Donald Trump’s return to the White House on January 20, 2025, is widely seen as ushering in a period of significant upheaval for US foreign policy, and a change in the way diplomacy is done.
Trump’s favoured style of bluster and threats against foreign leaders already seems to have paid off in helping to craft a peace deal, however shaky, in Gaza. The deal was negotiated by Biden and his team, in co-ordination with Trump’s incoming administration. But analysts suggest Trump’s fierce comments on January 7 that “all hell would break lose” if the hostages weren’t soon released were actually a threat to Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to get something done quickly. And this forced the Israeli government to commit to a deal.
Trump used this abrasive style before in his first term. And his recent threats to buy Greenland, annex Canada and to resume control of the Panama Canal suggest this will happen again. Not only that, but Elon Musk, one of Trump’s close confidants, is openly bragging about his attempts to change governments in the UK and Germany – in an attempt to shore up a global alliance of populist leaders. This does not bode well, especially for traditional allies of the US.
Add to that a promised deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, a renewal of the maximum-pressure campaign against Iran and doubling down on confrontation with China – and you have all the ingredients of a fundamental remaking of US foreign policy.
Three particular aspects stand out and give an early indication of what an actual Trump doctrine of foreign policy might look like.
First is the focus on the western hemisphere. Trump’s focus here appears to be simultaneously asserting US dominance in the affairs of the Americas and eliminating any perceived strategic vulnerabilities. While Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal have dominated the headlines, there are also implications for US relations with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, with Trump’s pick of Marco Rubio as secretary of state known for his hawkish approach.
Trump may inaccurately hype up China’s role in the Panama Canal, but Beijing has unquestionably increased its (mostly economic) footprint in Latin America. A Chinese-funded deep-water port in Peru has raised US security concerns. Chinese investment in Mexico has created an important backdoor into the US market and contributed to the fact that Mexico is now the largest trade partner for the US. In 2024, US imports of goods from Mexico stood at just under US$467 billion (£383 billion), compared to China’s US$401 billion (£329 billion).
Trump is likely to dial up the pressure in the western hemisphere using a mixture of threatening rhetoric, tariffs and political pressure. In an early demonstration of how serious the incoming administration takes the issue, his allies in Congress have already introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to “authorize the President to seek to enter into negotiations with the Kingdom of Denmark to secure the acquisition of Greenland by the United States”.
The second feature of the emerging Trump foreign policy doctrine is the scaling back of US involvement in regions that the administration considers of secondary importance. The two main areas in this context are Europe and the Middle East.
Trump’s promised deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine is one key component of his strategy to free up US resources to focus on China and to “un-unite” Russia and China.
A deal with Putin, however, is not a foregone conclusion. Russia has retained the momentum of its campaign on the battlefield and does not appear to be running out of steam anytime soon. In fact, new doubts over western aid and the sustainability of sanctions might sway Putin against any deal, should he have contemplated one.
At the same time, a recent strategic partnership agreement between Moscow and Tehran is hardly likely to please Trump who has vowed to double down on renewing pressure on the Iranian regime. The deal between Russia and Iran, while stopping short of a mutual defence guarantee, however, is likely to provide Iran with something of a lifeline even if it just creates more links between two of the world’s most sanctioned countries.
There are some signs that Trump and his team are aware of these complexities. His insistence that US allies in Nato step up their defence spending, for example, is an indication that the incoming administration continues to place value in transatlantic security. It just does not want to be the one mostly paying for it. And Trump has a point: Washington currently shoulders 68% of all Nato expenditure, compared to European members’ 28%.
Trump’s approach to the Middle East is underpinned by the same calculation of US-brokered deal-making that protects US interests while facilitating a scaling down of commitments. With a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas now in place that will facilitate a release of Israeli hostages, a much clearer path to normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia exists. This is still contingent upon an Israeli nod towards Palestinian statehood. But when it materialises, Israel’s relations with the rest of the Arab world will also improve. This will then shift the burden of containing Iran to a likely more effective and capable coalition of US allies in the region and allow Washington to resume its maximum-pressure campaign against Tehran.
While Trump’s approach to the western hemisphere and to Washington’s future relations with Europe and the Middle East is reasonably clear, there is an abundance of questions over his China strategy. His national security team is generally considered as hawkish on Beijing – with the exception of Elon Musk who has significant business interests in China.
Trump himself oscillates between aggressive and conciliatory rhetoric. Alleged Chinese control of the Panama Canal is one of his justifications for seeking to reassert US control of the strategic waterway. But he also name-checked Chinese president Xi Jinping as being able to help with a Ukraine deal and even invited him to his inauguration. Trump may be open to a deal with China, as he indicated after his first call with Xi since winning a second term in the White House. And China, in turn, has signalled interest in this as well. While Xi himself will not attend the inauguration, his vice president, Han Zheng, will.
Trump and Xi also have a track record of deal-making, even though their 2020 agreement did little more than stop an escalating trade war. The deal took two years to negotiate and left many of the tariffs imposed by Trump early in his first term in place, albeit in some cases at a reduced rate. Something similar could happen again now with Trump fulfilling one of his campaign pledges for higher tariffs on Chinese goods and simultaneously starting negotiations on a new deal with Beijing.
In all likelihood, this is Trump’s last term as president. For the next two years, at least, he controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He has every incentive to make good on his promises – and he faces few, if any, restraints. He sees himself as a disrupter, and his Maga base expects him to be just that.
Trump’s deal-making philosophy has little, if any, place for win-win outcomes. For him, it is all about winning, being seen to be winning, and being able to brag about it. This will complicate much of the deal-making required for his foreign policy doctrine to work. Nor is it clear whether any deals would stick, and if Trump, or his successors, would be able to enforce them.
What is not clear, therefore, is whether Trump’s vision of an ultimately more stable international order with clearly delimited spheres of influence for the great powers of the day – the US, China, and possibly Russia – will emerge, let alone whether such an outcome would be desirable.
An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on January 17, 2025.
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