INTRODUCTION
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s election victory marks the beginning of another roller-coaster ride in U.S. foreign policy. The president-elect is poised to bring back the hallmarks of his first term: a trade war with China, a deep skepticism—even hostility—toward multilateralism, a fondness for strongmen, and an iconoclastic, tweet-from-the-hip style of dealmaking diplomacy. Trump’s advisors have said his “peace through strength” approach is what the country needs in this precarious moment. This second term will bring new challenges, though—not least the two wars, in the Middle East and Ukraine, that the United States is deeply involved in.
Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine before he even takes office, but he has yet to offer any detailed plan; his plans for bringing peace to the Middle East are equally vague. Unclear as Trump’s designs may be, Foreign Policy waded into his track record as well as his statements and those of his advisors to offer clues on what the future of U.S. foreign policy holds. As Trump’s first term showed, his own whims often contrast with his advisors’ agenda; this time around, he may have a tighter grip on the wheel as a second-time president likely staffed by a more loyal circle of advisors. Here’s a glimpse into the Trump 2.0 future.
TRUMP’S CHINA POLICY
On China policy, to some extent President Joe Biden will just be passing the baton back to Trump. The current administration inherited much of the first Trump term’s harsher approach to China, and a second Trump term is likely to continue identifying China as the United States’ top national security challenge. But on specific issues—and certainly overall style—a second Trump term will bring significant changes. As with his first term, Trump has set his sights first and foremost on trade. Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview to that “tariff” is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” and his clearest priority when it comes to China is relaunching the trade war that he began in 2018. Trump’s campaign website calls for cutting the U.S. reliance on China for all essential goods.
But that’s just the beginning. Biden maintained Trump’s original tariffs and added some additional ones; Trump is poised to go much further. With promised tariffs of at least sixty percent on all imports from China, Trump would get closer to the full decoupling of the world’s two largest economies espoused by some of his closest advisors. Such a move would worsen the already tense bilateral relationship and cost American households dollars a year and U.S. exporters one of their biggest markets. But the knock-on effects of an aggressive trade policy toward China would also end up weakening other potential U.S. friends and allies.
CHINA’S DEPENDENCE ON EXPORTS
China still depends overwhelmingly on exports to drive its growth, and measures designed to weaken that main motor of growth, such as Trump’s tariffs, would also weaken Chinese demand for manufacturing inputs, including energy and minerals. That would be bad news for U.S. neighbors such as Peru, Chile, and Mexico (all big exporters of copper to China), U.S. ally Australia (a big exporter of iron ore and coal), and U.S. frenemy Saudi Arabia, a big source of China’s crude oil.
In Trump’s first term, tariff leverage over China led to a bilateral deal that he deemed “the biggest deal anyone has ever seen.” It was meant to boost U.S. agricultural and energy exports to China, but it never came close to realizing its objectives. Reviving that Phase One agreement could be the starting point for a revamped deal under the new Trump administration, according to the America First Policy Institute, a think tank in Trump’s orbit. If the purpose of the sky-high import taxes is to force China to overhaul its trade and economic practices—the ostensible and unmet goal of the first-term trade war with China—Trump’s other trade policies would make that much more difficult.
STRONG ARMING CHINA COULD ADVERSELY AFFECT FRIENDS AND ALLIES
The strong-arming of China would be undermined by similar treatment of friends and allies, as during his first term. Trump has promised tariffs as high as 20 percent on all other countries, including the European Union. That would not only bring instant and well-prepared reprisal on U.S. exports, further weakening U.S. economic prospects, but it would also dampen the prospects for a big-tent coalition of major economies that could bring coordinated pressure on Beijing to curb its most egregious trade abuses. Beyond trade, Trump’s biggest point of departure from the Biden administration may be on Taiwan.
During his campaign, he repeatedly cast doubt on the future extent of U.S. support, applying the same transactional approach he has taken with many countries to the island. Such statements have led some China experts to think Trump will look to forge some sort of deal with Taiwan in exchange for further U.S. defense support. While Trump may drive a hard bargain, it is unlikely that he would actually abandon support for Taiwan. Among his potential top advisors is former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is a staunch supporter of Taiwan.
Trump has stuck with the long-standing U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity when pressed about whether the U.S. military would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack or blockade. Trump’s own personal unpredictability also provides its own layer of ambiguity, strategic or not. Which voices ultimately hold sway in Trump’s cabinet will also influence his administration’s China policy. Republican China hawks are divided over how existential competition with China should be, along with other key questions, including how much to decouple the two economies.
As with Trump’s first term, these battle lines will surely carry over into the White House. Trump’s own guanxi—or personal relationships—will surely shape policy as well. The president-elect has repeatedly expressed admiration for Xi. “I very much respect President Xi. I got to know him very well. And I liked him a lot. He’s a strong guy, but I liked him a lot,” he told Businessweek. Trump’s first term showed his willingness to buck his administration’s policy. in favor of his own brand of personal politics with Xi; that may well happen again in pursuit of a second trade deal.
