What Is Donald Trumps Foreign Policy?

The Interpreter
By MAX FISHER NOV. 11, 2016

WASHINGTON President-elect Donald J. Trump will enter the White House having
promised to radically alter United States foreign policy, with ramifications for
Americans and the world.

But its not yet clear how. Mr. Trump offered vague and sometimes contradictory
proposals during his campaign, with few of the typical details or white papers.
Voters, foreign policy professionals and the countrys allies are all, to a real
extent, left guessing.

Here, then, is a rundown of what we know about Mr. Trumps foreign policy ideas and
what some experts say about their feasibility and likely ramifications.

What are Mr. Trumps proposed policies?

Mr. Trump has repeatedly emphasized a set of ideas that would reduce Americas role
in the world. He said he would take unilateral action, move away from traditional
allies and move closer to adversaries.

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He said during the campaign that he would diminish or possibly abandon American
commitments to security alliances. That includes NATO and defense treaties with
Japan and South Korea.

He has threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organization and called the North
American Free Trade Agreement the single worst trade deal ever signed in this
country. And he said he would cancel the international agreement on combating
climate change, reached last year in Paris.

Mr. Trump has suggested that more countries should acquire nuclear weapons, to
protect themselves without Washingtons help. He has said allies like Saudi Arabia
must pay for American support.

He has voiced admiration for Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, and said the
United States should work with him and align with his Syrian ally, President Bashar
al-Assad, in that countrys civil war.

But Mr. Trump, not a dove, has indicated a willingness to use force and promised to
reinstate waterboarding, a form of torture.

Somebody hits us within ISIS, you wouldnt fight back with a nuke? Mr. Trump
asked rhetorically in an MSNBC interview this spring.

When the Iranian Navy intercepted American sailors who had drifted into their
waters, Mr. Trump said that, had he been president, the Iranians would have been
shot out of the water. He has threatened to dismantle the international agreement
that limits Irans nuclear program.

He supports imposing punitive economic measures on China, threatening high tariffs

that would devastate trade between the worlds two largest economies.

He supported the United States-led invasion of Iraq at the time, but harshly
criticized it during the campaign, and he said that American troops should have
taken the oil from that country by force. He has also said that the United States
should have seized Libyas oil.
Perhaps most famously, he has promised to build a wall on the countrys southern
border and force Mexico to pay for it.

Are these sincere proposals, or just campaign talk?

It is difficult to extrapolate concrete plans from his pronouncements, particularly

since they are not always consistent.

Some days, for example, he called NATO obsolete and implied that he would reduce
American commitments to European security. On others, he did not go as far, saying
only that European states should contribute more to NATO and focus more on
terrorism.

Some statements seemed mainly about making a political point. For example, Mr.
Trump said he opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal because it was
designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door, though
the deal excludes China.

The agenda seemed to change with his mood, and he has released relatively few
policy papers, making many foreign policy analysts wonder whether he may be
entering office without a plan.

You should not believe anyone who says they know what Trump will do even if that
persons name is Donald Trump, Jeremy Shapiro, research director of the European
Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a postelection policy brief.

Could President-elect Trump execute his ideas?

American presidents enjoy unusual autonomy on foreign issues, and Mr. Trump would
be able to make some of his proposals happen quickly.
He could scuttle the Iran nuclear deal (though its European signatories would most
likely refuse efforts to negotiate a replacement), ignore United States commitments
on climate change and impose tariffs on China and Mexico.
But other policies would be more difficult to enact. Mexico, for instance, seems
unlikely to comply with his demand to pay for a border wall. Other ideas, such as
seizing Iraqs oil, may not even be physically possible (the oil rests beneath the
ground of a sovereign state).
His own administration could be his biggest roadblock.
Foreign policy is conducted by vast institutions the Pentagon, State Department
and intelligence agencies staffed with thousands of career officers.
Mr. Trump has only a handful of like-minded advisers. So he will need to staff
these agencies with his partys foreign policy veterans a group with which he has
broken so acrimoniously that many denounced him and his policies in open letters.
Now, they will have a sort of veto power over moves like withdrawing from NATO or
striking Iran.
Elizabeth N. Saunders, a George Washington University political scientist, said
that foreign policy bureaucracies have often steered presidents, rather than the
other way around. They can stonewall or slow policies they dislike. Selective leaks
to the public or to Congress can put pressure on the commander in chief to behave
in a certain way.
When presidents openly overrule their foreign policy staff, Ms. Saunders found,
public approval of that president and his policies often dives.
What is the Trump worldview?
Beneath his specific proposals or pronouncements there does appear to be a
guiding worldview.
Mr. Trump seems to see the world as chaotic and threatening and inhospitable to
traditional American objectives like democracy promotion or international
institutions. In this world, the United States must pursue its interests narrowly,
unilaterally and with unapologetic force.
Thomas Wright, a Brookings Institution scholar, wrote in a long study of Mr.
Trumps views that he consistently expresses opposition to Americas alliance
relationships; opposition to free trade; and support for authoritarianism.
Mr. Trump calls this American first, and it would be a significant break with the
role Washington has played in upholding the global order since the end of World War
II.
Perhaps owing to his years in the competitive world of New York real estate
development, Mr. Trump seems to approach foreign policy as a series of deals, each
divided between a winner and a loser.
This may explain his skepticism of alliances: If every interaction must conclude
with one partys humiliating loss, then mutually beneficial agreements are neither
appealing nor possible.
The historian Walter Russell Mead places Mr. Trump within a Jacksonian tradition
in American foreign policy, referring to President Andrew Jackson, who served from
1829 to 1837: nationalist, populist, suspicious of the outside world and willing
to use force to beat it back.
What would happen if President Trump instituted these policies?
In most cases, it is nearly impossible to say.
Because Mr. Trumps policies are so unusual and his election victory so unexpected,
foreign nations have not indicated how they might respond. So it is difficult to
judge even the first-order effect of, say, a NATO withdrawal or a partnership with
Mr. Assad in Syria, much less any ripple effects.
In practice, much of foreign policy is responding to crises. Mr. Trumps lack of
experience or clear proposals make it difficult to predict how he would handle, for
example, a major breakthrough in North Koreas nuclear program or a major Russian
cyberattack.
Some proposals, though, are easier to study.
An analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan
think tank, found that Mr. Trumps potential imposition of double-digit tariffs on
China and Mexico would, by decimating international trade, set off a recession in
the United States and cost 4.8 million jobs.
Should he unravel the Iran nuclear deal, most analysts believe that Tehran would
renew nuclear development but that the deals other parties Russia, China and
several from Europe would blame the United States and decline to reimpose
sanctions.
Beyond that, Mr. Trumps likely impact on the world is difficult to predict. As Mr.
Shapiro wrote in his policy brief, The essence of Trumps foreign policy will be
its unpredictability.