AI as an Instrument of Foreign Trade Policy in the US National Security System

Abstract

   On December 4, 2025, the Trump administration published a new National Security Strategy, fully integrating trade policy into the country's national security system. The Strategy views economic prosperity as the foundation of military strength and the nation's civilizational confidence through rebuilding the industrial base, eliminating trade deficits, and leveraging access to the American market as a tool of geopolitical influence. The transition from globalism and free trade to hard sovereignty and flexible realism is formally enshrined. Cultivating American industrial strength is declared the highest priority of national economic policy.

  The goal is to achieve global leadership in the global economy through the dominance of American technologies and standards, particularly in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing.

   In fact, the entire US national security system is fundamentally integrated with AI technologies. Absolute priority is given to global technological dominance as a national security imperative, based not on traditional political ideology, but motivated above all by what works for the United States based on the principle of 'America First. Victory in the AI race is declared as the beginning of a new golden age of human prosperity, economic competitiveness, and national security for the American people. The goal is to integrate AI into all sectors of the national economy and public administration. AI is regarded as the most important strategic resource of the emerging new industrial and information revolution, capable of decisively transforming the global economy and changing the balance of power in the world. AI has been transformed into a priority instrument of foreign trade policy in the context of the US national security system.