There’s no denial that Trump’s second presidency has shaken up international relations more than any other US president in recent times. But to what extent has he changed things? And will they be permanent?
Before Trump
The Biden Administration was no disruptor to the liberal international order. Throughout his term, Biden approached international relations as you’d expect of a US president. He worked productively with international organisations such as the UN and worked to build a collective, Western force against Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Biden worked with global partners in drafting agreements, imposing sanctions and sharing vital intelligence to Ukraine and even leveraged the United States’ immensely large stock piles of ammunition and weaponry by gifting such resources to Ukraine in their fight against a nation, which the West had unanimously condemned the actions of.
Then Trump came along. He tore up what had become the convention for Ukraine, threatening to pull support and becoming increasingly less willing to work with global partners.
Trump’s first term
Trump’s first term, despite moving away from the Obama era, remained far from plain sailing for the international community. With Trump’s border with Mexico, and a highly interventionist approach to defence policy. Yet, compared to the second presidency of Donald Trump seems to have taken an even more protectionist, yet interventionist approach than the first.
If we take a look back at Trump’s first term as resident of the White House, we saw him authorising missile strikes against ISIS targets without congressional approval and taking a realist approach to his international relations strategy by leveraging the US military’s might and warning adversaries such as North Korea with it. With remarks alluding to the ‘red button’.
The lack of cooperation with international bodies was noticeable with Trump’s first administration, however. We saw the US President essentially making peace with the DPRK for the first time in decades – seemingly with little work from the wider international community, such as the UN or NATO.
A shift in economic positioning
On the global front, the US President shifted the United States’ economic positioning with a more protectionist economic outlook than that observed in his first presidency, or even under Biden. With tariffs imposed on those traditionally considered allies, such as Canada and Mexico.
This protectionist approach to the economy, and lack of willingness to cooperate with these former allies suggests a significant shift from Trump’s first administration, where he attempted to act as a global statesman, securing close deals and maintaining close ties with each of the US’s ‘special relationships’.
Driven by politics
After years of an unpopular Biden administration, it was no wonder that Trump won in 2020 with such a landslide and why he decided to implement such a harsh change in foreign policy – because he can now claim he has the electoral mandate to do so. Whereas, after the 2016 election, Trump may have won the election due to the electoral college, but the reality is that Clinton secured more votes than Trump, leading to a Trump term effectively treading on eggshells, as to not shake the polls too much amid his plans to run for election again in 2020.
But this time, Trump need not worry about treading on those eggshells. The US president is in his last term as President. He won’t have to face any more elections and so no longer fears the difficult decision-making needed to make radical changes to policy, including foreign policy.
International responses
Many nations have had to simply accept the US’s position on foreign policy and sanctions, relying on the nation for security and trade generally. This has been especially the case with Canada, where the Liberal Party was essentially saved during the last federal election earlier this year by their strong response to the tariffs.
Meanwhile, many nations that have faced less severe tariffs, such as the UK, have attempted to use the fallout of the tariffs to maintain close ties with the US. Kier Starmer has constantly reiterated his commitment to working with the US president and has seemingly worked to protect the special relationship time and time again.
Moving forward
Trump is an unpredictable character, so what happens from here? Nobody knows for sure. But we can only assume that Trump will persist with his ‘MAGA’, ‘America First’ agenda for the duration of the term. No matter what Trump does from here, one thing is absolutely for certain, he has changed US foreign policy forever.
