Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report, where we have just learned that Chinese President Xi Jinping is a Manchester United supporter, and Rishi (also a fan of the club) isn’t sure how he feels about that. John, a Liverpool supporter, remains confident in his choices.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: what’s in the new U.S. National Defense Strategy, U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest threats toward Iran, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s back-and-forth with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Venezuela.
The Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy (NDS), which was quietly released last Friday after months of delay, is a real doozy of a document. It begins by characterizing the “rules-based international order” as a “cloud-castle” abstraction, echoing U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent assertion that he doesn’t “need international law.” The NDS offers yet another window into the Trump administration’s unorthodox approach to defense and the ways in which it’s determined to divorce the United States from long-standing policies and norms.
Breaking from the tone and content of past versions, the new NDS reiterates the president’s “America First” philosophy and could easily be confused with one of Trump’s campaign speeches. It takes numerous jabs at prior administrations, accusing them of neglecting U.S. interests, while presenting the defense of the U.S. homeland and the Western Hemisphere as bigger priorities than issues such as countering China. The NDS also showers Trump with praise and features a number of photos of the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Trump is “courageously putting Americans first to truly make America great once again,” the NDS states. Notably, the new NDS was released the same week that a U.S. citizen was fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis amid Trump’s immigration crackdown—the second such deadly incident to occur in the Minnesota city in January.
Homeland defense. In a sign of how big of a priority immigration remains for Trump, the NDS zeroes in on border security as a vital objective for the military, stating that the Pentagon will “prioritize efforts to seal our borders, repel forms of invasion, and deport illegal aliens in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.”
“The U.S. military’s foremost priority is to defend the U.S. Homeland,” the NDS states.
The NDS also mentions the Golden Dome several times as the document outlines the Pentagon’s homeland defense priorities—though little progress has been made on the ambitious missile defense initiative that Trump first announced over a year ago.
The NDS, which complements the National Security Strategy released in December, also emphasizes that the Defense Department will no longer “be distracted by interventionism, endless wars, regime change, and nation building.” This comes just weeks after the U.S. attacked Venezuela and captured its president, and during a month in which Trump has threatened to use military force everywhere from Greenland to Iran.
Dominating the Western Hemisphere. The NDS also focuses heavily on Trump’s goal of restoring U.S. military dominance in the Western Hemisphere. It echoes the White House’s “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, or the “Donroe Doctrine,” which the president has pointed to in justifying the administration’s recent actions in Latin America as well as his quest to acquire Greenland.
“We will actively and fearlessly defend America’s interests throughout the Western Hemisphere. We will guarantee U.S. military and commercial access to key terrain, especially the Panama Canal, Gulf of America, and Greenland. We will provide President Trump with credible military options to use against narco-terrorists wherever they may be,” the NDS states. “We will ensure that the Monroe Doctrine is upheld in our time.”
Taiwan ignored. Significant portions of the NDS focus on China, but overall, it downplays the threat posed by Beijing compared to past versions. The NDS underscores that the Pentagon’s goal is to deter Beijing in the Indo-Pacific through “strength, not confrontation.” It mentions concerns over China’s “historic military buildup,” but states that the Pentagon will focus on “supporting strategic stability with Beijing as well as deconfliction and de-escalation, more generally.”
Taiwan is not mentioned once—an extremely noteworthy omission. The last NDS, released by the Biden administration in 2022, repeatedly mentioned Taiwan and lambasted China for its “increasingly provocative rhetoric and coercive activity” toward the island.
All the rest. The NDS also outlines threats posed by adversaries like Russia, Iran, and North Korea, but it presents all three countries as relatively manageable problems that should largely fall to the responsibility of the U.S. allies that neighbor them. Along these lines, increasing burden-sharing with allies is repeatedly mentioned throughout the document. “In Europe and other theaters, allies will take the lead against threats that are less severe for us but more so for them, with critical but more limited support from the United States,” the NDS states.
The document’s release comes as key allies increasingly express impatience with Trump, who has been in cleanup mode in recent days as he deals with self-induced crises at home and abroad. The NDS is likely to be viewed in foreign capitals as further evidence that the United States is no longer a reliable partner.
The Trump administration has effectively demoted Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander whose social media clips and long green trench coat became the defining image of the administration’s controversial crackdown on protests in Minnesota, in which federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in the past month. Bovino will now reportedly return to his previous post in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, and his role in Minnesota will be taken up by Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan.
Also under pressure from Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike are Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who are seen as the architects of the Minnesota crackdown. However, Trump has thus far indicated he is sticking by both of them.
In other bad news for Noem’s department, Madhu Gottumukkala, the acting head of the United States’ top cyberdefense agency, appears to have made the ultimate cyber faux pas by uploading sensitive government documents onto a public version of ChatGPT, Politico reported. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which Gottumukkala leads, sits under DHS.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Trump’s Iran threats. Trump this week has warned Iran that a “massive armada” is heading in its direction as he urges the Islamic republic to renew negotiations over its nuclear program. The president’s fresh threats toward Tehran come after the Iranian regime’s brutal, deadly crackdown on mass protests. Thousands of Iranians are estimated to have been killed by the regime.
Trump in early January threatened to strike Iran if it violently killed peaceful protesters but never made good on this. At the height of the protests, Trump had limited military assets in the region and was also facing pressure from Gulf states not to attack. The U.S. has since shifted an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and supporting warships to the region. Trump is now weighing his options and reportedly believes striking Iran could help reignite the protests and further destabilize the Iranian regime.
Rubio’s testy testimony. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, facing tough questions from several Democrats and even some Republicans about the Trump administration’s military operation that seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in early January. The lawmakers grilled Rubio on the legality and transparency around the operation—as well as the dozens of strikes on alleged drug boats leading up to it—with some also asking if the Trump administration was planning a similar regime-change operation in Cuba. Our colleague Rachel Oswald has more here.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer greets Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of a bilateral meeting during a visit in Beijing on Jan. 29. Carl Court/Getty Images
Rishi has spent the past 10 days in Taiwan, where he had the opportunity to sit down with legislator Kuan-Ting Chen—a freshman lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and a member of the Taiwanese legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. They spoke about Taipei’s relationship with Washington, its efforts to counter China, and the political gridlock stalling its new $40 billion defense budget. The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.
Foreign Policy: We’ve seen a lot of mixed messaging on Taiwan from the Trump administration so far. How concerned are you about U.S. support?
Kuan-Ting Chen: I myself focus more on actions than words. Trump’s administration has sold us a lot of weapons systems we actually need. So instead of closely watching every sentence he says, we tend to focus on the decisions he makes, and foreign military sales is a very clear signal.
FP: Taiwan’s own $40 billion defense budget has been stalled by political gridlock. What is driving that?
KC: The opposition [Kuomintang] party believes that not spending much on national defense would help them build a friendly relationship with China. But we believe that in order to secure peace, we need to have strength—peace through strength. We need to build our own deterrence against China to stop the war before it can start. And that’s what we are working for, but it appears to us that the opposition party still believes in appeasement.
FP: Is that defense budget also meant to be a signal to the Trump administration, which has pushed countries to spend more on defense?
KC: Everything we do is to signal to China that they shouldn’t mess with us, it’s that simple. The signal is not to President Trump or to any other leader—it’s actually a direct signal to [Chinese] Chairman Xi [Jinping] that we are preparing ourselves, that he will not succeed, because of the capabilities we have. Period.
FP: Some people in Washington have made the point that Trump invading Venezuela and seeking to annex Greenland could send a signal to China that it’s permissible to invade Taiwan. I’m curious for your thoughts on that.
KC: Any actions the U.S. takes probably would not affect China, because they [the Chinese government] were breaking a lot of international laws long before Trump assumed office. They obey international law only if it serves their interests—the villains were villains since the beginning [laughs]. They have a plan for Taiwan; Trump’s behavior would not speed up or speed down their plan. So the risk is as big as yesterday, last year, and next year.
Friday, Jan. 30: The U.S. Congress faces a midnight deadline to reach a deal on a spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Saturday, Jan. 31: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to visit Japan.
Sunday, Feb. 1: Russia, the United States, and Ukraine are set to hold trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi.
Costa Rica is scheduled to hold general elections.
Eight members of OPEC+ are set to meet.
Tuesday, Feb. 3: Trump is poised to host Colombian President Gustavo Petro at the White House.
1.8 million—the estimated number of casualties from the war in Ukraine thus far, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Two-thirds of those killed were Russian, the report says, with total casualties on track to cross 2 million in the coming months.
“I am thrilled about that—that makes me qualified to be homeland security secretary and senior advisor to the president.”
—Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who is not running for reelection, responding to Trump calling him a “loser.”
We’ve officially hit one year since Trump proposed a new multibillion-dollar missile defense system for the United States, dubbed the Golden Dome. The U.S. president has touted the pricey project repeatedly, including in his speech to Davos last week while talking about why he wanted to acquire Greenland. If you’re wondering what exactly the Golden Dome is and how much progress has been made in making it a reality (not much), John and our colleague Alexandra Sharp have you covered.
