President Trump recently released his National Security Strategy, the influential document that guides American economic, military, and diplomatic relations with friends and foes alike. Almost immediately, European leaders bristled at its apparent criticism of the continent.
But while the National Security Strategy contains candid critiques of current European policy choices, it is by no means anti-European. Just the opposite. It affirms Europe's strategic and cultural importance to the United States, underscores trans-Atlantic trade as a pillar of American prosperity, and emphasizes the need for a strong Europe to compete with China and other adversaries. The Strategy also calls for helping Europe reverse its trajectory of managed decline.
In short, the National Security Strategy recognizes that strengthening America's prosperity requires making Europe great again. To do so, Congress and the Trump administration will need to press European leaders to embrace the free-market dynamism that has made America the world's richest, most powerful, and most technologically advanced nation -- while rejecting efforts to import Europe's failed policies into the United States.
Europe's approaches to critical sectors provide a cautionary tale for American policymakers flirting with similar approaches.
Take the energy sector, for instance. EU member states have embraced climate alarmists' policy wishlist -- with catastrophic consequences.
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