- Immigrant Times
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
The White House claims immigration will destroy Europe within 20 years
Critics warn that by describing demographic change as a threat, the US risks legitimising xenophobic and nationalist narratives
By The Immigrant Times
Trumpian America's view of Europe: “The issues facing Europe include the activities of the European Union that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, plummeting birth rates, and the erosion of national identities and self-confidence.” (Excerpt from the White House National Security Strategy document)
Photo: The White House and the Berlaymont Building in Brussels, the HQ of the European Union
December 2025: The White House issued a 33-page new National Security Strategy (NSS) that marks a significant shift in American foreign-policy strategy. At its heart lies a provocative assessment that Europe, long America’s closest security partner, will ethnically and socially cease to be ‘European’ in 20 years or less.
The NSS identifies what it calls existential threats to Europe’s future, notably: mass immigration, declining birth rates, weakening national identities, suppression of free speech or political opposition, and the alleged subversion of democratic institutions by supranational bodies such as the European Union. Moreover, the document questions whether some European countries will continue to be reliable US allies: “Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades certain NATO members will become majority ‘non-European’.”
In blunt terms, the United States appears to be saying that in the long term, authoritarian regimes will become more reliable partners than a democratic Europe
Language of the far-right
The tone and imagery of the NSS struck many analysts as alarmingly familiar. The notion that immigration and demographic changes pose an existential civilisational threat mirrors the rhetoric of the controversial Great Replacement Theory. Far from a dry strategic assessment, the document reads in places like a political manifesto.
Critics warn that by couching demographic change as a threat, the US risks legitimising xenophobic and nationalist narratives, not only within Europe, but transnationally. Some argue the document seems to align US foreign policy with far-right European movements seeking to restrict migration and reassert ‘Western identity’.
Further, the document doesn’t just diagnose the ‘problem’, it calls on the US to cultivate resistance inside European nations, effectively encouraging political forces opposed to immigration and supranational integration. For many observers, this is not geopolitics but a dangerous interference in other nations.
Europe replies
The response among European political figures was swift and unequivocal.
Johann Wadephul, Germany’s foreign minister, bluntly rejected what he framed as US interference in Europe’s domestic affairs. “We do not need outside advice,” he declared. While reaffirming that the US remains a key NATO ally, Wadephul added that questions like freedom of expression or the organisation of our liberal society are not part of what the US should comment on.
Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden, reacted sharply on social media. He described the NSS’s language as being to the right of the extreme right in Europe, calling its worldview plainly bizarre, claiming that such alarmist rhetoric is more reminiscent of some crazy minds of the Kremlin than of sober strategic analysis.
Former Latvian prime minister, Krišjānis Kariņš, told Reuters the document is giving a gift to Moscow. “The happiest country reading this is Russia,” he said, arguing that the US critique plays directly into Kremlin aims: undermining trans-Atlantic unity and fostering discord within Europe.
The centrist group Renew Europe in the European Parliament, through its president Valérie Hayer, issued a formal statement condemning the NSS as factually wrong and strategically reckless. They criticised the portrayal of Europe as a continent on the verge of collapse, and denounced the suggestion that EU member states are unreliable democratic allies.
Several analysts and commentators also weighed in. Think-tank voices, such as Nathalie Tocci, director at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, warned that the NSS appears to be “in the business of tearing Europe apart by supporting far-right nationalists backed by Russia.”
Others described the strategy as the mother of all alarms for Europe. British historian, Timothy Garton Ash, observed that the document’s harsh tone toward Europe, especially compared to its soft-pedal on Russia, marks a dramatic shift that could worsen divisions across the continent.
Reading between the lines
Analysts see Trump’s NSS as more than just a policy document: it signals a fundamental redefinition of US global priorities. Under the banner of ‘America First’, the strategy pivots away from a commitment to collective Western defence and democratic values, toward a narrower, transactional, and culturally selective vision.
By calling demographic and social change an existential threat to Europe, and by questioning its political reliability, the US risks eroding NATO cohesion at a time when European unity, especially over crises like the war in Ukraine, may be most needed. Moreover, the document’s tone could embolden far-right and nationalist parties across Europe. By framing migration and multiculturalism as strategic liabilities rather than social challenges requiring thoughtful policy, the NSS lends rhetorical weight to exclusionary, ethno-nationalist politics.
Fazit
Previous US national security assessments were conceived to protect allies and promote stability; instead, the Trump document uses culture and demographics as criteria for trust and alliance. That shift marks a departure from decades of transatlantic cooperation rooted in shared values, not shared ancestry.
At a moment when global threats, from authoritarianism to climate change, demand solidarity, the latest National Security Strategy threatens to recast Europe not as a partner, but as a liability. Irrespective of whether the document becomes a blueprint for policy or a provocative outlier, it has already impacted the trans-Atlantic political debate. For Europe, the White House document raises questions about the reliability of its American partner.
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