Trump’s Foreign Policy Endeavors

My Republican friends (yes, I still have a few of them) often express their support for our 45th President based upon his achievements in handling our nation’s relations with other countries. Trump characterizes his foreign policy as “America First.” When questioned in a March 2016 interview by David Sanger of The New York Times Trump explained that by “America First” he meant that he would no longer allow the U.S. to be “ripped off” by other nations. In particular, he was referring to

• “disastrous” free-trade agreements like the North America Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”) with Canada and Mexico and the Trans Pacific Partnership (“TPP”) with eleven Pacific Rim countries;

• the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (or “JCPOA”) negotiated by the Obama administration curbing Iran’s development of nuclear weapons;

• the Paris Climate Accord which calls for the U.S. to shoulder a bigger burden in reducing CO2 emissions than other countries;

• China’s unfair trade practices; and

• the NATO alliance which is heavily subsidized by the U.S.

Trump’s Perspective

Trump was schooled by his father to believe that the world is divided into “winners” and “losers” from which he concluded that every negotiation was a zero-sum proposition with only one party emerging as a winner. As a businessman, Trump was accustomed to dealing on a one-on-one basis and strongly preferred situations in which he possessed greater bargaining power. In that sense, he relished bargaining on behalf of the world’s richest and most powerful nation. Conversely, he harbored a strong dislike for multilateral agreements which he viewed as requiring the U.S. to assume a greater economic burden than its less powerful allies. Moreover, having to accommodate the interests of allied parties in reaching a deal was particularly unappealing to him.  In large part this was because he was determined to present an image of his personal strength which is not easily conveyed when being restrained by the needs and wishes of weaker allies.

Another important facet of Trump’s personality that affected his dealings with foreign governments was his admiration of dictators. Although Trump liked to boast about how he would only hire the best and the brightest, he quickly abandoned such boasts and displayed a strong preference for surrounding himself with individuals who would be both loyal and deferential to him. The reality is that Trump envies the political power of dictators and their ability to act without seeking the permission of others. It was Trump’s predilections to eschew multilateral arrangements and curry favor with dictators that often caused him to act in detrimental ways when dealing with other nations.

Multi-Lateral Agreements

Almost immediately after being elected, Trump caused the United States to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord which he insisted would undermine the U.S. economy and place it at a permanent disadvantage. He also quickly terminated the U.S.’s participation in the JCPOA and the TPP. In each of these three endeavors, Trump’s actions were counter-productive in the sense that they were contrary to the interests of the American people.

The Paris Climate Accord was long overdue as the danger posed by global warming to life on the Earth had been recognized as early as 1960. Part of the delay in addressing it can be explained by the fact that the task of curbing global warming was so monumental that nothing would ever be achieved without the leadership and active participation of the U.S.. Moreover, because that threat was not immediate the politically-powerful fossil fuel industries in the U.S. were able to bribe or intimidate politicians into taking little or no action. The 2016 Paris Accord (which was endorsed by over 190 nations) therefore was a very belated effort to address the greatest threat to life on the earth. Admittedly, the Accord was a very modest start because of its lack of enforcement provisions. Still, it was important for the nations inhabiting the earth to begin to take action as the impact of global warming was then starting to take place in the form of spreading droughts and more damaging hurricanes and tornados.

Trump’s action to withdraw U.S. participation set back the timetable for taking effective action and will likely increase the ultimate (if not the immediate) costs of maintaining the earth as a sustainable habitat for human life. Trump sought to justify his opposition to the Accord by claiming that it placed an unfair burden on the U.S. His recent offer to fossil fuel executives to roll back the efforts of the Biden administration to curb global warming, however, shows that his real motivation was to curry favor with the fossil fuel industries from which he is now seeking political donations aggregating $1 billion.

​ Trump’s disavowal of the JCPOA was equally misguided. That agreement allowed Iran to recover over $100 billion of its frozen assets without having to abandon its ballistic missile program or its efforts to undermine peace in the Middle East. Trump viewed the JCPOA as a giveaway to Iran. The principal weakness in the agreement was that Iran would be able to utilize the funds it recovered to further its disruptive activities and to continue developing long-range missiles. Moreover, the JCPOA only required Iran to roll-back and forego its development of nuclear weapons for another 15 years. Admittedly, the temporary nature of Iran’s retreat from developing nuclear weapons made the accord of marginal value, but the very possibility of reversing the adversarial relationship between the U.S. and Iran dating back to the late 1970s seemed worth the risk.

Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA and his re-institution of economic sanctions in an effort to win further concessions from Iran squandered any chance for the U.S. to normalize its relationship with Iran. As a result of our withdrawal from the JCPOA Iran resumed its development of nuclear weapons and is once again on the cusp of achieving that goal which will place it on a par with North Korea whose possession of nuclear weapons renders its largely impervious to the efforts of western nations to curb its nefarious actions.

Ironically, Trump tried his own vaunted (albeit self-proclaimed) negotiating skills in dealing with North Korea, another long-term adversary of the U.S. As was his preference, he chose to do this in one-on-one negotiations. Casting aside the U.S.’s 70-year policy of refusing to diplomatically recognize North Korea, Trump proceeded for two years to engage in a series of face-to-face meetings with Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s brutal dictator who had ordered the executions of his own uncle and half-brother. It’s hard to forget Trump’s professed “bromance” with Kim Jong Un during which he describes their communications as “love letters.” Much to Trump’s ultimate disappointment, Kim Jong Un remained impervious to Trump’s charm offensive and hostile to the U.S. He demonstrated this by his continued development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, much to the dismay of our close allies, South Korea and Japan.

​ Trump’s withdrawal from the TPP was almost as damaging as his abandonment of the Paris Climate Accord and the JCPOA. He viewed the TPP as simply a vehicle for relaxing our nation’s trade restriction with the eleven other Pacific rim member countries including Mexico and Canada, both of which were also parties to NAFTA. Yes, trade barriers between the member countries were relaxed. The principal purpose of the TPP, however, was to create a sizable trading block that would have sufficient economic bargaining power to compel the Chinese to cease their unfair trade practices which included thefts of U.S. technology and requirements that U.S. companies ally themselves with Chinese partners if they wished to do business in China. When the TPP was formed in 2016 the twelve member countries purchased 35% of China’s exports. That was more than twice the amount of goods that U.S. companies purchased from China. Thus, the pact essentially doubled the U.S.’s economic bargaining power with China. That bargaining power was never put to use as Trump caused the U.S. to withdraw from the TPP before it ever had a chance to engage China in trade talks.

Rather than exercising the TPP’s collective bargaining power Trump opted instead to deal mano-a-mano with China’s Xi Jinping. To that end, he imposed $80 billion of tariffs on literally thousands of products being imported from China. In retaliation, China imposed restrictions on its imports from the U.S. including restrictions on the importation of U.S. agricultural products, costing U.S. farmers roughly $16 billion in lost sales. Trump ultimately was compelled to have the U.S. Treasury reimburse American farmers for their losses.  This trade war resulted in no changes in China’s unfair trade practices. Trump nevertheless touted it success, claiming that he had forced China to pay $80 billion in tariffs. That claim was total nonsense as the tariffs were actually paid by U.S. citizens who were compelled to pay higher prices for the goods they purchased from China.

​ Trump had also characterized the North American Free Trade Act (or NAFTA) negotiated by the Clinton Administration as another “trade disaster” because it facilitated the manufacture of many U.S. products to take place in Mexico and Canada. Rather than simply disavow that pact as he had done with the TPP, the JCPOA and the Paris Climate Accord, Trump chose to renegotiate it.  That decision was largely prompted by the fact that NAFTA had enabled the U.S. auto industry to reduce its manufacturing costs and thereby continue to remain competitive with foreign auto manufacturers. It also was a boon to U.S. farmers as it facilitated exports of U.S. agricultural products to Mexico and Canada.  NAFTA, however, had been negotiated in 1996 and many of the products being produced in 2017 were not covered by the original pact (but would have been covered by the TPP).  In addition to expanding NAFTA to cover those products, Trump had its name changed to the “United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” (or “USMCA”) so as to make it his treaty and disassociate it from the Clinton administration.

Other Dealings with Foreign Countries

As noted above, Donald Trump has a strong admiration for, and preference for dealing with, authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia, Viktor Orban of Hungary,  Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Conversely, he seems to have little regard for leaders of other democratic nations. He has displayed this latter quality in his dealings with our NATO allies which he has frequently criticized and chided for having the U.S. shoulder much of their defense costs. More recently, he made a statement that Russians “should do whatever the hell they want to any NATO member countries that don’t meet their spending guidelines on defense.” It is therefore no secret that our NATO alliance was severely weakened by the Trump administration and that the Biden administration had to work feverishly to restore it before Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022.

Easily the most successful foreign policy endeavor during the Trump administration was its negotiation of the Abraham Accords. As I have previously written, Trump had set out to seek contributions totaling $50 billion from Persian Gulf nations that would be used to spur economic growth on the “West Bank” and Gaza occupied by Palestinians. This would provide the Palestinians with a comfortable way of life and enhance the chances of their reaching a peace agreement with Israel (commonly referred to as a “two-state solution.”) This endeavor never proceeded as the Palestinians rejected the plan before the Gulf states had even met to considered it. The problem was that the details of Trump’s proposal were essentially dictated by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and provided for Israel to significantly expand its settlements into a large swath of the West Bank.

Arising out of the ashes of this undertaking was an offer by the United Arab Emirates to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel if Israel would simply disavow any intention of expanding its settlements in the West Bank. Trump, to his credit, seized upon this opportunity and cemented a deal by supplying the UAE with advanced U.S. fighter aircraft. Shortly thereafter, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan also agreed to normalize their relationships with Israel. The primary impetus underlying these accords was that Israel had developed a strong economy and had become a regional military power. At the same time, the Gulf states had grown increasingly fearful of Iran and were wary of their further reliance on a nation that had declared “America First” as the foundation of its foreign policy.

Prior to the signing of the Abraham Accords, it had been the conventional wisdom and the focus of U.S. Middle East policy that regional peace would never be achieved until Israel was able to make peace with the Palestinians. The Abraham Accords, however, raised the possibility that achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians was no longer the lynchpin to achieving peace throughout the Middle East. It had been replaced by the growing struggle between the Sunni Arab nations (led by Saudi Arabia) and the Shiite Arab nations (led by Iran) which now poses the biggest danger to peace in the Middle East. Since Trump left office Saudi Arabia has indicated that it too was ready to ally itself with Israel. In short, Trump, knowingly (or perhaps unwittingly) changed the entire dynamics of the Middle East diplomacy. This fact is evidenced by Israel’s having continued to establish new settlements in the West Bank without any noticeable effect on the Abraham Accords or Saudi Arabia’s desire to normalize its relationship with Israel.

Action’s Relating to On-going Conflicts

​ Trump’s “America First” policy also led him to cause the U.S. to withdraw from two war zones. Although the U.S. was not heavily involved in the civil war that was taking place in and around Syria, Trump chose to withdraw U.S. forces from that conflict. That action was taken over the objections of his military advisors who were distressed by the U.S.’s abandoning its Kurdish allies who had helped put down the ISIS uprising in Iraq and were opposing the Syrian-Russian efforts to extinguish the Syrian rebels. At that time, the Kurds were being threatened by Turkey and the U.S. presence in the area was protecting them from that threat. The withdrawal of U.S. forces was also helpful to Russia and Turkey (both of which had autocratic regimes) and placed our ally, the Kurdish forces, in serious danger.

​ Trump’ also discontinued the U.S.’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan where the U.S. had been supporting the Afghan government against the Taliban. The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan dated back to 2001 when President George W. Bush had sent U.S. forces to that country in an effort to capture Osama bin Ladin who (along with his Al Qaeda followers) had taken refuge there following their 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Trump deserves credit for seeking to end the U.S.’s continuing involvement in that country. Afghanistan was largely an undeveloped country that was ruled by a collection of tribal lords (collectively referred to as the “Taliban”) reminiscent of life during the 13th century. Afghanistan also had a corrupt and largely ineffective central government which only controlled a small portion of the Afghan countryside.

​ The U.S.’s involvement in Afghanistan had long outlived its original mission. Osama bin Laden and most of his Al Qaeda followers had abandoned Afghanistan shortly after the U.S. military had arrived. The U.S. forces had simply remained in a commendable (but nevertheless futile) effort to help mold Afghanistan into a viable nation. Trump’s mistake (and it was a big one) was to exclude the Afghan government from his peace negotiations with the Taliban. Presumably this choice was made as a result of Trump’s dislike of multilateral negotiations. The Afghan government, although riddled with corruption, was nevertheless our ally and had been working with the U.S. military forces in suppressing the Taliban’s efforts to return Afghanistan to feudal nation where, among other things, the education of females would be forbidden.

Omitting the Afghan government from the talks determining how the country would be governed following the U.S.’s withdrawal sent a strong message that the Afghan government would have no further role in running the country. Thus, as the negotiations took place over a period of months, Afghan government officials and military personnel were busy charting their own plans for survival. It’s not clear whether the Trump administration realized this was occurring, but Trump (either wisely or simply fortuitously) chose to designate the effective date of the withdrawal of U.S. personnel until after he had left office.  

This placed President Biden in the precarious position of having to proceed with the withdrawal (something he had been advocating throughout his service as Vice President during the Obama administration) when the ability of the Afghan military forces to maintain order during that withdrawal was growing more doubtful with each passing day. The result was total chaos. Although the U.S. only lost 15 of its military personnel, it left behind hundreds of Afghani citizens who had assisted its efforts and who were immediately targeted by the Taliban which seized control of the country as the U.S. forces were departing.

Trump has also been involved in another foreign conflict; namely, Vladimir’s efforts to force Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence. Following the collapse of the Soviet Unionin 1991, Ukraine transferred its nuclear weapons back to Russia and established an independent government. That government, while democratic in form, was dominated by Kremlin sympathizers until 2014 when the Ukrainians elected as their President Petro Poroshenko, a western-leaning government official. Putin was angered by this turn of events and quickly caused Russian troops to seize Crimea, the Ukrainian province located on the Black Sea. He also began efforts to take control of Ukraine’s two highly industrialized eastern provinces.

The U.S. and its NATO allies had long supported Ukraine’s efforts to free itself of communist control and both of the principal U.S. political parties expressed their support for providing military aid to Ukraine. Then a strange thing happened. Donald Trump, after winning most of the 2016 Republican presidential primary elections, caused the Republican Party to drop from its “Platform” its prior endorsement of military aid for Ukraine. Trump was rewarded for having done so by Russia’s disinformation campaign that helped him win the 2016 election.

After he was elected, Trump vehemently denied that his campaign had worked with Russia while making obscene displays of his admiration of Putin at a series of international meetings. In the summer of 2019 (when the government of Ukraine was under strong pressure to acquiesce in Russia’s annexation of its two eastern provinces), Trump took the further step of withholding military aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. This was done in an effort to coerce the Ukrainian government into cooperating with his campaign to seek a second term as president. Trump’s defiance of the will of Congress led the Democratic majority in House of Representatives to vote to impeach him. Later, in February 2022, when Russia mounted an all-out invasion of Ukraine, Trump hailed it as “an act of genius” and in the Fall of 2023 he urged Republican members of Congress to withhold badly-needed additional aid to Ukraine.

Each of these actions in support of Russia was in conflict with our nation’s strong opposition to attacks on a democratic government and the spread of authoritarianism.  More importantly, the U.S. and all but two NATO countries were (and are) strongly is in favor of having an independent Ukraine standing between themselves and an aggressive Russia. Thus, these actions by Trump can only be explained either as a further expressions of his gratitude for Putin’s help in securing his election in 2016 or as a strong endorsement of his own admittedly anti-democratic leanings.

Immigration

​ From the very moment that Trump entered the 2016 presidential race, it was apparent that he held strong white nationalist feelings. He had characterized individuals seeking asylum at our southern border as Mexican murderers, rapist and drug dealers“ who “had been sent by their government. ” He therefore vowed to build a wall to keep them out. The fact is that very few of these individuals were Mexican and they were not sent by the government of Mexico. They were coming from central American countries that had been devastated by drought, crime and ineffective governments and had faced enormous obstacles to find their way to the U.S. in search of a better life for themselves and their children. Trump, however, could not see beyond their brown skin and did everything in his power to discourage, if not prevent, their entry. He also instituted a ban on immigration from most Muslim countries as well as from what he called ”Shithole countries.” Instead, he wished to limit immigration into the U.S. to educated individuals from the Nordic countries who he proclaimed in his more recent statements would not “poison the blood” of the U.S. population.

​ The problem, of course, is that with an aging population the U.S. needs an influx of young and ambitious immigrants. Equally important, individuals living in the Nordic counties have little desire to immigrate to the U.S. because they already enjoy a higher standard of living and job security than they would find in the U.S. (see, “Fear of Socialism”). Thus, Trump’s position on immigration not only reflects his own “white nationalistic” leanings, but is contrary to the needs of the nation. In short, it essentially is intended to please his MAGA base. Of course, the U.S. would openly welcome immigrants with high skills and strong educational backgrounds, but those are not the people who are generally willing to leave their homes and start a new life in a strange country.

Conclusion

Foreign policy is not a game for amateurs as it is multi-dimensional and has a large number of moving parts. Trump revealed his own unhappiness with the way the U.S. conducts its foreign policy when he quickly dismissed Rex Tillerson, his first Secretary of State, and drastically cut the budget of the State Department. He was convinced that he could do better by using his own negotiating skills and largely disregarding the advice of his foreign policy and military advisers. As more fully explained above, for the most part, the results were disappointing. He embraced and enhanced the stature of dictators and offended long-term U.S. allies. He also displayed a total distain for people who are not white Caucasians.

By far his greatest foreign policy achievement was the Abraham Accords. His decision to withdraw U.S. personnel from Afghanistan was also commendable even though it was badly conceived. His renegotiation of NAFTA was beneficial even though most of the revisions reflected in the revised pact had been included in the TPP which Trump had abandoned. His principal shortcoming in the foreign policy arena was that he did not appreciate that dealing in international matters is far more complicated than negotiating a deal with a supplier or creditor. The world has grown smaller but Trump’s thinking is stuck in an earlier era when nations dealt almost exclusively in bi-lateral-transactions.