Trump Faces Complex Foreign Policy Challenges Ahead Of Second Term
Submitted by John Sitilides, Geopolitical Strategist at Trilogy Advisors and Senior Fellow for National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute,
On Jan. 20, President-elect Donald Trump will inherit a kaleidoscopic portfolio of disordered foreign policy and national security effects that he and his team must address, redirect, and resolve to achieve an enhanced and revitalized American posture, abroad and at home.
The foundations for the current geopolitical disorder – especially the hot wars in Europe and the Middle East and the cold peace with China – are many, rooted in foreign capitals, international markets, and domestic political choices. The second Trump administration is determined to right much of what it understands to be wrong with the Biden Administration’s policies and outcomes.
Even as the 47th president bolsters his options, and those of our negotiating partners in allied and adversarial capitals, with incentives, he will find those options constrained by hard truths and tough choices.
Serious global commercial, technological, and military competition with China tops the list. Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has embarked on a “China Shock 2” worldwide export strategy to resolve excess industrial capacity, massively distorting trade balances and defying the World Trade Organization with near impunity as it has for more than two decades.
The technology race to dominate the global economy of the 21st century is well-advanced, as President Biden has widened the original Trump sanctions regime, preventing China from directly procuring cutting-edge semiconductors needed to accelerate artificial intelligence, data centers, and quantum computing development. Beijing is responding through super-investments into domestic technology firms to outpace Western competitors. It is also escalating pressure on Taiwan, with unparalleled military exercises at sea and on land in seeming preparation for naval and air blockades and subsequent amphibious occupation of the island, with potential global economic damage estimated to cost $5 trillion, or 5% of global GDP.
Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine is entering its fourth year, and human carnage accumulates as Vladimir Putin and Volodomyr Zelenskyy stand fast on their respective negotiation conditions.
The U.S.-led sanctions on Russia have dented its economy. Still, Mr. Putin observed the experiences of North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries sanctioned by Washington and incorporated salvaging measures into the Russian economy, especially in redirecting trade towards China, India, and much of the global South hungry for valuable Russian natural resources, commodities, and military hardware.
The details of Mr. Trump’s ceasefire efforts will lead to NATO pushback, especially from eastern and central European allies nearest to Ukraine and concerned about U.S. commitments to their defense. This could open a profound debate about whether Washington believed it would ever have to risk U.S. cities to defend European cities during the past three decades of NATO expansion.
Israel has reordered the security architecture of the Middle East after devastating Hamas and Hezbollah, facilitating the ouster of the Syrian government and demonstrating its ability to strike at most of Iran’s surface assets.
Mr. Trump may face a decision regarding Tehran’s accelerating uranium enrichment if the Supreme Leader or an imminent successor opts to cross the nuclear weapons threshold. With Syria’s failed state coming under radical Islamist rule after Mr. Trump successfully achieved the defeat of Islamic State in 2018, the situation is further complicated by the inordinate influence in Damascus of NATO ally Turkey, now emboldened to attack U.S. allies in eastern Syria’s Kurdish region.
The Iranian-sponsored Houthi militia controlling Yemen continues to disrupt global shipping through the Red Sea, a direct assault on the U.S.-led international trading system that will frustrate the Trump White House since the NATO economies that suffer the greatest impact have delivered the least muscular response.
In this hemisphere, Mr. Trump is refocusing the national security establishment on securing the U.S. border, ending the free flow of illegal aliens into the country, and immediately deporting alien criminals and others most harmful to the American citizenry. He will revisit trade agreements with Canada and Mexico, the latter increasingly exploited by China to bypass U.S. tariffs. He seeks to protect existing shipping lanes in Panama and explore new shipping lanes and natural resources in Greenland, the geopolitical prize in an Arctic region increasingly engaged by Russia and China.
Shock law enforcement policies in El Salvador transformed the small nation from the world’s murder capital to one of the safest anywhere, and shock economic policies in Argentina signal a potential return to fiscal and monetary normalcy – both potential examples for Trump domestic policies to address crime and runaway government spending. The administration will likely pursue the deeper isolation of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, all three of which have welcomed Russia’s port visit and signed onto China’s “Belt Road” predatory infrastructure network.
Mr. Trump is unwavering in his intention to incentivize robust U.S. oil and natural gas production to export worldwide and will seek to reverse the severe restrictions the Biden administration placed during this transition on new oil and gas production across 625 million acres of U.S. coastal and offshore waters.
The need to provide far greater power levels to grow the domestic A.I., data centers, and other electricity-hungry industries is leading to a potential renaissance for nuclear energy, the most efficient energy form in both massive power density and limited physical footprint. The Trump strategy is straightforward: Vast oil, gas, and coal production to power the U.S. economy, maximize export revenues and reverse our allies’ deindustrialization woes with cheaper energy, coupled with clean and reliable nuclear energy that Meta, Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and other U.S. companies require to lead the global technology economy.
Mr. Trump will also confront serious headwinds in implementing his preferred policies.
With federal debt service now set to exceed defense spending annually for the foreseeable future, joined to Mr. Trump’s campaign commitments to leave Social Security and Medicare unreformed, rebuilding America’s military and enhancing global deterrence will be far more challenging than in his first term.
Thirty years of American uncontested military dominance is ending, as the Commission on National Defense Strategy concluded in July 2024 that “the threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war.”
The Commission concluded that China, in many sectors, such as shipbuilding and drone production, is already outpacing the U.S. in military production and has largely negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific after two decades of intense investment. Beijing is increasing its annual defense spending by an average of 7% annually, Moscow is spending 6% of GDP to reconstitute its national military forces, and both are actively enhancing their already considerable strategic, space, and cyber capabilities. If Trump is serious about NATO members spending 5% of GDP on defense, the U.S. annual military budget will need to increase from $841 billion in FY 2024 to about $1.2 trillion.
Against these serious challenges, our nation’s economic, political, military, technological, societal and constitutional foundations remain the surest and strongest in the world. At the same time, the need for greater wisdom and a clear-eyed vision among all our nation’s political, business, and civic leaders, from President-elect Trump down to everyday citizens, is urgent. Such is the era of incentives, constraints, and tradeoffs, ideally to thwart national decline and achieve national revitalization across the international security landscape that greets the new president on Jan. 20.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 01/19/2025 – 16:20
