The United States National Security Strategy published in November 2025 consolidates the shift towards a global economy twinned with security to turn it into a geopolitical battlefield.
The document addresses strategic resources, international economic relations and critical logistics infrastructures as vectors of national power.
Unambiguously, the liberal vision of globalization as the dominant post-Cold War thought is abandoned in favor of a strategic, competitive and territorialized logic where flows, nodes and bottlenecks matter as much as armies and alliances.
From free trade to strategic coercion
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One of the conceptual bases of the document is that the unrestricted opening of markets not only failed to generate political convergence, but also eroded the industrial base, weakened the middle class and created dangerous dependencies.
In this way, with the objective of establishing trade as an instrument of state power, it focuses on trade deficits, dumping and state subsidies as threats to national security. Therefore, tariffs, reciprocal agreements and selective restrictions will no longer be exceptions, but will become normal tools of strategic policy.
This key link between trade and alliances would imply that privileged access to the US market is conditional on political, military and technological alignment. The message is clear: economic interdependence is no longer neutral; It is hierarchical and negotiated from power.
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Material sovereignty in a fragmented world
The new US National Security Strategy aims for the country to stop depending on external actors to supply critical minerals, rare earths, energy, industrial components or technologies essential for its defense and its economy.
With this purpose, it addresses different proposals:
- Reindustrialization
- Supply chain relocation
- Expansion of domestic energy production
- Selective agreements with allied countries for the joint development of resources
In this area, energy is treated as a geopolitical asset: not only as an engine of internal growth, but as an instrument of external influence, capable of strengthening alliances and weakening adversaries. The rejection of restrictive climate policies is part of this logic: any transition that compromises strategic autonomy is seen as a risk.
Regions such as Latin America and Africa appear as key spaces to secure resources, although under a clearly competitive logic: joint development with allies and explicit exclusion of rival powers. This is a clear reference to China, putting the aforementioned continents in the dilemma of having to choose between the North American giant and the Asian one.
The power of nodes and chokepoints
Although less explicit in the document, but fundamental from a geopolitical point of view, is the issue of critical logistics infrastructures. Although it does not list specific assets such as the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, it systematically incorporates them through concepts such as:
- Crucial sea lanes
- Chokepoints
- Key strategic locations
- Freedom of navigation
Direct or indirect control of sea routes, straits, ports and canals is a central source of economic and military power. In Asia, it is stressed that a third of the world’s maritime trade transits through the South China Sea, and that allowing its control by a rival power would be equivalent to accepting the imposition of tolls, restrictions or arbitrary closures of global trade.
In the Middle East, the insistence on keeping the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea and energy routes open connects directly to the security of the logistics system that flows into the Suez Canal. In the Western Hemisphere, the emphasis on preventing extra-regional actors from controlling strategic assets and protecting key geographic points implicitly refers to infrastructures such as the Panama Canal.
Along these lines, it shows growing concern about ports, logistics corridors and digital networks built or financed by China. The US government intends to reverse that presence through diplomatic pressure, financial incentives and technological exclusion, making clear that the neutrality of global infrastructure is no longer taken for granted.
International economic relations: blocks, competition and hierarchy
In this framework, international economic relations are redefined as a systemic competition between blocks. China is presented as the main rival, not only because of its military power, but because of its ability to influence supply chains, finance infrastructure and project economic hegemony in the Global South.
The United States proposes to respond by consolidating an aligned economic-technological bloc, which integrates allies under common rules in trade, finance, standards and technology. The dollar, financial markets and access to US capital are seen as geopolitical correctives.
Traditional foreign aid loses prominence compared to a strategic investment approach, the recovery of that investment being not only economic but also political.
Reorder globalization
As a first conclusion, the United States National Security Strategy 2025 articulates a vision where the global economy is the battlefield; leaving trade subordinated to power, natural resources converted into strategic objectives, logistical infrastructures into geopolitical assets, and international economic relations organized around hierarchies and alignments.
Interdependence is no longer synonymous with stability, but rather a space of permanent dispute where whoever controls the flows controls the power.
