with Trump’s insistence on imposing tariffs on America’s trade partners, however.

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.

The administration promises to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China, prioritizing reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence.”

But it also says “trade with China should be balanced and focused on non-sensitive factors” and even calls for “maintaining a genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing.”

The strategy says the U.S. wants to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific — a nod to growing tensions in the region, including between China and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines.

“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. That may come as a relief to Asia watchers who worry Trump will back away from U.S. support for Taiwan as it faces ongoing threats from China.

The document states that “it is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine,” and to mitigate the risk of Russian confrontation with other countries in Europe.

But 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.

The strategy also appears to suggest that migration will fundamentally change European identity to a degree that could hurt U.S. alliances.

“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.”

Still, the document acknowledges Europe’s economic and other strengths, as well as how America’s partnership with much of the continent has helped the U.S. “Not only can we not afford to write Europe off — doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve,” it says.

“Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory,” it says.

Trump’s first-term National Security Strategy focused significantly on the U.S. competition with Russia and China, but the president frequently undercut it by trying to gain favor with the leaders of those nuclear powers.

If this new strategy proves a better reflection of what Trump himself actually believes, it could help other parts of the U.S. government adjust, not to mention foreign governments.

As Trump administration documents often do, the strategy devotes significant space to praising the commander-in-chief. It describes him as the “President of Peace” while favorably stating that he “uses unconventional diplomacy.”

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.”

It also essentially dismisses the ambitions of many smaller countries. “The outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations,” the strategy states.

The National Security Strategy is the first of several important defense and foreign policy papers the Trump administration is due to release. They include the National Defense Strategy, whose basic thrust is expected to be similar.

Presidents’ early visions for what the National Security Strategy should mention have at times had to be discarded due to events.

After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush’s first-term strategy ended up focusing heavily on battling Islamist terrorism. Biden’s team spent much of its first year working on a strategy that had to be rewritten after Russia moved toward a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.