Anticipating Trump’s foreign policy

Prediction is always difficult, but doubly so in the case of the US president-elect. Donald Trump not only speaks loosely and changes his positions often; he also considers unpredictability to be a useful bargaining tool. Still, one can try to get a sense of what his foreign policy will look like from his campaign statements, his high-level appointments, and his first term.

In Washington, it is often said that “personnel is policy.” But while we already know whom Trump wants for key positions, the problem is that their stated views sometimes conflict with each other. With Trump making every effort to avoid the traditional Republicans who hemmed him in during his first term, the common denominator among his choices this time is personal loyalty. But even this quality does not help us predict policy.

Consider the question of China. Trump’s choices for Secretary of State and national security adviser – Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Michael Waltz, respectively – are well-known “hawks” who see China as a dominant threat that demands a strong response. We also know from his campaign that Trump is eager to introduce new tariffs on imports from allies, with even higher tariffs on goods from China.

With Trump already announcing plans to slap tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China, we should certainly expect some new levies to be imposed. But the tariffs’ rates, duration, and exemptions remain uncertain and subject both to domestic political pressures and Trump’s personal whims. As his designee for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, recently said, “I think a lot of what he’s doing is to escalate to de-escalate, and my goal for his administration would be to save international trade.”

Equally uncertain is how Trump might respond to retaliation by America’s trade partners. If tit-for-tat trade wars drive tariffs and prices higher, the return of inflation may trigger a domestic political backlash. Since Trump prides himself on his dealmaking prowess, he may seek compromises. Would he offer his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, weaker US support for Taiwan in exchange for a trade deal that he could hold up as a victory? Some of America’s Asian allies worry about precisely this scenario.

Judging by Trump’s campaign statements and previous term in the White House, we should also expect him to devalue multilateralism and alliances. He has promised to withdraw again from the Paris climate agreement, and to increase domestic production and exports of oil and gas. While the price of renewable energy has been declining in the US, it remains to be seen whether his policies will cancel out that beneficial market effect by reducing these industries’ relative cost competitiveness.

In the Middle East, Trump’s campaign statements were unconditionally supportive of Israel, and he still takes pride in having negotiated the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and four Arab countries. When the Biden administration tried to build on this breakthrough by enticing Saudi Arabia to recognise Israel, the Saudis set a precondition: Israel must take steps toward creating a Palestinian state. But Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition staunchly opposes a two-state solution, and since Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, Israeli public support for such an outcome, already low, has fallen further. Trump undoubtedly wants to extend his prior success in the region; but it is anyone’s guess how he will go about it.

Turning to Europe and NATO, Trump said during the campaign that he would end the war in Ukraine “in one day.” We know that will not happen; but there is deep uncertainty about how he will try to negotiate an armistice. One possibility is to reduce assistance to Ukraine and weaken its bargaining position so that it must accept Russian terms. Or Trump could temporarily extend support for Ukraine while moving toward a “Korean solution.”

In the latter scenario, the current front line would become a demilitarised zone staffed by United Nations or European peacekeepers whom Russia would have to force out if it wants to restart the war. Ukraine could continue to assert sovereignty over areas like the Donbas, but it most likely would be unable to join NATO; instead, perhaps some subset of countries (“friends of Ukraine”) could offer to come to its aid if Russia violated the demilitarised zone. It is unclear whether Trump will use his bargaining power vis-à-vis Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to produce such a compromise. But securing a deal will certainly be attractive if he is thinking about his legacy.

Even if predictions based on campaign statements and personnel leave us uncertain, we can at least locate Trump in the historical traditions of US foreign policy. Recall his first inaugural address, when he proclaimed that “from this moment on, it’s going to be America first … we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example.” This view accords with the “city-on-the-hill” approach to US foreign policy, which has a long pedigree. It is not isolationism, but it eschews activism.

By contrast, in the twentieth century, Woodrow Wilson sought a foreign policy that would make democracy safe in the world, and John F. Kennedy urged Americans to consider what they could do for the rest of the world, establishing the Peace Corps in 1961. Jimmy Carter made human rights a core concern of US foreign policy, and George W. Bush’s international strategy rested on the twin pillars of leading a growing global community of democracies and promoting freedom, justice, and human dignity.

The one prediction that seems safe is that Trump’s approach to the world will be more in keeping with the first of these traditions than the second.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, is a former US assistant secretary of defense and author of the memoir A Life in the American Century (Polity Press, 2024).