What does Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the presidential election mean for the international system? No other country matches the US in its number of alliances and partnerships, or in its ability to influence others through its economic and military policies. It has prided itself as offering an exemplary vision of the best sort of society, which it encouraged others to emulate.
Yet Trump campaigned with a darker vision of a failing country let down by its elites, and promised instead nationalist remedies – anti-immigration, protectionist, and potentially isolationist. Past advisors, veterans of his first term, have warned of how he has toyed with radical and disruptive notions, such as leaving Nato. In principle he finds the very idea of alliance, that the US must come to the defence of others if attacked, is offensive. He has shown little interest in international organisations or multilateral initiatives, while climate change is a “hoax” designed to undermine the US oil industry. He abandoned the Paris Accord on climate change during his first term and, although Biden rejoined, he will abandon them again.
We have had enough experience of Trump to know that he is not going to turn out to be a closet globalist. His instincts are well set. Allied governments have rushed to congratulate him on his victory and expressed a desire to work with him on their shared interests. They are engaged in damage limitation. They dare not assume that Nato is doomed or that a transatlantic trade war is imminent. Their message is that the choices that he will face on questions such as Ukraine may turn out to be more complex than he has supposed and that he will soon find that the challenges that emerge cannot be easily resolved on a purely national basis. So, however much we think we know what to expect we should not assume that the direction of the second Trump administration has been firmly set. Trump has often seemed to be delighted by his own unpredictability and impulsiveness.
Trump will return to the White House older, if not necessarily wiser, but without any evident need to pacify the establishment figures who were so hostile to his re-election. The experience of his first term left Trump suspicious of government bureaucracy and the FBI, CIA, and the military. There are MAGA enthusiasts who have been plotting radical restructuring of the government (and this is one task he has set for Elon Musk). It is not just the top leadership of government, the political appointees that change with every incoming administration, but also the levels below those who should expect upheaval. This could result in more dysfunction than usual in the system and a loss of state capacity.
In 2016 there were hopes that he would be tamed by office and obliged to govern from the centre. Some appointments to the senior positions led to expectations that he would be restrained by the “adults in the room”. In the event the adults came and went, exhausted by the efforts to contain the prejudices and channel the energies of their boss. Numerous accounts of Trump’s first term describe senior staff struggling to cope with his tantrums and idiosyncrasies, often deliberately ignoring his instructions in the hope he would forget what he had just demanded. His reputation renders it unlikely that many individuals not already in Trump’s orbit would agree now to work for him, even if they were asked. This will narrow the pool of talent from which he can draw.
Until we see who is nominated for the key positions it is hard to be sure of the policies the new administration will follow. Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security advisor from 2019 to 2021, is no isolationist. His article for Foreign Affairs last June described a potential Trump foreign policy that would be robust but ready to work with other states in pursuit of shared interests. But also look at this interview with now Vice-President-elect J D Vance (who could quite possibly become president at some point over the next four years). He offers a transactional approach to Nato and a stance towards Moscow far less robust than reported by O’Brien.
It is easier to adopt a unilateral approach than attempt to exert international leadership in multilateral forums for that requires an energetic and imaginative diplomacy. Letting the world get on with its business while you get on with yours need not involve much international engagement. Except that it is rarely that easy to ignore the rest of the world. The reaction of other countries to your policies and the impact of unexpected events in important parts of the world can demand attention and lead to unanticipated challenges and shifts in policy.
To take one obvious example, dealing with unwanted immigration will require engagement with countries to the south, especially if the aim is to deport large numbers of people who have crossed the border. Another, with a wider impact, concerns tariffs. Trump waxed lyrical about their wonders during the campaign, as if they were an almost painless way to raise money and even an alternative to taxes.
It is not that difficult to impose them. All that is required is an executive order. Now a case can be made that Chinese trade practices, including dumping manufactured goods for which it has failed to generate a domestic market, deserve tariffs. Many other countries feel the same way. But he has suggested not only a 60 per cent tariff on imported goods from China but also 10 per cent and possibly more on those from everywhere else. This would invite retaliation and soon have a dire effect on the international economy, pushing up inflation and causing job losses. This is the area that worries the EU most and on which it will seek early discussions before Trump does anything drastic. (Here the UK may regret no longer being in the EU: it will be very exposed in the event of a trade war.)
The Biden years saw steady growth and revealed the many strengths of the American economy. Little however was done to bring down the national debt which is extremely high and still growing – in October it was put at $35.7 trillion, of which about a third is owned by foreigners. Servicing debt costs as much as the annual defence budget. The factors that drive up this debt are unlikely to go away, especially with an administration that wants to cut taxes and impose tariffs. It would not therefore be surprising if at some point this administration found itself facing a major financial crisis.
A telling aspect of Trump’s critique of Biden’s foreign policy (reflected in O’Brien’s article) was that his failure to demonstrate strength meant that he could not deter others from starting wars nor could he conclude them quickly once they had begun. We can question whether Putin would have held back his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, or Hamas its attack on Israel in October 2023, if Trump had then been in the White House. Nonetheless, while Biden’s instincts may have been sound after both these events, there was palpable hesitancy about the use of American power, reflecting a sense of potential risks and a determination to limit US liabilities. The result was that conflicts dragged on and got more rather than less dangerous.
Trump campaigned on the basis that he could keep the US out of wars. When he appeared to be fantasising about putting Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad his explanation was that he was denouncing her as a
“war hawk”, at which point many leftist critics of her father, George Bush’s vice president, nodded in agreement.
During his first term, Trump did authorise strikes against Syria after chemical weapons had been used against rebel groups (something Obama had been reluctant to do), took on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and ordered the assassination of the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. But at other times he held back. After appearing to threaten North Korea with “fire and fury” early in his first term, he embarked on a summit and strange romance with Kim Jong-un to encourage him – unsuccessfully – to abandon his nuclear programmes. Although Biden got the blame for abandoning Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 it was Trump who had done the original deal with the Taliban, having made clear from the start of his administration that he thought this was a pointless commitment.
For those who worry that Trump’s natural belligerence marks him out as a warmonger this may be reassuring but it creates problems for America’s allies, because the durability of these alliances depends on the US being ready to fight on their behalf. This problem is compounded by Trump’s admiration for strongmen whose unconstrained power he seems to envy. Add to this his belief in his unique abilities to achieve great deals he is as likely to rely on personal diplomacy as much as shows of strength. He has already promised as much with Vladimir Putin when he claimed that he could sort out the Ukraine war in a day.
Trump expects the allies to do more to look after themselves. Whether they need to persuade Trump that Nato is worth preserving, or prepare for him concluding that it is not, European governments are going to have to do more on defence. The possible need to keep Ukraine going absent American support adds to the pressure – despite the stretched finances of European governments. The same issues will arise in the Indo-Pacific region, where they do not even have the advantage of a collective security agreement but instead Japan, South Korea and Australia have their own separate alliances with the US.
This point is well understood among European governments but they are suffering from anaemic growth, high debt, and unsettled populations. The German coalition is teetering on the edge of collapse. France’s Emmanuel Macron was left in a weak position after he called an unnecessary election in the summer which his party then lost. The UK government is secure in power but struggling to work out how it can be financially responsible while advancing its domestic agenda. It has a defence review now underway and this provides an opportunity to make the case for a greater effort, tending not just to 2.5 per cent GDP but to 3 per cent, however unhappy it may make the Chancellor. Trump is by no means the first American president to note the discrepancy between the American and European contributions to Nato but he is going to press the point insistently.
At the moment Ukraine is struggling to hold back Russian advances in Donetsk, is skirmishing with North Korean troops in Kursk, and faces a difficult winter with insufficient energy and regular attack on cities. It is also imposing enormous casualties on the Russians and mounting attacks against targets deep inside Russia so it is still fighting back. In its remaining weeks the Biden administration will do what it can to get more weaponry and ammunition to Kyiv, having been tardy in spending the amount appropriated by Congress. Ukraine has not really recovered from the almost six month’s hiatus in support when the supplemental bill was stuck in Congress from late 2023.
The simplest assumption is that Trump will abandon Ukraine or at least force it to do a bad deal with Russia. That is possible (and this is where it matters who is in Trumps’ national security team) but far from certain.
First, it is not easy to impose a deal on Ukraine, even by withdrawing support. There are some negotiated outcomes that the Ukrainian people might reluctantly accept but otherwise, one way or the other, and with whatever support Europe can muster, it will carry on fighting. That was the message coming out of Kyiv in the aftermath of the election, even as President Volodymyr Zelensky sent his congratulations to Trump.
Second, Putin has shown no readiness to move away from his maximalist demands, and may feel tempted to test Trump to see how far he can push Ukraine to capitulation. If he is not prepared to offer compromises to give Trump something to work with, then Trump will have to decide whether he could threaten to raise the support to Ukraine to encourage Putin to back down. Putin will be keen to talk to Trump, if only to confirm his equal status, but may be more interested in an attempt to push for a new European security order (which he put on the agenda before the full-scale invasion) than make an offer on Ukraine – and there would be little in this for Trump as this really could have echoes of Munich in 1938.
Third, agreeing even a limited cease-fire never mind a full peace deal is not at all straightforward (drawing lines, disengaging forces, ensuring compliance).
Fourth, there are political dangers for Trump as he could look weak and feckless if he simply abandoned Ukraine to Russian aggression and stood back from the consequences. Many Congressional Republicans would be concerned as well as allies. This could usher in an even more dangerous period for European security – for which if it led to an even wider conflict Trump would be blamed. He has an interest in winding the conflict but not in a rampant Russian victory.
On the Middle East Trump has stressed the urgency of ending the killing but said little more. Those supporters of the Palestine cause who are congratulating themselves on punishing the current administration for backing Israel are going to be disappointed if they think that Trump is at all inclined to pressure the Israelis to do more for Palestinian rights. Benjamin Netanyahu, who has just sacked his defence minister, was hoping for a Trump victory on the assumption that he will now face no pressure to moderate his policies in Gaza and Lebanon, where his aim is apparently to create buffer zones on the country’s northern and southern borders, and to push hard to suppress Palestinian restlessness in the West Bank.
Although Iran has become a key partner to Russia as a source of drones and missiles, it is much weaker than Russia’s other partners, China and North Korea. With Harris it might have hoped for sanctions relief at some point but not so much under Trump. Its ailing supreme leader is not the sort of strong man that attracts Trump’s admiration. (Though one could imagine him offering a summit with his eventual successor as with Kim Jong-un.) This past year has seen Iran’s “axis of resistance” take a hammering. Tehran might conclude that this is a good time to call it a day.
Hezbollah has insisted it is prepared to carry on fighting but its purpose was always presented as supporting Hamas. Hamas has also been refusing to agree a hostage deal and cease fire but now that it is even easier for Israel to act with impunity it may feel that it really is time to work with Egypt and Qatar to cut its losses. Then there is still the question of more humanitarian relief and reconstruction in Gaza.
This is where Saudi Arabia may come in. The Saudis consider Trump a friend because of his indifference to human rights. Trump will expect to continue with the Abraham Accords, which was one of the few signature achievements of his first administration. Prior to the Hamas attack on Israel the Biden Administration was trying to extend the accords to Saudi Arabia, with a carrot of arms sales. The Saudi view remains that there has to be something for the Palestinians before it can make this move, so that issue will not go away. When negotiating with Biden’s people the Saudis could assume that the President also wanted to see a pathway to a Palestinian state. They can make no such assumption about Trump.
Lastly there is China and North Korea. The rise of China as a strategic rival to the US was a big theme of the first Trump administration, and one that continued as a priority for Biden. China’s rise has stuttered in recent years and it faces major problems of demography, debt, and a controlling, authoritarian ideology that is stultifying social and economic development. I suspect Trump relishes an economic war with China more than a proper war. O’Brien’s article suggests a readiness to disengage completely economically from China. I doubt that will be so easy and the effort to try might add to the risks of a financial crisis.
Taiwan may be an interesting test case of his readiness to go for peace through strength. That would require him to repeat Biden’s promise to defend Taiwan should Beijing attempt reunification through force and I am not convinced he will. Taiwan’s defence budget is not large relative to the threat and we can expect pressure on Taiwan to do more to help itself rather than just rely on the US coming to the rescue. A concern for Taiwan is that a conspicuous boost to its military preparations might be one of the moves that could trigger Chinese aggression, a concern that may not impress Trump whose line may be that the US will only help those who help themselves, although then there are still no guarantees.
There is also the question of the Korean peninsula where Kim Jong-un has become more aggressive and less predictable – Pyongyang combined its recent despatch of troops to support Russia with an ICBM test. Based on his comments last time round, Seoul and also Tokyo will also be anxious about the potential combination of Trump’s disinterest in the obligations of alliance with a readiness to impose tariffs on allies. Last time this led to suggestions that perhaps it was time to consider their own nuclear programmes as a source of deterrence. Such thoughts may well return.
Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, once called the US the world’s “indispensable nation”. It had influence and responsibilities that far exceeded any other state and this meant that it should embrace this unique role. It meant that others depended on the US more than the US depended on them. But this role had not been adopted out of altruism but also because it served US political and economic interests, which would be damaged irretrievably if it was abandoned. During his first term Trump toyed with the possibilities of breaking free. The question for his second is whether this time he will try harder or whether the logic of the US’s international position continues to act as a restraint.
Lawrence Freedman is a regular contributor to The New Statesman. A version of this article ran on his Substack “Comment is Freed“.
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