US warns Europe faces 'civilisational erasure'

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump's administration has set out a new national security strategy that paints European allies as weak and aims to reassert America’s dominance in the Western hemisphere.

- MICHELLE L PRICE

The document released yesterday by the White House is sure to vex longstanding US allies in Europe for its scathing critiques of their migration and free speech policies, suggesting they face the “prospect of civilisational erasure” and raising doubts about their long-term reliability as American partners.

It reinforces Mr Trump's “America First” philosophy, which favours nonintervention overseas, questions decades of strategic relationships and prioritises US interests above all.

The US strategy “is motivated above all by what works for America - or, in two words, America First,” the document stated.

It is the first national security strategy, a document the administration is required by law to release, since the Republican president's return to office in January.