Transition 2025: U.S. Foreign Policy on the Eve of Disruption

Donald Trump made clear during his presidential campaign that he wants to upend U.S. foreign policy. As of noon Monday, he will have his chance to make good on his pledge to do things differently and to do different things. Which raises two questions. Will he succeed? And, will the United States be better off for it? 

The first question is the easier of the two to answer. Trump’s second term foreign policy will likely be far more disruptive than his first was. When he took office in 2017, he unknowingly surrounded himself with foreign policy officials who rejected his worldview. This so-called axis of adults sought from the start to deflect and redirect his foreign policy impulses. They succeeded for a while. But ultimately, he pushed them aside, thereby demonstrating the fundamental truth that presidents matter more than their advisers. 

Trump now sees the staffing choices he made in 2017 as a mistake that he will not repeat. His incoming national security team is composed of individuals looking to enact his agenda rather than frustrate it. He has prized loyalty, and perhaps even fealty, over qualifications and expertise. That is his prerogative. So do not expect to read stories about Trump’s second-term advisers stealing memos off his desk or arranging tutorials at the Pentagon on the virtues of the liberal international order.  

The question as to whether the United States will be better off for Trump’s changes is harder to answer because it remains unclear just what he will do in office. He may move fast and furious to enact his many, often conflicting, campaign proposals. That is a recipe for disruption without success. Or he may scale back his more ill-considered proposals, like building a tariff wall around the United States, and pursue a more disciplined and strategic set of policy changes. Such an approach could yield real successes, as happened during his first term with the negotiation of the Abraham Accords  

But even if Trump puts aside his most disruptive proposals, he is unlikely to succeed in countering America’s central foreign policy challenge: China’s effort to rewrite the rules of the world order. As I wrote a few weeks back, meeting that challenge requires strengthening ties with friends, partners, and allies. But that runs directly contrary to Trump’s worldview in which friends are part of the problem and not the solution. 

Rather than building a pro-America global coalition, Trump is likely to encourage and accelerate the ongoing trend toward me-first nationalism. That may inspire short-term bursts of nationalist pride and chants of USA! USA! USA! However, it will leave the United States weaker in the long run. When confronting an aspiring hegemon, the one thing worse than having allies who are not everything you desire is not having them at all.  

I would be happy to be wrong. 

What Trump Is Saying 

Trump said on Tuesday that he plans to create a new federal agency called the External Revenue Service. Its job will be to collect tariffs. 

Trump did not explain why the United States needed a new federal agency to collect tariff revenues when it already has one, the Custom and Border Protection Agency. (“Customs duties” is another term for tariffs.) And regardless, tariffs are paid by the firms or individuals who import goods from abroad. Tariffs are not paid by foreign exporters. 

On Wednesday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had hired a thousand people for his administration. He then asked that his supporters stop recommending he hire anyone who had worked with a long list of Republicans who have opposed him, including some of his own former appointees and individuals such as Republican megadonor, Charles Koch. 

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, served for three years as the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, an advocacy group funded by Koch and his brother David.  

What the Biden Administration Is Doing 

The Biden administration brokered a deal this week under which Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza. The news provoked an immediate squabble over whether Biden or Trump deserved credit for the outcome. Trump was quick to say that he did: 

 Asked later in the day by a reporter whether he or Trump deserved the credit, Biden answered: “Is that a joke?”  

If the deal holds, which it may not, the answer is that both men (and their teams) deserve credit. Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Michael Waltz, Trump’s pick for the job, collaborated extensively on the deal. Trump’s influence looks to have been less on Hamas than on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accepted a version of the deal he had been resisting since last May. Expect experts to begin arguing about what Netanyahu’s motives were in agreeing to the deal and whether he extracted significant commitments from the Trump administration, whether on Gaza, the West Bank, or Iran, in agreeing to the deal. 

Biden gave a farewell speech at the State Department on Monday. He defended his foreign policy record, arguing that "adversaries are weaker than they were when we came into this job four years ago," and that he is leaving Trump “a very strong hand to play.” 

Biden removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on Tuesday. The move was part of a deal facilitated by the Roman Catholic Church that requires Havana to release political prisoners. However, Trump can return Cuba to the list of state sponsors of terrorism once he returns to office. Sen. Marco Rubio suggested during his Senate confirmation hearings on his bid to be secretary of state that the Trump administration would do just that.  

Trump Appointments 

Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth had his confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, the questioning in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee broke down along partisan lines. Republican senators tossed him softball questions; Democratic senators questioned his qualifications, his views, and his personal integrity.

The most significant news coming out of the hearing is that Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa said she would vote for Hegseth’s confirmation. A victim of sexual assault herself, she had been seen as a potential no vote who might persuade some of her Republican colleagues to vote against Hegseth. 

Sen. Marco Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday for his confirmation to be secretary of state. As is common when senators testify before their colleagues, the hearing was largely collegial. Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois praised Rubio for the kindness he extended to her when she first joined the Senate. In his prepared remarks and in his responses, Rubio stressed the need to confront China while seeking to narrow the well-established differences he has with Trump on foreign policy. 

Former U.S. Congressman and former Acting Director of Intelligence John Ratcliffe testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The hearing was less combative than Hegseth’s, and Ratcliffe vowed to resist any efforts to politicize the CIA.   

Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearing to be director of national intelligence has yet to be scheduled. The FBI has yet to complete her background check, and Senate rules require a seven-day wait from the submission of the background report to the start of a confirmation hearing. 

What the Pundits Are Writing  

Elizabeth Economy and Melanie Hart warned in Foreign Affairs that the United States will need more than tariffs to win its competition with China. The former Biden administration officials say “it will take a full suite of economic incentives, public-private partnerships, and investment and trade deals to reduce the United States’ and its partners’ reliance on China. U.S. partners, concerned about Chinese influence themselves, are eager to work with Washington. If Trump can embrace a more ambitious economic and trade policy, his second term can supercharge the global shift away from dependence on Chinese supply, bolstering the U.S. economy and enhancing U.S. national security.” 

Antonio De Loera-Brust argued in Foreign Policy that Trump’s threats to retake the Panama Canal, by force if necessary, have sparked a backlash in Latin America. De Loera-Brust notes: “Latin Americans have sought—time and time again in their region’s history—partnerships with extra-hemispheric rivals to the United States, from the Mexican conservatives who invited the French into Mexico in 1862 to the Cuban communists who invited the Soviets into Cuba a century later. It’s a pattern in U.S. history: Overeager enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine has often encouraged more serious violations, as Latin American countries look for a counterbalance to a neighbor they cannot hope to deter on their own.” 

Ravi Agrawal, the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy, wrote that Trump is ushering in a more transactional world. With the United States focused on a narrower definition of self-interest, Agrawal argues, “states that have come to rely on U.S.-backed alliances will certainly need to recalibrate. Global markets will experience turbulence. But countries and companies will also sniff out opportunities. The ones with the means to do so will look to exploit the president-elect’s tendency to prioritize his self-interest.” 

What the Polls Show 

A Fox News poll found that 52 percent of Americans approve of how Trump has handled the presidential transition while 46 percent disapprove. In contrast, in 2017, just 37 percent approved of how Trump handled the transition while 54 percent disapproved. Although Trump says he won an “unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Americans disagree. A slight majority (51 percent) said his victory was not a mandate. Moreover, 54 percent said that the election was more a rejection of Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s policies and performance than an endorsement of Trump’s policies. The poll found majority opposition to Trump’s calls for tariffs (53 percent opposed), reacquiring the Panama Canal (53 percent opposed), and buying Greenland (57 percent opposed).  

Patriot Polling surveyed 416 residents of Greenland and found that 57 percent favored the United States acquiring the island. Patriot Polling bills itself as “the first polling firm in the United States to be founded by high school students.” Its principals are currently college students. The survey is the first the organization has done overseas. FiveThirtyEight.com gives Patriot Polling 1 star on a three-star scale, and ranks it number 249 among the pollsters it tracks.  

Canadian pollsters have been busy determining whether Canadians are interested in becoming Americans, as Trump has proposed. The answer is an emphatic no. One poll had 71 per cent of Canadians “absolutely against” a union, another had 82 percent, and a third 90 percent.  

Podcasts 

I sat down with my colleague Edward Alden on the latest episode of The President’s Inbox to discuss Trump’s policies on immigration. We covered a range of issues, including: the fall in illegal border crossings over the past year; Trump’s threatened tariffs against Canada and Mexico along with how Ottawa and Mexico City might respond; Trump’s constitutional and statutory authorities to order mass deportations and the legal and logistical hurdles he will face; the dispute among Trump supporters over the H-1B visa program; and the consequences of all these changes for the U.S. economy.  

The Election Certification Schedule 

Inauguration Day is on Monday (January 20, 2025) 

Oscar Berry assisted in the preparation of this post.