PRESS RELEASE: On the US government’s National Security Strategy (December 8, 2025)
KARAPATAN Public Information
PRESS RELEASE
December 8, 2025
Reference: Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general, 09173162831
KARAPATAN Public Information Desk, 09189790580
On the US government’s National Security Strategy
Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS) unapologetically says it all—America First.
Through the NSS, which was released this December 2025, the US repositions itself as the world’s “pulis pangkalawakan,” subverting anything and everything for its interests in being the “greatest and most successful nation in human history.”
Trump’s “course correction” of US policies and strategies therefore comes as a mere rebranding of the ways the US has been acting as the world’s Number One Imperialist, with Trump stating, matter-of-factly, that America’s national interest is “to strengthen American power and preeminence.”
Trump believes that to achieve peace, he must strengthen US economic, political, military, technological and cultural dominance and power to deter those who threaten US interests, upholding “justified intervention” if these interests are put at risk. It is likewise clear in Trump’s NSS that his administration will continue to foment unpeace by mobilizing its allies and puppets in Asia and utilizing them as launch pads in its conflict with China.
While trumpeting that the US is the “home of freedom on earth,” the Trump regime has detained nearly 75,000 immigrants and migrants in US detention facilities where people are subjected to torture, cruel or inhumane treatment. It has likewise refused to subject US troops to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), despite decades of documented war crimes and atrocities by US soldiers in numerous countries, and continues to support Israel vis-a-vis ICC actions against its war crimes against the Palestinian people.
The US claims in the NSS that it stands for core rights and liberties, but Trump continues to support, aid and direct wars of aggression and counter-insurgency wars, including those against the people of the Philippines and Palestine, pouring in millions of dollars to kill and suppress those who resist the fascist terrorist regimes that are allied with the US. Since 2014, the Philippines has been the largest recipient of US military and security aid in Southeast Asia, receiving nearly $1.8 billion since 2014 and more than $700 million under Marcos Jr.
The US supports Marcos Jr.’s National Action Plan on Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD), the latest counter-insurgency blueprint that has already resulted in thousands of victims of human rights and international humanitarian law violations. Trump has provided Marcos with helicopters, missiles and drones, as well as on-ground war materiel, to serve a twin purpose—to allow Philippine territory and enable the AFP to be utilized for US interests against China and to suppress the Filipino people’s resistance to a government that remains anti-people, corrupt and fascist.
KARAPATAN stands with the Filipino people in condemning Trump’s NSS and Marcos Jr.’s NAP-UPD as harbingers of unpeace in the Philippines. We will march on December 10, International Human Rights Day, to condemn the Marcos Jr. regime’s puppetry to the US, as we hold Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Rodrigo Duterte accountable for their fascist terror, corruption and oppression of the Filipino people.
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