Editor’s note, November 6, 6:30 a.m. ET: Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. To learn more about our coverage of the 2024 campaign, Click here.
When Donald Trump takes over the presidency in January 2025, he will radically reshape international politics if he keeps his campaign promises.
Trump made it clear during his election campaign that he believed major changes in U.S. foreign policy were necessary. “We have been treated so badly, mainly by our allies… our allies actually treat us worse than our so-called enemies,” he added. Trump told the audience in September in a Wisconsin campaign event. “In the military, we protect them, and then they screw us over commercially. We are not going to allow this to happen anymore.
These are not empty promises. Presidents have wide latitude in foreign policy and can unilaterally enter into or cancel many international agreements.
“It really varies, from agreement to agreement, in terms of exit criteria, but there are very few where congressional approval for withdrawal is required,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, lead researcher and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, at Vox. .
During his first term, Trump pursued what he called an “America First” foreign policy, which saw him withdraw from major international agreementsthrow a trade war with Chinaverbally upset the alliesAnd attempt complex negotiations with several adversaries of the United States.
During this election campaign, he promised to continue his attempts to radically modify or obstruct international agreements, including the NATO security alliancein a way that could fundamentally weaken the United States’ place in the global order.
Among Trump’s stated foreign policy positions, planned protectionist trade policy would probably be most immediately damaging to the Americans; her proposed rate increases This would trigger a global trade war and drive up prices for American consumers. In the longer term, his ideas about the United States’ role in international affairs could erode American diplomacy and weaken institutions like NATO and the UN. This could have lasting effects on the geopolitical landscape, much like his foreign policy decisions during his first term.
Trump’s First Isolationist Administration, Briefly Explained
During his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump withdrew the United States from several international agreements, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), often referred to as the Iran deal. That deal, negotiated in 2015 under President Barack Obama, essentially eased U.S. sanctions on Iran in exchange for a reduction in its nuclear program and greater international oversight of it.
“The Iran deal was one of the worst, most one-sided deals the United States has ever made,” Trump said when the deal ended in 2018. Since then, Iran has built up its stock of enriched uranium and increased its supply of missiles, would have brought the program closer to the development of nuclear capabilities — despite the Trump administration’s promise that Iran would never have them.
Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, which commits all signatories to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other diplomatic casualties of the Trump administration include Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a Cold War-era pact between the United States and Russia limiting the development of short- and medium-range nuclear weapons; THE Open Skies Treatywhich allows signatories to carry out military reconnaissance overflights; and two international agreements on migration.
Trump also criticized NATO several times during his first term. He argued that other countries in the military alliance were not spending enough on defense (and they did). start spending more), wondered if the organization was still necessary, and in 2020 withdrew nearly 10,000 troops stationed in Germanya decision that, according to Philip Gordon, foreign policy adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, appears “intended to send a message about the limit of what Americans are willing to spend to defend our foreign borders and, more broadly, to maintain world order.
What Trump could do in a second term
In a second term, Trump pledged to once again withdraw from international agreements and organizations.
He explicitly promised to withdraw the United States from The Paris climate accords againafter the United States reentered the agreement under President Joe Biden. And Trump could limit American cooperation with UN organizations that his administration criticized, as World Health Organization. He also launched a series of new tariffs, sometimes calling for new taxes of up to 20 percent on U.S. trading partners and recently threatened to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on Mexicothat of the United States largest trading partner for goods in 2024.
One partnership that would be difficult for Trump to change – at least on paper – is the US-NATO agreement. The NATO charter does not provide for a withdrawal mechanism. As Kavanagh explains: “Recently, Congress passed legislation specifically aimed at NATO that would require congressional approval for withdrawal from NATO,” in an effort to further protect U.S. membership to the alliance.
Even with this guarantee, there are ways for the second Trump administration to gut NATO or other U.S. military agreements, such as NATO. United States, South Korea and Japan intended to deter China and North Korea.
“Trump can decide to change the American posture in any country, whether in Asia or Europe, and simply withdraw its forces, close bases, stop investing in some sort of common infrastructure and in all the committees and logistical elements that keep an alliance running, that keep us linked to allies and partners,” Kavanagh said. “Any president could do that.”
But neglecting NATO and alienating these allies is not the only way the second Trump administration is harming U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy, according to James Lindsay, senior fellow on U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. .
“A lot will depend on how he staffs his administration,” Lindsay told Vox. “We don’t have a good idea of who would be secretary of state, secretary of defense or (or) national security adviser.” The people in these positions could have serious implications for all kinds of foreign policy decisions, from how (and whether) ceasefire negotiations are conducted to which countries receive arms transfers.
In the absence of a strong and experienced diplomatic apparatus, Trump may attempt to negotiate his foreign policy largely alone, as he has done in the past. These attempts had bad results, as when his attempted negotiation with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un completed in 2019 without any guarantee from North Korea to stop the development of nuclear weapons and without fundamental change in relations. His interviews with the Taliban led to the withdrawal of American and NATO forces and the collapse of civilian government in Afghanistan.
Trump made big promises about the type of negotiations he would conduct as president, such as ending the war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours – but as was the case during his first term, the reality will likely be much more difficult and complicated than he lets on.
Update, November 6, 2024, 9 a.m.: This article has been updated to reflect Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory.