For Trump, Foreign Policy Is a Zero-Sum Game

Donald Trump shocked the world when he won the 2016 US presidential election, in part by framing himself as the candidate who would end forever wars and “Make America Great Again”. In 2024, he became the first Republican in over 20 years to win the popular vote in a US presidential election. He won in part by attacking the Democratic Party as warmongers humiliating the American people on the global stage.

Trump’s impressive electoral victory proved that 2016 was no anomaly, and that a more restrained foreign policy appeals to a significant portion of the American public. Yet Trump’s track record casts serious doubt on whether he and his acolytes will consistently exercise military restraint, reduce the threat of conflict, or deliver a foreign policy that benefits the US public – let alone the rest of the world. This paper contrasts Trump’s political rhetoric with reality to explore what Trumpian foreign policy is and where it’s going.

Illiberal Hegemony

Strategy is a critical component of any foreign policy. Trump’s erraticism, however, does not beget a rational grand strategy. According to political scientist Barry Posen, strategy reflects “a nation-state’s theory about how to produce security for itself”.[1] In his view, security is the preservation of sovereignty, safety, territorial integrity, and power position — a nation-state’s ability to protect its interests relative to other nation-states. An alternative, more ambitious interpretation is that security embodies peace more broadly, as well as equality and participatory democracy.[2]

Posen proclaimed in 2018 that Trump’s grand strategy was one of illiberal hegemony.[3] Rather than defend the so-called “rules-based order” contingent on US primacy in the international arena, Trump openly attacked it. He withdrew the United States from many international agreements, including the Paris Climate Agreement, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.>[4] Meanwhile, he harshly criticized the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade organization. In sum, as Posen puts it, Trump pursued American “primacy without a purpose”.

However, some scholars hesitate to situate Trump in the realm of international relations. He frustrates both defenders of US liberal hegemony – the status quo in US foreign policy – as well as its critics. Liberal hegemony is the maintenance of US global dominance, or primacy, which has preoccupied the US national security establishment since the end of World War II.

Trump distinguished himself in 2016 by running as an outsider to the establishment – the network of people in the White House, the Pentagon, Congress, the arms industry, and civil society dedicated to defending and promoting US primacy.[5] Indeed, he criticized former President Obama and former Secretary Clinton for continuing the post-9/11 forever wars. He condemned failed US attempts at nation building abroad, stating, “We’re rebuilding other countries while weakening our own.”[6] He accused North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies Japan and South Korea of freeriding on US security guarantees, adding that the United States “no longer has a clear understanding of our foreign policy goals”.[7] He correctly pointed out that the United States is overstretched.

Trump also conflates personal and special interests with those of the American public — in part due to his insatiable need to be not just respected, but also celebrated and praised by others.

The issue of deteriorating US solvency is, at its core, a product of the sheer scope of US global ambition. The United States instinctively clings to liberal hegemony nearly 80 years after it ascended to superpower status on the global stage. As historian Stephen Wertheim writes, “American supremacy has been sustained, virtually without challenge, by a policymaking elite and collective imagination that holds supremacy to be the only viable course and rejects those who disagree as beyond the pale”. [8]

From a primacist perspective, almost anything that threatens Posen’s conception of power position is a vital matter of US national security.[9] Trump acknowledges this issue in a way that denigrates the international system and appeals to a diverse swathe of American voters. He communicates to the American people that the coastal elite are getting richer at their expense, often in pursuit of empire. These messages complement the economic aspect of Trumpian foreign policy, what former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon called Trump’s “economic nationalist agenda.”[10]

Economic historian Martin Suesse argues that the appeal of economic nationalism is “its ability to capitalize upon economic inequality, both international and domestic”.[11] Economic nationalists go about this in different ways. Bannon, who describes himself as a general of global populists, says that the American people “aren’t the ones blowing trillions of dollars trying to impose democracy on places that don’t want it … they’re getting screwed in all this by an elite that doesn’t care about them and that isn’t them”.[12] There is truth in this claim. As international relations scholar Van Jackson writes, “the American hegemonic order has not been cost free, and it’s been workers who’ve paid the greatest price”.[13]

Trump exploits this reality to the benefit of the few, at the expense of the many. He exploits valid critiques of neoliberal globalization to perpetuate an economic system that enriches corporations and their beneficiaries to the detriment of working people. Economic nationalistic policies like trade protectionism increase the cost of living while domestic producers enjoy higher demand and decreased competition, often boosting their profits. Economic nationalism is dangerous and detrimental to the American people, despite its economic populist veneer.

Trump’s Transactionalism

Trump also conflates personal and special interests with those of the American public — in part due to his insatiable need to be not just respected, but also celebrated and praised by others. As many have pointed out, it is impossible to accurately assess Trump’s psychology as a mere witness to his musings. What is apparent, however, is that Trump is a fundamentally insecure man easily inflated by even the most obtuse forms of flattery.[14] As Commander in Chief, and ultimately, the face of the United States abroad — this is a liability.

Trump views the world in terms of winners and losers. Such a binary requires a simplistic view of US diplomatic, trade, or security relations with other countries. As scholars Christopher Preble, John Glaser, and Trevor Thrall have explained, Trump’s obsession with status contributes to what they call his “zero-sum transactional worldview”.[15] It colours his economic and foreign policies, driving both his affinity for trade protectionism and his scepticism of allies. This worldview also makes the United States vulnerable to his whims, whether they are in the interest of the American public or not.

Take, for example, Trump’s openness to establish a permanent US military base in Poland during his first term. As Glaser, Preble, and Thrall explain, Polish President Duda dressed up the proposal by suggesting it be named “Fort Trump”. Or consider Saudi Arabia and Japan. On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump called out both countries for not spending enough on defence. When Trump made it to the White House, Saudi Arabia rolled out the literal red carpet for him, while Japan gifted him a gold-plated golf club. Trump ended up touting the US-Saudi relationship as a boon for military contractors selling arms to the country, and largely ceased his criticism of Japan. Clearly, flattery gets you everywhere with Donald Trump.

That said, Trumpian foreign policy cannot be chalked up to whatever tickles Trump’s fancy in a given moment. As some scholars have pointed out, the primacist proclivity runs deep in government bureaucracies, which have been operating under a remit to maintain US global dominance for over 70 years. Still, in his first term, Trump largely followed the primacist path laid by presidents before him. As political scientist Stephen Walt has written, “Trump ended up embracing the worst features of liberal hegemony — overreliance on military force, disinterest in diplomacy, and a tendency toward militarism — while turning his back on its positive aspirations, such as support for human rights and the preservation of an open, rules-based world economy”.[16]

Trump’s Track Record

By the end of Trump’s first term in office, he managed not to start a new war – even if barely. The ceaseless War on Terror, however, continued, with Trump following Obama’s lead on the use of lethal strikes abroad — a move to continue America’s endless post-9/11 wars in a fashion less obvious to the American people than boots on the ground. In fact, Trump ramped them up while making them significantly less transparent to the American public.[17]

Although he had a history of decrying the US military occupation of Afghanistan — albeit because he saw it as a waste, more than anything else — Trump actually increased the US troop presence there before ultimately signing a deal with the Taliban to only marginally reduce the number of US troops in that country. Trump expressed his intention to get US troops out of Iraq and Syria but failed to do so in both cases.

Perhaps most visible to the general public was Trump’s tactless approach to US alliances. Indeed, Trump proved more critical of allies he accused of exploiting American security guarantees than authoritarians like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who he praised on multiple occasions. In apparent contrast to his past criticisms of NATO, Trump expanded it by welcoming Montenegro and North Macedonia. At the same time, his distaste for NATO members not paying their fair share helped push European member-states to more seriously evaluate their own defensive capabilities.

A quick analysis of Trump’s foreign policy record illustrates that while he rhetorically sympathizes with some aspects of military restraint, he is not an advocate.

Most observers will also remember Trump’s trade war against China, which did little to compel China to stop overproducing goods and dumping them on the global marketplace, instead raising prices for American consumers.[18] As the International Crisis Group’s Ali Wyne notes in his book America’s Great Power Opportunity, Trump’s trade war with China — which Biden continued — may even expedite America’s decline. One unintended consequence of tariff protection is less economic relevance.[19] On balance, trade protectionism isolates the United States by threatening its economic vitality while bolstering China’s role as a global manufacturing powerhouse and a major lender in Asia.

On the nuclear front, Trump risked a war with North Korea by taunting Kim Jong Un on the website formerly known as Twitter. He withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the Obama administration negotiated to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. In lieu of the deal, the Trump administration exerted a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran in which the United States instituted unilateral sanctions — with devastating impacts on the Iranian people.[20] Rather than facilitate a “better deal” with the country, Trump facilitated Iran’s progress towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. He ended his term with an act tantamount to war against the country, ordering a lethal strike against Qasem Soleimani — the second-most powerful man in Iran — without congressional authorization.[21]

President Trump also withdrew the United States from the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which former President Reagan and the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev signed in 1987 to limit the deployment of certain missiles.[22] He doubled down on ongoing Obama-era plans to modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad, a strategically unnecessary, gross waste of national resources.

Thus, even a quick analysis of Trump’s foreign policy record illustrates that while he rhetorically sympathizes with some aspects of military restraint, he is not an advocate. A true restrainer consistently opposes the use of military force while strengthening diplomatic capacity to address and resolve security challenges.[23] In contrast, Trump gutted the State Department, increased the Pentagon’s budget, and brought the US to the brink of war with both Iran and North Korea during his first term.[24]

Trump 2.0

Trump brings the spirit of reality television to the most powerful office in the world — one can almost hear him bellowing, “You’re fired!” Indeed, Trump went through four chiefs of staff and four national security advisors in his first term.[25] As such, it is unwise to make too many predictions about a second Trump term based on his personnel picks at the time of this writing. Several Trump appointees have also flip-flopped on key issues over the years — including their support for the president himself. Their future relevance to the Trump administration appears to depend almost entirely on their continued loyalty to Trump himself, meaning that they may change their policy perspectives capriciously.

Without nearly a shadow of a doubt, however, the Trump administration will invest generational wealth in the national security state — as have all other US administrations in recent history. On his 2024 campaign website, Trump bragged that in his first term in office, he “fully rebuilt the United States military and steered America into such a strong global position. That peace was breaking out all over the world, we had peace through strength.”[26] The new president has repeatedly invoked the Reagan-era mantra of “peace through strength”, one that many Republicans have adopted to justify dangerous proposals to increase national security spending by trillions of dollars in the next decade.[27]

In his 2024 presidential victory speech, Trump declared that “we want a strong and powerful military and ideally, we don’t have to use it”. While the latter part of this sentiment may appeal to a broad swath of Americans — indeed, it even had an electoral effect on the 2024 presidential election — Trump’s non-interventionist bonafides are basically non-existent, even if he does have a penchant for rhetorical nods to military restraint. This is more than many in Washington, DC can say, even if it is superficial and politically opportunistic.

So, too, is Trump’s right-hand man, Vice President J.D. Vance. He is generally quite hawkish, having expressed full support for Israel, military intervention in Mexico, a hard line against Iran, and a military-first approach to countering China.[28] However, Vance has also been one of the most vocal sceptics of the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy. In April 2024, he wrote that no amount of US military assistance could change the tide in Ukraine’s war against Russia because Ukraine simply does not have the manpower.[29] Advocates of military restraint have made this point to encourage a faster end to the war, while recognizing the horror of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the latter’s right to sovereignty.

It is unclear how big of a role Vance will play in shaping US foreign policy, but he is not alone in occasionally aligning himself with some aspects of military restraint. Representative Mike Waltz, Trump’s National Security Advisor, opposed the Ukrainian military’s use of US-made missiles to attack Russian territory, approved by the Biden administration. He called it “another step up the escalation ladder”, noting that “no one knows where this is going”.[30] When Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, campaigned for president in 2020, she described herself as a hawk “when it comes to the war against terrorists” and a dove “when it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change”.

Trump was successful in part because the Biden administration did virtually nothing constructive to help bring about an end to the war in Ukraine, or to end what Amnesty International characterizes as Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Both Waltz and Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s selection for Secretary of State, are especially hawkish on Iran. Rubio is expected to take an aggressive approach to several countries in Central and South America as well. As one expert put it, Rubio has taken very strong “anti-Cuban, anti-Nicaraguan, anti-Venezuelan” positions, harshly criticizing Colombian President Petro and Brazilian President Lula as well.[31] With regard to Mexico, Rubio has suggested he would not be opposed to sending US troops to the country to combat the drug cartels there[32] – despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of illicit drugs in the United States are trafficked by US citizens through legal ports of entry.[33]

Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, appears primarily interested in what he characterizes as “woke” cultural issues. A quick read of his book also reveals his general disregard for data, as there are scant if any citations. There are, however, a few important insights into Hegseth’s worldview. In The War on Warriors, Hegseth writes that “no general in the United States should be allowed to work in the defence industry for ten years after they retire” — a bold proposal to significantly lengthen the cooling-off period for military officials who keep the revolving door of the iron triangle spinning.[34] There is little else to be optimistic about when it comes to Hegseth, who lacks the leadership experience to run the largest government agency. Regardless, his apparent disdain for corporate corruption of defence policy is welcome.

Elbridge Colby, the GOP’s “ideas guy”, is Trump’s nominee to be the Pentagon’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He served in the first Trump administration as the department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, crafting US strategic guidance that claimed “the central challenge to US prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by [China and Russia]”.[35] Colby later wrote a book arguing that the United States should shift its focus away from Europe and the Middle East and instead work to “deny” China dominance in Asia.[36] He certainly stands out in comparison to Trump’s other national security picks — particularly given his opposition to war with Iran — but still supports US dominance in the Indo-Pacific region. In this regard, Colby validates primacists’ maximalist approach to China, driven by an obsession with “competition” rather than domestic rejuvenation.

The only certainty in the second Trump administration is that almost anything can happen. In the weeks leading up to his inauguration, Trump suggested that the United States annex Canada and rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, prompting quick rebukes from both US neighbours.[37] He has also asserted that the US should take control of the Panama Canal and purchase Greenland, refusing to rule out the use of military force in pursuit of these aims.[38] Most of these ideas are far from new, and they affirm that Trump is far from a restrainer on matters of national security — although his track record was proof enough. They reflect the new president’s naked ambition to, in his view, put “America First” on the global stage.

America First

Trump first introduced the “America First” frame to his presidential campaign in 2016, proclaiming “my foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else. It has to be first. Has to be”.[39] In spite of his initial, fleeting support for the Iraq war, which he later recanted, Trump painted himself as the anti-war candidate — a bar one could trip over in comparison to Hillary Clinton, particularly given his lack of government experience at the time.

Amazingly, Trump clung to this brand in 2024 — despite bringing the United States to the brink of war with Iran and North Korea, expanding the air wars in the Middle East, and otherwise provoking foreign leaders during his first term. He was successful in part because the Biden administration did virtually nothing constructive to help bring about an end to the war in Ukraine, or to end what Amnesty International characterizes as Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.[40] As a result, the Biden administration gave Trump ample ground to position himself as the anti-war candidate, criticizing both endless wars and the country’s “open borders”.

Trump has maintained anti-immigration views through nearly a decade of running for president. In 2016, he ran on a promise to build a wall at the US border with Mexico — an effort that failed during both the George W. Bush administration and Trump’s first term. That may be why Trump has since shifted focus away from a physical border wall. The top policy priority on Trump’s official campaign website in the 2024 election was to “seal the border and stop the migrant invasion”, followed by Trump’s goal to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” The wall may have been a failure, but in Trump’s view, immigrants are bringing crime to the US and stealing American jobs. Never mind the fact that immigrants, particularly undocumented individuals, are far less likely to commit violent crimes than American citizens — and the economy would essentially collapse without their labour.

Both Trump’s track record and his retinue of loyalists suggest that in his second term, Trump will once again embrace militarism to the detriment of the United States and the world.

Yet Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is far from unique. Pat Buchanan — a prolific paleoconservative, three-time presidential hopeful, and former aide to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan — clearly inspired the broad strokes of Trump’s presidential campaigns. Indeed, Pat Buchanan vowed to “Make America First Again” in his 2000 run for the Reform Party presidential nomination, for which Donald Trump also briefly competed. Buchanan’s slogan hearkened back to the America First movement of the 1930s, which opposed US entry into World War II.[41]

In his previous bid for president in 1992, Buchanan raised flags about the “illegal invasion” of “at least a million aliens a year”.[42] In the 1980s, he pushed consumers to “Buy American” and promoted tariffs on exports from Japan — then the target of most globalization-bashing — in addition to exports from Mexico, which was rather novel at the time. Buchanan even wrote that “there is nothing wrong with Americans dreaming of a republic which, by the year 2000, encompasses [parts of Canada], and contains the world's largest island, Greenland”. Although he did not condone the use of force to achieve such a vision.[43]

Decades later, Buchanan’s influence on the right is unequivocal. Indeed, the former editorial director of AntiWar.com, Justin Raimondo, credited Buchanan with “almost single-handedly” facilitating “the rise of a noninterventionist tendency among conservatives”.[44] He likewise led the conservative charge against free trade.[45] Suesse writes that Buchanan’s past “foreshadows Trump’s populism by recasting American political economy as a struggle between global elites and the local nation”.[46] This sentiment is apparent in common Trumpian refrains to “drain the swamp” or gut the so-called deep state, in addition to his motto to put America First.

“America First” is a term with deep populist roots – beyond Pat Buchanan himself – but Trump’s interpretation of it is an empty populist appeal. He wields it to superficially paint himself as anti-war while advocating for economic nationalism. True to the tradition, Trump exploits real economic ills to score political points with his electoral base. Rather than “Make America Wealthy Again”, a key part of his platform, Trump’s policies threaten Americans’ economic well-being by increasing their cost of living through inflation and ultimately higher interest rates — all while increasing the potential for even more global conflict.

All Hope Is Not Lost

Both Trump’s track record and his retinue of loyalists suggest that in his second term, Trump will once again embrace militarism to the detriment of the United States and the world. Despite some overlap with the military restraint community, the new administration remains hawkish on key national security issues that could exacerbate or spark global conflicts. Notably, officials like Vance support Israeli territorial expansion, while others could spark military actions against Iran and even Mexico. Rubio, Waltz, and Colby share “ultra-hawkish” views toward China, pushing a more aggressive approach toward the country, even as the need for collaboration grows.[47]

Still, all hope is not lost. Advocates of US military restraint have been vindicated time and again, and there will be opportunities to push for more rational foreign policy in Trump’s second term. Equipped with nearly a decade of Trump’s bold political statements, advocates for a more restrained US foreign policy have the tools they need to hold him to his word on advancing a more restrained, just foreign policy.

The American people voted for Trump’s return to the White House, but they did not abandon stalwart critics of the national security establishment in Congress. Indeed, this election represented a failure of the current administration to heed necessary calls for a more rational foreign policy — one grounded in the principles of military restraint, and one that benefits not just American workers, but workers everywhere.