President Trump's National Security Strategy Sends Messages For Private Sector Priorities

The Trump Administration National Security Strategy (NSS or Strategy) dated November 2025 and released on December 5, 2025, outlines notable priorities that may impact the private sector in 2026 and beyond. Below, we highlight a few aspects of the strategy that provides hints about regulatory activity, opportunities, and challenges in 2026.

Notable elements include prioritizing investment in domestic innovation and growing and on-shoring industrial production. The Strategy prioritizes resilient national infrastructure; a "robust, productive, and innovative energy sector;" defense industrial and defense-related production capacity; and a strong industrial sector capable of meeting both peacetime and wartime manufacturing demands. To support economic growth, the Strategy establishes the U.S. needs to be strong in trade, which demands "closer collaboration between the U.S. Government and the American private sector." Growing the U.S. Financial Sector is tied to leadership in "digital finance and innovation." These and other priorities outlined in the NSS offer investment, procurement, and collaboration opportunities for the private sector.

Big Picture: the Administration Supports U.S. Innovation and Expansion

The NSS sets forth "America's core foreign policy interests" as they relate to the Western Hemisphere, the Indo-Pacific, Middle East, and Europe. Among those interests is supporting our allies but also reducing the influence of adversary nations by "demonstrating ... [the] hidden costs" of this foreign assistance as it relates to espionage, debt, and cybersecurity.

To counter China's interests, the NSS prioritizes U.S. Government financing and partnering with regional governments and businesses to build "resilient energy infrastructure, invest in critical mineral access, and harden existing and future cyber communications networks" protected by U.S. encryption and security technology. This is explicitly intended to respond to examples in Africa and the Americas of countries accepting China's low cost deployment of telecommunications equipment, among other perceived influence attempts.

The predominance of U.S. technology and U.S. standards are identified as "core, vital national interests." The Strategy specifically highlights AI, biotech, and quantum computing investment. U.S. leadership on international standards has bipartisan support in Congress and from the Communications and IT sectors, which have coalesced to counter Chinese dominance in these forums underwritten by China's Standards 2035 strategy.

The Strategy Previews a More Assertive Approach to Cybersecurity While Expanding Collaboration

The NSS provides a preview of the National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS) planned for release in January 2026. A notable element of the Strategy shows a commitment to stronger partnerships with private sector operators of U.S. communications networks. The NSS states that these relationships enable the U.S. Government to "maintain surveillance of persistent threats to U.S. networks" and "to conduct real-time discovery, attribution, and response." The NSS calls for work to "harden existing and future cyber communications networks that take full advantage of American encryption and security potential." And the NSS's discussion of European policy includes a call to encourage the continent to "take action to combat...cyber espionage," among other priorities. Under the NSS, expanding network defense is key to protecting communications networks, competitiveness, and the technology sector.

Picking up on the theme of collaboration, National Cyber Director (NCD) Sean Cairncross has identified the importance of continued and enhanced coordination and information sharing with the private sector in deterring and responding to nation-state attacks. The forthcoming NCS is expected to provide for a more consequence-based approach to shaping adversary behavior through offensive cyber operations in response to cyber attacks. The NCS is also expected to provide mechanisms to deter cyber attacks by denying the incentives that motivate adversaries and other cyber threat actors to interfere with critical infrastructure.

There is support for harmonization and deconfliction in cyber regulation, which has long been a priority for cyber policymakers and the private sector. For example, the NSS discusses using "deregulation to further improve our competitiveness, spur innovation, and increase access to America's natural resources." Deregulation is also a theme that NCD Cairncross has used when discussing cybersecurity regulatory harmonization, which we expect to feature in the NCS.

The Strategy Reiterates the Administration's Focus on Supply Chain

The NSS emphasizes "maintaining secure and reliable supply chains and access to critical materials[.]" The Strategy is tied to a key component of President Trump's domestic agenda related to supply chain – reindustrializing the U.S. economy to enable U.S. production and greater control over the supply chain. This aligns with calls from Congress, expert agencies, and the private sector for domestic and allied partners production of equipment vital to critical infrastructure in the energy, telecommunications, and transportation sectors. The Strategy forecasts the use of "commercial diplomacy" to strengthen our supply chain in the Western Hemisphere and outlines plans to expand U.S. "access to critical minerals and materials, while countering predatory economic practices."

The NSS specifically ties reviving the U.S. defense industrial base to onshoring its supply chain and bolstering innovation in new defenses, whether low cost uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) or high-end systems required to defeat sophisticated adversaries. Domestic production of UAS allowing the U.S. to end dependence on China has been a bipartisan priority of Congress enacted into law in multiple years of the National Defense Authorization Act most recently in Fiscal Year 2025. This legislation culminated in the Federal Communications Commission adding UAS and UAS critical components produced in foreign countries to the Covered List, which prohibits such equipment from receiving an equipment authorization. President Trump previously moved U.S. commercialization of UAS forward in two Executive Orders, most recently on June 6, 2025, through the Unleashing American Drone Dominance.

Key Take Aways from the Strategy for U.S. and Global Business

• The NSS is focused on increasing U.S. manufacturing, promoting innovation, and growth of the defense industrial base.
• Under the Strategy, investment in emerging technologies and research will help to drive innovation in military and dual-use technology.
• Greater supply chain security through domestic production is tied to strengthening critical infrastructure.

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