After U.S. President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, is a foreign-policy doctrine coming into view? In the 19th century, the Monroe Doctrine warned European countries to keep out of the Western Hemisphere, and four decades ago, the Reagan Doctrine promised to support freedom fighters around the world.
But what is the defining feature of Trump’s second-term approach to global affairs? Contrary to mainstream assessments that the president is completely unpredictable, there is a reliable worldview underlying his foreign policy, and it consists of three main pillars.
First, Trump believes in America First, which is more than a slogan. While former President Joe Biden divided the world between democracy and autocracy—and some U.S. policy wonks talk about allies versus adversaries or the developed versus the developing world—Trump’s mental map draws the key global fault line between the United States and everyone else. In his view, the United States stands apart.
The second pillar of Trump’s second-term doctrine is that the United States is getting ripped off. Washington shoulders too much of the burden of global leadership. Past presidents were foolish or weak, allowing adversaries and allies alike to take advantage of U.S. wealth, power, and goodwill. The results, in his view, are unfair trade deals, free-riding allies, and open borders that facilitate the flow of drugs and criminals from other countries. Trump sees his job as president as righting these wrongs and getting a better deal for the American people.
Third, the method to redress these global imbalances is escalate to de-escalate. As Trump writes in The Art of the Deal, his preferred negotiating strategy revolves around making threats and extreme demands to throw one’s negotiating partner off balance and ultimately bring them crawling to the table for a deal.
To be sure, this three-part framework is simplified, but it explains a large portion of Trump’s foreign policy since he took office in January, including his approaches to border security, Chinese presence in the Panama Canal, NATO burden-sharing, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. trade deficit, and more.
Though tactical unpredictability in his foreign-policy strategy is likely, you can count on these three pillars to serve as a guide to U.S. foreign policy for the next three and a half years.
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