Tue Mar 4

Donald Trump is picking fights with leaders around the world. What exactly is his foreign policy approach?

Written by Brendon O'Connor, Professor in U.S. Politics and U.S. Foreign Relations, United States Studies Centre,, University of Sydney

Since returning to the US presidency, Donald Trump has outdone himself, gaining global media headlines and attention with outrageous statements and dramatic decisions.

The most consequential decision so far has been the freezing of many US aid and development programs. The freeze had an immediate impact. Even with some waivers now in place, it is likely that starving people in Ethiopia will not get the famine relief desperately needed ^[1]; food is rotting in African harbours as constitutional battles over executive power are waged in Washington.

In Africa alone, the US has also been funding lifesaving malaria prevention efforts and HIV/AIDS drug programs ^[2]. Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency ^[3] has cruelly disrupted those.

There are numerous examples of other reckless policy decisions. In terms of long term consequences, arguably the worst decision Trump has made is pulling the United States out ^[4] of the Paris Agreement on climate change. He also wound back a slew of Biden administration policies while erasing the term “climate change” from various government websites.

Trump has attempted to bully Mexico and Canada with threats of a 25% tax on all imports ^[5] from those two trading partners. He has also imposed a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports coming into the US.

Then there are Trump’s statements on Ukraine, Gaza and Panama. Last weekend, his treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House meeting caused widespread dismay around the world, as Trump doubled down on his promotion of Putin’s talking points and Russian government interests.

So what’s Trump’s game plan?

With Trump, it is tempting to claim he is a chaos merchant with no plan or method to his madness. According to this view, when he is challenged or criticised, he will escalate the threats and increase the insults.

Therefore, conventional wisdom has it that the best way to deal with Trump is to flatter and humour him, then wait for his attention to be distracted by another prize. This understanding of Trump has been developed by international relations scholar Daniel Drezner into the “toddler-in-chief” thesis ^[6].

Psychological understandings of Trump are useful to a point, but it is worth remembering presidencies are run by vast administrations of people, departments and agencies, and not just one person. Moreover, an institution as large as the US Defense Department – with its two million employees and military bases in at least 80 countries around the world ^[7] – has a near permanent mindset of its own. This, in turn, tends to make presidents as seemingly different as Obama and Trump custodians of many similar military policies and postures.

The way I have initially examined Trump in my own research is to see him as a hardline conservative nationalist who believes projecting US power with tough talk and reminding other nations of American military might is the best approach to world politics.

Previous Republican presidents, most notably George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, adopted this so-called “cowboy” approach. It’s a posture that rejects the idea that the US is the leader of a liberal international order (a leadership role promoted by their Democratic party opponents).

My starting point for analysis sees continuities ^[8] between Reagan, Bush and Trump, and highlights their arrogance and ignorance when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world.

Similar, but different

However, there are some things about Trump that are clearly different and distinct. Before his second term, the most unusual aspect of Trump’s foreign policy approach was the volume and range of his scattergun rhetoric towards other leaders and nations. For example, he threatened North Korea with “fire and fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before”, but later told a rally of supporters that, “We fell in love. No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters.”

As for academic perspectives that might help us better understand what kind of politician Trump is and what his next moves might be, the obvious label is “crudely transactional”. His attitude to most minor and middle powers seems to be “what have you done for me lately?” or “why does America owe your nation anything?”.

When it comes to Russia, and potentially China, there has been speculation Trump is adopting a geopolitical approach with parallels to the “great game” of the 19th century ^[9]. The “great game” is another way of saying imperialism, and this is a largely underused way of describing American foreign policy in general and the second Trump administration in particular.

Then there is the question of whether the (other) “f-word” is a useful way to understand Trump and Trumpism: are his rhetoric and his domestic and international policies fascist? They are definitely ultra-nationalist and racist, which are two key components of fascism; Trumpism revolves around a charismatic leader that has enough in common with fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to make opponents of Trump justifiably nervous. But does Trumpism have the other key element of fascism: mob or state violence that is at times directed at scapegoated enemies?

There is certainly an embrace of revenge and cruelty by Trump in general, which is being carried out in practice by Musk’s DOGE project. However, whether it is useful to call the second Trump administration fascist, or just fascistic for now, is a complex question within scholarly circles.

Five weeks into the second Trump administration, and many of the most destructive ideas that were laid out last year in the unofficial campaign manifesto Project 2025 are being put into place. It has been a long-term dream of many hardline conservatives to gut America’s foreign aid and development programs, which is now happening at a frightening pace.

What lies ahead that turns rhetoric into reality is hard to entirely predict, but many of Trump’s utterances this year have clearly been imperialistic and fascistic. Trump does not have to ignore the constitution or be a textbook fascist to be a terribly dangerous president. Being an authoritarian, which he has no qualms about embracing, is worrying enough.