The best-case scenario for Trump's foreign policy
A second Trump administration would fundamentally alter America’s relationship with the rest of the world. That might not be such a bad thing.
Anyone searching for the true beliefs of Donald Trump on any major issue is liable to come away either disappointed or aggravated. The former president is known for his fulsome diatribes, changing his mind impulsively, and articulating ideas so divergent from the establishment consensus that they provoke backlash.
It does not help that Trump’s style is insulting and deliberately offensive, or that he is facing 88 criminal charges ranging from withholding highly classified national security documents to trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Several people who served under him in the White House say he is too dangerous to return to office.
So trying to analyze his positions the way you would with any other candidate runs the risk of normalizing or condoning Trump’s behavior. Yet ignoring him is also impossible — he is the presumptive Republican nominee, an ex-president who in current polls is either tied with or leading President Biden.
Trump is unique for another reason: He is the first president in generations to upend the foreign policy orthodoxies of both parties, to question the purpose of America’s security alliances, and to put forward, however inchoately, an alternative vision for America and the world order.
Foreign policy may be the most important set of issues for any president, because decisions can make the difference between war and peace. And foreign policy also happens to be one area where Trump has shown surprising coherence and consistency over the years.
In 1987, Trump took out full-page advertisements in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and this newspaper. In what he called “An Open Letter to the American People,” the real estate mogul argued that America should not pay to defend European allies and Japan when those countries could afford the bills themselves. “The world is laughing at America’s politicians,” he exhorted, in phrasing that has since become his signature, “as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help.”
In a prelude to his later populism, Trump’s 1987 letter also declared that American funds should be spent at home to help American farmers and American industry. Trump’s instinct was that America was overextended abroad and losing its economic strength at home, economic power being the source of geopolitical power. Thirty years later, he won the Republican nomination
and then the presidency with these same themes.
During his time in office, American foreign policy appeared chaotic. Trump had two secretaries of state, four national security advisers, and four chiefs of staff in as many years. But the worst predictions did not materialize. He was supposedly going to end the international system as we know it, provoke a war, or even cause nuclear Armageddon. All that was clearly overblown. By the end of his administration, Trump was even on good terms with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, whom he had repeatedly insulted.
Nine months from now, Trump may be inaugurated as America’s 47th president. To understand how Trump’s secondterm foreign policy might go down, I read books by former Trump administration officials, read Trump’s own words going back nearly four decades, and read nearly everything written about Trump’s foreign policy since 2016.
There is a lot about Trump I find objectionable, from his incendiary language to his 2017 ban on Muslim immigration to how he has conducted himself while in and out of office. He clearly admires strongmen. He enriched himself and his family while in office.
But it would be a mistake to shut our ears to everything Trump says simply because it is Trump saying it. Voters, and the Biden campaign, would be wise to understand why Trump’s ideas about foreign policy may appeal to a lot of people — including millennials like me. According to a recent Axios poll, Trump has narrowed Biden’s lead among young people to just four points. He leads Biden in six of seven swing states.
How is this possible? What I found buried beneath Trump’s bluster was a set of cogent arguments that pick up on an old tradition in American foreign policy. I’ve come to believe that although a second Trump administration would be more destabilizing in the short term, it could eventually benefit a country exhausted from wars and facing a great-power competition against China. The Trump Doctrine 2.0 would fundamentally reorient America’s relationship with the world.
The foreign policy establishment sold my generation out
To understand how Donald Trump’s foreign policy ideas took over the Republican Party, it helps to think like a millennial.
For me and other people born in the 1980s and 1990s, a defining feature of our lives has been endless war, with a financial crisis thrown in for good measure. Until recently, there was a bipartisan consensus that American power was unlimited and America could impose its will on the rest of the world. There also was an absence of real debate about middle-class stagnation, the concentrated gains of America’s trade policy, the wars in the Middle East, or how these issues are entwined.
After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, at one point there were nearly 200,000 US soldiers there. The invasion itself was launched based on falsehoods and dubious intelligence. “Five days or five weeks or five months,” then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003, “but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.” A decade later, in 2013,
Iraq was overrun with al Qaeda, ISIS, and countless militias. More than 4,000 Americans died in this pointless war, many of them young men from neglected communities. And let’s not forget: At least half a million Iraqis were killed when America set loose a hurricane of violence with no endgame.
As for Afghanistan, America again expended its blood and treasure over 20 years, incurring huge costs and causing violence to itself and to Afghans — only to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
The brunt of these wars did not fall on wealthy Americans. The young men and women who have died in the Middle East have been mostly working-class. The people in America who have been profiled, harassed, and assaulted because of the hatreds unleashed through these wars have been predominantly Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, and Arab. A substantial portion of the recruits who fought the war on terror came from rural areas.
And what’s more disturbing is: The deaths continue. Of the three US soldiers recently killed in Jordan as a result of the expanding Israel-Gaza war, two were under the age of 25. They were babies when 9/11 happened yet paid the ultimate price for these wars.
The tragedy is that part of my generation was sacrificed in wars that served no purpose, at the whims of irresponsible politicians mishandling American power, who were content to pass off the enormous costs to someone else. Millennials and their parents paid the price for the war on terror; today’s young people and generations to come will be paying back trillions of dollars for these catastrophic blunders.
Today, young Americans have declining trust in one another, their elders, and all institutions, including the military. And with the decline of manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs lost to free trade, wealth inequality has gotten worse. Noncollege-educated Americans, many living in rural areas and smaller towns, have seen their economic prospects vanish. Deaths of despair, caused by suicide and overdose, continue to rise, surpassing 100,000 last year.
Ultimately, a republic is meant to be responsive to the changing needs of the people, yet for nearly 20 years, American foreign policy — which includes trade — did not address ordinary people’s concerns. The foreign policy establishment had a chokehold on the debate itself. Trump sought to break it open.
What Obama and Trump saw
Since at least the 1970s, there have been two reigning ideologies in American foreign affairs: neoconservatism and neoliberalism. Neoconservatism is the belief in using American power to bring about democracy at gunpoint. Neoliberalism is about unleashing America’s post-1980s deregulated financial sector on the world.
It was supposed to be free markets and free trade deals for all. Corporate America, backed by the elites of both parties, privileged “market efficiency” above every other consideration and was hugely supportive of China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization. The idea was that liberalization of markets, even for unstable or developing countries, would lead to democracy and stability.
Globalization and free trade certainly benefited American consumers and many millions were lifted out of poverty abroad, but American workers suffered. Recent studies have found that the United States lost nearly 2.4 million jobs to China between 1999 and 2011, including nearly a million good manufacturing jobs. Technology played a role, but so did this neoliberal race to the bottom. Public officials, whether in Washington or Davos, patted themselves on the back for “stabilizing” developing countries by forcing deregulated financial capitalism on them, decisions that would boomerang and ravage American workers, towns, and communities. The middle class at home was hollowed out.
In the post-9/11 era, Americans elected two very different men to address the twin dysfunctions of perpetual war and an imbalanced international economic system. Both these presidents were outsiders. The first, Barack Obama, opposed the Iraq War while the neoconservatives were still in charge. During the 2008 Democratic primaries, he also promised to renegotiate NAFTA. Obama would struggle to break the consensus on war and did not change it on trade. The second man was Donald Trump.
Though Trump and Obama are opposites in temperament and style, they both seem to recognize that there are limits to American power. In a wide-ranging exit interview on foreign policy, President Obama said he disliked “free riders” — countries in the Middle East and Europe that benefited from American security assistance but were not paying their share or achieving durable peace. The same countries then often turned around and stiffed America in trade negotiations. Obama also questioned America’s footprint in the Middle East and resisted the Washington establishment’s desire to use military force for every problem. He attempted to pivot to Asia to check a rising China but was continually drawn back into the Middle East.
Trump takes this skepticism of allies, dispenses with the eloquence, and seeks a direct, bilateral approach predicated on zero-sum outcomes: If other countries “win,” America loses. But both he and Obama wanted to stop nation-building abroad and focus on investments in America.
The other reason Trump’s views resonate is that they are deeply rooted in American history and the traditions of American foreign policy.
In 2016, Thomas Wright, then of the Brookings Institution and now of the Biden administration, likened Trump’s outlook to a 19th-century worldview, one that “makes a great leap backward in history.” Indeed, Trump’s ideas, such as his criticism of NATO and the European Union, are often called isolationist.
But this is a misnomer. “Not even the ‘isolationists’ of the 1930s had any use for the term,” writes Walter McDougall in “Promised Land, Crusader State,” his classic 1997 study of the traditions of American foreign policy. “Our vaunted tradition of isolationism is no tradition at all, but a dirty word that interventionists, especially since Pearl Harbor, hurl at anyone who questions their policies.” What is smeared as isolationism is in fact unilateralism — the right to act as America sees fit when its core interests are at stake, the greatest among these being the preservation of liberty at home and predominance in the Western Hemisphere, and the second being the ability to thrive amid the other great powers.
Unilateralism goes back to George Washington’s Farewell Address and the belief that the United States should avoid permanent entangling alliances. America had to refrain from involving itself in European blood feuds and wars or in playing favorites in such a way that the country might be lured away from its long-term interest in preserving the American republic at home. Alliances were strictly for emergencies.
The second pillar of Trumpian foreign policy is the Monroe Doctrine. Announced by President James Monroe in 1823 and written largely by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the Monroe Doctrine declared that no foreign power could establish hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. By fending off the czars, kings, and emperors from America’s sphere of influence, the young country would remain secure. The Monroe Doctrine — also called “the American system” — is the anchor of American foreign policy, upheld by presidents of both parties for two centuries.
Trump combines unilateralism and the Monroe Doctrine. “The world is most peaceful and most prosperous when America is strongest,” Trump said in his first foreign policy speech. “We’re getting out of the nation-building business and instead focusing on creating stability in the world.” Implied here is the notion that American military involvement in other nations can often be the cause of instability and not just the consequence of it. By trimming unnecessary commitments, investing in domestic sources of strength, and focusing on America’s long-term interests — especially the economic competition with China — the country can thrive again.
Trump and the foreign policy elite, including President Biden, have markedly divergent ways of defining the national interest. For the establishment, funding the Ukrainians without question, signing free trade deals, participating in dogooder summits, and defending elusive concepts like American “credibility” are all part of the national interest. In contrast, unilateralism, which is grounded in a realistic assessment of power, places constraints on American action in a world of scarcity. It requires prioritizing what is important, cutting what is extraneous, and pursuing the interests that are vital to the United States, which today are in the Western Hemisphere and Asia. In this worldview, great nations are imperiled when they pursue unlimited aims around the world — and will decline and fall when they go in search of monsters to destroy.
In the 1800s, America’s archrival was Great Britain. Today the only country that poses a long-term challenge is China. By some measures, China’s economy has already surpassed that of the United States. According to Elbridge Colby, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Trump administration and who authored the Pentagon’s 2018 National Defense Strategy, “America’s core interest is in preventing the hegemony of any other state over a key region in the world, and the main threat to that interest is China in Asia.” Colby, a respected intellectual, argues that all of our defense commitments should be evaluated — even exited — in light of the competition with China. Trump would likely agree.
By limiting the scope of American interests, American forces in the Middle East and Europe could move offshore and limit the use of force to preserving the country’s vital interests, such as keeping sea lanes open. Europeans would take responsibility for their own security.
In Trump’s first term, he was constrained by generals and economic advisers who tried to keep him close to the establishment mainstream. He did not execute the unilateralist foreign policy to its full extent. But after spending time reading Trump’s words and the words of those who may serve in a second Trump administration, I am convinced that this time he would remove the brake, bring back economic nationalism, and put America squarely on the road to a very different kind of foreign policy.
Why not prioritize US workers?
Article II of the Constitution gives the president extraordinary discretion in executing the nation’s foreign policy. That includes not just the nation’s military posture and national security but also trade.
In the first Trump administration, the president forced the renegotiation of NAFTA with Canada and Mexico, one of his signature achievements. The original NAFTA, like other trade deals both parties signed over 30 years, overprivileged capital and undervalued labor. “Simply put,” writes Bob Lighthizer, Trump’s trade representative who renegotiated NAFTA, in his book “No Trade Is Free,” “I believe that American trade policy should revolve around helping working-class families. Enhancing corporate profits, increasing economic efficiency, and lowering consumer prices are important, but secondary to that goal.” It’s a statement many on the left would accept.
Lighthizer is a sharp lawyer. In a second Trump administration, he would certainly have a very senior role. He is a modern-day mercantilist who sees America’s trade policy from the vantage point of workers. “It is imperative to remember that our citizens are first producers and only second consumers,” he writes.
During the NAFTA talks, Lighthizer played hardball. His boss slapped tariffs on Canada and Mexico under a section of US law meant to address countries that pose a national security risk to the United States. Trump later also threatened tariffs on autos, which Lighthizer correctly notes would have been “catastrophic” for all three North American economies. These were massive escalations but, in the end, achieved the desired result: A new NAFTA was approved by Congress in 2020, which included stronger labor, agricultural, and intellectual property protections.
As for China, I was in that country when Trump launched his trade war in 2018. The Chinese, from the elite to the middle class, found Trump to be a humorous character — the American stereotype of a game show host who had walked off the set and into the Oval Office. Beijing initially tried to flatter Trump, who became the first foreign leader since the founding of modern China to be invited by the Chinese government to dine in the Forbidden City. A year later, he launched a trade war with China. Though China responded with retaliatory tariffs, there was no appetite in Shanghai or Beijing for further escalation. Trade would continue even as long-neglected areas of economic competition were addressed. Truth be told, China had gotten away with large trade imbalances and economic espionage for years.
Notably, the Biden administration has maintained Trump’s tariffs on China. It is an indication that Trumpism in foreign affairs may outlast the man himself.
Counterintuitive paths to peace
According to Project 2025, the unofficial transition blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation, a second Trump administration plans to appoint many more political staffers throughout the administration. The National Security Council and State Department would have additional presidential appointments. Homeland Security would be disbanded and merged with other departments. This time, the Trumpians plan to fully carry out their foreign policy vision.
Should Trump take the oath of office next January, he says he will end the war in Ukraine. It’s understandable that people are worried that he would sell out Ukraine to Russia or that he would allow Russia to take over more of Europe. But a negotiated settlement is now the only path to peace in Ukraine. Such proposals have already been put on the table. To be clear: Russia’s invasion was brutal and feckless; over 500,000 people on both sides have been killed or wounded. But this is a conflict that cannot be won by arms alone. Rejecting the maximalist position — Russia out of every inch of Ukraine — would allow for a realistic end to the war, and Moscow would still be burdened with huge economic costs.
The post-1945 case for US dominance in Europe was predicated on the fear that a revolutionary dictator might emerge who threatens the world order and forces the United States to fight another land war. This fear no longer justifies a perpetual military presence in Europe. It is unlikely that Trump will completely end America’s relationship with NATO or end the US nuclear umbrella over the continent, but even if he did, Britain and France could step up — as they are already preparing to do. If the US pulls back its guarantees, the European states could be encouraged to find their own equilibrium. Unilateralism means America can no longer be Europe’s pacifier.
In the Middle East, Trump could have a chance to build on the Abraham Accords, which laid the groundwork for normalization of ties between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors. When it comes to the Palestinians, pro-Israel hawks believe Trump will give Israel freer rein than Biden has. But the opposite could be true. Trump is generally very pro-Israel, but he has no particular ideological interest in the Middle East. He exhibits a personal dislike of Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he sharply criticized after Oct. 7. And if he follows the unilateralist doctrine, Trump would ask what America’s core interests are in the Middle East. That could help him pressure Israel and the major Arab states, all of which are beneficiaries of US largesse, into a compromise. Israel, Trump said recently, needed to “finish up” the war “and get back to the world of peace.” He officially called for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza before President Biden did.
It’s true that Trump in a second term seems likely to threaten Iran. But there are reasons to believe this would not provoke a wider war. In his first term, Trump had the military kill both Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, and Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, and Iran did not directly escalate. Iran’s leadership is a geriatric theocracy whose primary interest is not revolution abroad but self-preservation at home.
That brings us to China, the most important bilateral relationship for the United States. Here, the fact that Trump seems to get along better with autocrats may have an upside. On the campaign trail, Trump delights in telling audiences that President Xi Jinping respects him. The word “respect” is integral to China’s strategic culture, particularly as China is still nursing the wounds of what it calls its centuries of humiliation. China is increasing its defense spending and aims to be a world leader in advanced technologies within a decade.
There probably would be a major Trump-Xi summit, and if Trump could get the rest of the Republican Party to restrain its aggressive anti-China fervor, a new economic understanding with China could be reached. It’s possible to imagine an updated Shanghai Communiqué that outlines the fundamental precepts of competition amid coexistence between the two superpowers. What’s important is reviving America’s domestic production and innovation, and building up America’s own defensive capabilities in the Pacific.
Trump is disliked for many reasons; he is also a symptom of deeper issues in the body politic. A second Trump administration would look out for a narrower range of interests, would push other countries to look out for theirs, and would seek primacy in commerce over war. America could then work to rebuild its bridges, fix its airports, reshore its jobs, and lead the world without military adventurism. “She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all,” said John Quincy Adams. “She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”
The status quo has given us war and carnage. The world order is in flames. It may be time for a reset.