When Donald Trump completes his once-unthinkable return to the White House, he’ll face a world far more violent and unsettled than when he unwillingly gave up power four years ago.
And his very presence behind the Resolute desk feels destined to destabilize it further.
Trump has offered mysterious plans to bring quick ends to the wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East. He has antagonized allies and mused about a return to an age of American imperialism, when the United States could simply seize the territory it wanted. He and his advisers have threatened trade wars and allied themselves with movements that have eroded democracies and supported rising authoritarians.
And Trump is again poised to push an “America First” foreign policy—inward-looking and transactional—at a moment when a lack of superpower leadership could embolden China to move on Taiwan or lead to renewed conflict in the Middle East, just as the region seems on the doorstep of its biggest transformation in generations.
“Trump is less of a surprise this time but will be a test. The international system has baked in that Trump is not an instinctive supporter of alliances, that he will be inconsistent,” James Stavridis, a former supreme allied commander of NATO, told me. “Allies and adversaries alike are going to know that nothing is free; everything is a negotiation.”
Trump, Biden officials ruefully note in private, will inherit a strong hand. He will take the helm of a healthy economy and will become the first U.S. president in decades to assume office without a large-scale military deployment in an overseas war zone. And the grueling conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza—which Trump has demanded end immediately—both appear to be at inflection points, with war-weary sides showing a willingness to talk.
The president-elect has said there will be “hell to pay in the Middle East” if Hamas hasn’t released the hostages seized on October 7, 2023, by the time he is inaugurated. After months of negotiations by President Joe Biden’s team, a breakthrough appears at hand to pause fighting and release some hostages.
The moment has come during the incumbent’s final days in office, yet Trump has been quick to take credit—the deal was made with input from his Middle East envoy—even as a permanent resolution to the conflict remains uncertain. And his intervention does seem to have played a key role in achieving a breakthrough. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared eager to start Trump’s second term on the incoming president-elect’s good side while Hamas may have been spooked by his bombast. But as the cease-fire slowly unfurls in the weeks ahead, Trump’s tempestuousness could just as easily endanger the fragile deal.
During his reelection campaign, Trump repeatedly proclaimed that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine “within 24 hours,” a claim he has since softened. Indeed, nowhere will his swearing-in be more nervously watched than in Kyiv. Trump, of course, has long derided NATO, the alliance that has propped up Ukraine. Moscow has made some halting advances, despite a last-ditch surge of aid to Ukraine from the Biden administration. And the president-elect’s desire for a quick, negotiated end to the conflict seems likely to ratify some of Russia’s territorial gains.
Trump’s White House and the MAGA-ified House of Representatives have shown no appetite to send substantial aid or military equipment to the front, and although Europe will gamely try to pick up the slack, Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself will suffer without American support. Russia’s advantage in manpower—bolstered by the North Korean troops it is using as cannon fodder—will only expand, and Russian President Vladimir Putin may grow more confident that he can simply win a war of attrition.
One senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the incoming administration, identified Trump’s long-standing deference to Putin as a grave concern, particularly if Russia’s aggression sets off NATO’s mutual-defense pact. “If Trump gives in to Putin an inch, he’ll take a mile,” the official told me. “If he turns his back completely and encourages him to move beyond Ukraine, think how much more costly it will be if Article 5 gets triggered. Then we have American skin in the game.”
Divisions are already emerging in Trump’s orbit as to the best approach to Ukraine and beyond. Steve Bannon, the right-wing provocateur and first-term Trump aide, has argued against globalism. Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who has become Trump’s most influential informal adviser, has used his fortune and social-media reach to prop up right-wingers in the U.K. and Germany who are eager to walk away from Kyiv. That echoes the approach of the incoming vice president, J. D. Vance.
But not all of Trump’s team is in lockstep. The secretary-of-state nominee, Marco Rubio, has been a NATO defender, and Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, has argued forcefully in favor of tougher sanctions on Moscow’s energy sector to strangle Putin’s government economically.
Those divisions feel familiar. Trump’s first-term diplomatic and national-security teams—initially stocked with Republican stalwarts whose views were far closer to GOP orthodoxy than those embraced by MAGA—often found themselves feuding among themselves. Both camps were frequently frustrated by a president who had few consistent desires other than a need for flattery.
The result was a haphazard foreign policy. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un started out on the receiving end of “fire and fury,” only to later receive what Trump called “beautiful letters.” China went from foe to friend and then back again. And even as his administration levied tough sanctions against Russia, Trump continually cozied up to Putin, siding with the dictator over his own U.S. intelligence agencies in Helsinki.
That unpredictability, although it brought chaos before, could work to Trump’s advantage on the world stage this time around, his new crop of advisers believes. Would any foreign adversary dare test Trump if they can’t anticipate his response? Trump himself leaned into the idea in October, when he told The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board that he would not have to use military force to prevent Beijing from blockading Taiwan, because Chinese President Xi Jinping “respects me and he knows I’m fucking crazy.”
It’s far less calculated than Richard Nixon’s “madman” theory of the case—far more born of Trump’s own whims and ego—but the end result, his advisers argue, could be the same.
And that, to put it mildly, was on full display during the transition.
Maps showing the familiar view of the Western Hemisphere, but with the U.S. borders cartoonishly expanded, have become popular right-wing memes. Suddenly, Greenland is part of the United States. Upon closer examination, so is the Panama Canal. And Canada—our friendly, polite neighbor to the north—is now the 51st state.
There are debates even in Trump World as to how serious any of these efforts at territorial expansion might be, and all agree that a healthy dose of trolling was involved in Trump dispatching Donald Trump Jr. to Greenland or calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “governor.” But foreign capitals have long learned to take the elder Trump both literally and seriously.
Trump’s desire for Greenland—based on its strategic location and abundant resources—has rattled not only Denmark, which governs the island, but also other NATO members, which are aghast at the incoming American president’s refusal to rule out using military force to seize the island. Similarly, Trump’s threats toward Panama and his bullying of Canada—including warnings of sweeping tariffs—have again sent a clear message to the world: Under its 47th president, the United States cannot be counted on to enforce the rules-based order that has defined the postwar era.
A Trump-transition spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In the Middle East, Israel’s response to October 7 created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza but also decimated the Iranian proxies that have served as buffers for Tehran for decades, leaving the regime newly vulnerable.
“Iran is now at the weakest point since 1979,” Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said on Monday. “There is a cease-fire in Lebanon and the possibility of a new political future with a new president. Russia and Iran’s lackey in Syria, [Bashar al-Assad], is gone.”
In his first term, Trump withdrew the United States from a nuclear deal with Iran, implemented a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign, and brokered the Abraham Accords, which further isolated Tehran. He authorized the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the general who directed Iran’s militias and proxy forces around the Middle East. He’s now filled his Cabinet with Iran hawks, including Waltz—which could put him at odds with Gulf allies who seem more inclined to try for a détente with Tehran.
The only certainty is more uncertainty. And the president-elect was quick to embrace the chaos when asked by a reporter at a news conference last month about his plans for Iran.
“How could I tell you a thing like that now? It’s just … you don’t talk about that before something may or may not happen,” Trump said. “I don’t want to insult you. I just think it’s just not something that I would ever answer having to do with there or any other place in the world.”
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