Donald Trump does not have a foreign policy; he has moods regarding international affairs. Underneath the volatility of his moods, however, are some convictions: namely that other countries are robbing the U.S. through trade; U.S. allies are at best incapable of defending themselves and unwilling to spend resources in order to do so; multilateralism is for the weak; and widespread application of U.S. military power to underpin the prevailing international order is a wasted and failed endeavor. In many respects, these convictions are fundamentally wrong: over the long term, the U.S. has benefited enormously from commitment to open trade, alliances beyond immediate transactional quid-pro-quo, multilateral international order, and U.S. global power projection.
The real tragedy of Trump’s inability to recognize these facts is the negative consequences that his failed foreign affairs beliefs and choices frequently have for those affected by them. Trump simply makes a lot of bad foreign policy decisions that hurt everyone from U.S. domestic consumers to businesses with international supply chains to leaders of U.S. allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. And for some foreign policy decisions—such as the abrogation of the Iran deal, or engagement with North Korea—the jury is still out. Nonetheless, occasionally, Trump’s convictions feed instincts leading him to decisions that are fundamentally right. Ironically, however, even when Trump makes ostensibly good foreign policy choices, he executes them so badly, or approaches them from such a chaotic and skewed vantage point, that even those who normally would support the policy in question end up obliged to reject it. A cursory examination of three of Trump’s major international priorities—relationships with allies, the war in Syria, and U.S.-China trade relations—is indicative of this incongruous dynamic.
Donald Trump does not have a foreign policy; he has moods regarding international affairs. Underneath the volatility of his moods, however, are some convictions: namely that other countries are robbing the U.S. through trade; U.S. allies are at best incapable of defending themselves and...
www.fpri.org
![laugh-out-loud[1].webp](https://www.houseofpolitics.com/data/attachments/9/9368-964bf9251b0fb9e29cf72f4ee9342666.jpg?hash=XGeoZBXDfB "laugh-out-loud[1].webp")
![pouty-smiley-emoticon[1].gif](https://www.houseofpolitics.com/data/attachments/9/9369-7ff213db77da30b1c1641c6c51d60e28.jpg?hash=f_IT23faML "pouty-smiley-emoticon[1].gif"){kind=small}
![trumpcrybaby[1].webp](https://www.houseofpolitics.com/data/attachments/9/9370-86d8d4d20a02983c9e4d8426808d337a.jpg?hash=AxRGeR96Pl "trumpcrybaby[1].webp")
