The first national security strategy of Donald Trump’s second presidency unveiled Thursday made no mention of North Korea or its threats as China similarly bucked tradition and dropped its denuclearization goals for the peninsula in its recent defense whitepaper. 

The longstanding subject of North Korea’s denuclearization was absent in the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) released by the White House, which framed a possible conflict in the Taiwan Strait and China’s economic growth as the two most significant threats to U.S. interests in the region.

This marks the first time in the post-Cold War era that the NSShas completely