Trump Administration Releases New National Security Science and Technology Strategy

The Trouble With Technology

Over their last 19 months in power, U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have continuously pushed the envelope of what their signature “America First” doctrine represents for global geopolitics— threatening Europe with U.S. troop reductions, pulling back from military exercises with South Korea, and threatening to bomb Middle Eastern partners such as Oman (two of which have happened just in the last week).

Trump’s national security strategy, released in December, explicitly foreshadowed a retreat from the United States’ global role and a “pull your own weight” message to U.S. allies around the world. When it comes to technology, however, the Trump administration has clearly been forced to retreat into realism. The White House released its new national security science and technology strategy this week, an addendum to December’s national security strategy that focuses on maintaining U.S. technological leadership. While the strategy hits some familiar notes, advocating America First policies on technology investment and arms transfers, it also proposes a level of engagement with both allies and adversaries that could contradict some of the administration’s own policies and actions.

For one, it recognizes that there are some areas where adversaries such as China (though not explicitly mentioned) are ahead of U.S. capabilities and calls for a more measured approach rather than spending to replicate the same capabilities. “Successfully shaping the competition also requires avoiding forms of technology competition where capable adversaries can readily counter U.S. moves with less effort,” the strategy reads. “We must avoid situations where competing for advantage favors adversaries and works against the objectives of U.S. strategy by expending resources without improving U.S. security.”

The document also advocates for dialogue with adversaries to avoid arms races in certain sectors: “In some areas, cooperative mutual restraint can deny competitors strategic advantage while preserving U.S. resources for higher priorities.” That tech dialogue is likely to be a key agenda item when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Trump next month, with China’s latest strides on artificial intelligence and robotics very much top of mind in Washington.

It’s complicated. Despite Trump’s antagonization and alienation of pretty much all of the United States’ traditional allies and partners, the new strategy repeatedly stresses the need to cooperate with them to ensure that the United States maintains its global technological leadership. The strategy advocates for streamlining some export controls to make technologies such as drones more accessible to allies, balancing that cooperation with the need to keep sensitive technologies out of adversaries’ hands.

“Deeper cooperation with allies and partners is essential to protecting America’s innovation base,” the strategy says. “America benefits from networks of allies and partners with ability to contribute to our collective defense and a growing recognition of the need to do so.”

But it may be too little, too late. NATO is rapidly de-Americanizing (in response to a push from Trump), allies have been burned by sudden curbs on access to U.S. artificial intelligence models, and Europe is pushing for “tech sovereignty.” Even as the Trump administration has succeeded in corralling several allies into its Pax Silica initiative to shore up tech supply chains, it is reportedly threatening those allies with more restrictions if they join a competing Chinese initiative.

Even the strategy’s stated goal of ensuring “robust and deliberate American participation on international standards bodies” could run up against Trump’s well-documented disdain for the United Nations and other multilateral institutions that set those standards. And the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies and heightened scrutiny of higher education could also impact the strategy’s assertion that “the United States will further strengthen its workforce by attracting and retaining top-tier global talent in critical national security [science and technology] fields.”

The bigger picture is that the Trump administration’s new national security tech strategy is a reflection of the administration’s own internal contradictions. On the one hand, the strategy recognizes the need for cooperation with allies and partners to maintain US technological leadership. On the other hand, the strategy also advocates for a more measured approach to technology competition, recognizing that there are areas where adversaries are ahead of US capabilities.

This internal contradiction is likely to have implications for global geopolitics. The Trump administration’s new national security tech strategy is a departure from the administration’s previous stance of ‘America First’ and could have implications for the administration’s relationships with allies and partners.

In the end, the Trump administration’s new national security tech strategy is a reflection of the administration’s own internal contradictions. While the strategy recognizes the need for cooperation with allies and partners, it also advocates for a more measured approach to technology competition. This internal contradiction is likely to have implications for global geopolitics.