Trump's Foreign Policy After a Month

To be effective foreign policy, no matter how ambitious it is in its ultimate objectives, must take its point of departure from reality.  Unfortunately, one month after inauguration President Trump’s foreign policy has failed to meet this requirement.  The driving and utterly misconceived idea is, as Secretary Rubio stated in his confirmation hearing, “ The postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us.”  However, as The Economist, if not others, have pointed out, this argument is unfounded if not nonsensical.  The United States has been not only the originator but major beneficiary of that world order and has understood in the best terms of enlightened self-interest that it gains only when its allies do as well.  Indeed, the U.S. is the greatest beneficiary of the relatively open world economy and liberal order as well as the strongest player in the game.

As a result, barely one month since Trump’s inauguration his foreign policy is an ongoing disaster based on unfounded grievances.  Now, and this is not only due to the made for TV mugging of Zelensky by Trump and Vice-President Vance which was a setup, Trump has, perhaps irrevocably, ruptured the Western  alliance by his antics on Ukraine and Greenland and his tariffs on Canada and Mexico.  Trump has also  offered bizarre  plans to take over Gaza, and has unilaterally engaged in what one diplomat has called preemptive surrender to Russia.

This surrender takes many forms beyond the issues tied to Ukraine.  Trump and his team have unilaterally opened a dialogue with Russia, invited it to replenish its embassy with dozens of agents who were expelled because, as is generally the case with Russian embassies, they were all spies.  Trump and his team unilaterally conceded to Russia that Ukraine would have to give up territory seized by Russia in its genocidal war against Ukraine, invited Vladimir Putin to America in defiance of his indictment on war crimes by the International Criminal Court, called for elections in Ukraine despite Ukrainian law prohibiting elections during wartime,  and agreed to negotiate with Russia on Ukraine without Ukraine’s presence.  There are also reports of secret  talks with Russia to break sanctions and reopen the Nord Stream 2 pipeline an idea that directly contradicts Trump’s own aspirations to make the U.S. the prime energy exporter to Europe. 

Meanwhile Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have made clear that they will not negotiate until their terms, i.e. the destruction of the Ukrainian state, are met.  Nevertheless despite rejecting U.S. intelligence findings to this effect, something Trump habitually does because he believes he knows better than his intelligence officials,  Trump had the audacity to say that he trusts Putin and worse that he and Putin were similarly  victims of the inquiry into Russian influence activities in 2016.

Furthermore, Secretary Rubio’s communique of his meetings with Russian diplomats openly stated that the two parties had agreed to discuss joint economic deals, raising apprehensions of a repeal of sanctions.  Indeed, if we look carefully at reporting on that meeting it becomes clear that much of the preliminary discusions leading up to  that meeting were secretly conducted by Trump’s son-in law, Jared Kushner and “Putin’s wallet” Kiril Dmitriev in the expectation that both sides can make billions in deals over the corpse of Ukraine and the Western alliance.  Indeed, Putin and Russian media are openly proclaiming that both sides can make all kinds of deal over rare earths, energy, and minerals in the Arctic, no doubt to rescue Russia’s failed mining ;policies there.  Moreover, once again Putin is promising the sky and the moon to credulous Western businessmen. This is the third time Russia has offered Western business concessions to rescue it from its own corrupt rent-seeking, and failed policies.  Yet Trump evidently believes this offer is in his or the U.S.’ (they are the same to him) interests.

Now his administration has further compounded this mélange of incompetence, grievance, and malice and not least vis-à-vis Russia.  In separate actions Trump and Elon Musk have decimated State Department agencies that supported the restoration of Ukraine’s energy gird, support for civil society and democracy initiatives in Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe.  And now Secretary of Defense Hegseth has announced first that he and National Security Advisor Waltz will not say that Russia was the aggressor in Ukraine.  Worse yet, Hegseth has now directed U.S. cyber command to stand down all planning against Russia,  including offensive digital actions.  This incomprehensible, unilateral, unreciprocated, and thus unforced action ostensibly shows Russia how clear is our intention to normalize relations with Moscow despite the war with Ukraine.  But it also illustrates the incompetence of Trump’s policymaking in as much as Russia has not and will not stop its cyber actions against the U.S., our allies, or Ukraine. 

On the basis of all these examples,  Trump has demolished our alliances, welcomed an aggressor, upended the International Criminal Court, and sanctions, attacked President Zelensky in ways that only make himself look bad and have gone far to validate Rubio’s misconceived testimony.  Instead of trying to amend defects in the global order that work against America, Trump, like a petulant and malicious child, seems intent on destroying it. This behavior, of course, only benefits Putin and Xi Jinping.  So finally, we must ask is this a rational program for national security or is it stupidity?  Either way, the answer is not consoling.

Dr. Stephen J. Blank is a Senior Fellow at Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is an internationally renowned expert on Russian and Chinese defense policy. He is the author of "Light from the East: Russia's Quest for Great Power Status in Asia" (Taylor & Francis, 2023). He was a Professor of National Security Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College.