US President Donald Trump boasts that he is an agent of big change at home as well as abroad. But a closer look at the likelihood chances he’ll upend past foreign policy decisions, including those of his predecessor Joe Biden, suggests that the extent of his changes might not match his New Golden Age rhetoric.
Overturning established policy from presidency to presidency is relatively rare. Loose promises of dramatic shifts can be politically risky when they backfire, experts point out.
“Across administrations—even ones as different as those of Biden and Trump – foreign policy is something like an iceberg,” Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security, wrote recently. “The visible portion is gleaming and jagged and draws much of the attention. Yet it also has a far bigger and underexamined foundation, one that tends to remain mostly unchanged.”
There are recent examples of promises implied or made but not kept.
Clinton case: China MFN status
In 1991, when Democratic Party presidential candidate Bill Clinton campaigned against Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush, Clinton accused the first President Bush of being soft on China, ignoring its human rights record for trade advantages. Clinton promised that he would be tougher.
He was not.
Soon after Clinton arrived in Washington, human rights took second place behind American business peoples’ desire to cash in on China commerce. Clinton offered China the trade advantages conferred by most-favored-nation status, which guarantees non-discriminatory treatment between trade partners. If China would just make a minor democratic gesture or two at home, it would get the advantages.
Chinese leaders rebuffed the plea. Clinton provided MFN anyway.
Obama case: Syrian chemical weapons
In 2012, President Barak Obama, having begun his second term in office, sternly warned Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad not to use chemical weapons against rebels. Doing so would cross a “red line” and result in dramatic US military action.
A year later, Assad bombarded pro-democracy civilians with poisonous chemicals, and killed some 1,400 men, women and children. Obama did nothing, except to blame the US Congress for not specifically authorizing military action.
Trump faces three big minefields of decision-making left over from the previous administration – the Ukraine war, an assertive China in East Asia and terminating the Gaza war. He may be finding that discretion is the better part of diplomacy.
Now Ukraine
Biden fulsomely backed Ukraine and distinctly disdained Putin himself. In the runup to the November election, Trump described Vladimir Putin as a “genius” and seemed ready to break with Biden policies.
Last week, however, Trump changed his tune. Praise for Putin morphed into ridicule. “It’s a ridiculous war,” he said of the Ukraine carnage. “I think Russia’s going to be in big trouble.”
He said Putin is “not doing so well,” suggested that the Russian president’s stewardship was “no way to run a country.” Trump said Putin had made a “big mistake” by invading Ukraine.
One key feature of his predecessor’s policy that Trump already shared: opposiiton to sending US troops to fight the Russians.
Besides Russia, Trump is inherited a pair of key crises, and it appears he is not thinking to distance himself from policies of recent predecessors: a bellicose China and war in the Middle East.
China
As China has ramped up its threat to Taiwan and carved out naval exclusion zones in the East China Sea and South China Sea, Washington’s responses over three administrations have been cautious.
Obama worried about Chinese growing economic entry into the US market, although he generally welcomed Beijing’s capitalist turn. However, he coined the phrase “pivot to China,” to urge the US to bolster security in the Western Pacific.
Trump followed up during his 2017-2021 first term, and warned of increasing Chinese military power. He asserted that Beijing was trying to “displace the US in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reach of its state-driven economic model and reorder the region in its favor.” He increased US military spending by about 17 per cent over Obama’s.
In addition, Trump tried to rebalance US trade with China, an action that had little effect on China’s exports to the US (they increased) or American exports into China (they decreased).
After Biden took power, he maintained and expanded Trump’s tariffs. He also built on Trump’s and Obama’s China worries by beginning to reinvigorate traditional alliances along the China Seas and into the Pacific Ocean: with South Korea, Japan, The Philippines and Australia. Chinese leader Xi Jinping signaled his irritation with the move, accusing Biden of trying to “contain” China.
Trump has never spoken of undoing Biden’s work.
His choices of a pair of China hawks to lead his foreign affairs team may speak louder than words: new Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, both are considered tough on Beijing.
No sooner had Rubio been confirmed in his post last week that he had a phone conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and focused on the “United States’ commitment to our allies in the region.” He also expressed “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea,” according to a State Department account.
Wang responded with a serving of formal diplomacy spiced with condescension. “We will never allow Taiwan to be separated from China,” Wang said. Wang then added a phrase used by teachers to scold unruly students, “I hope you will act accordingly,” which roughly translates as “behave yourself.”
Waltz has praised Biden’s alliance building in Asia, a rare piece of praise in highly partisan Washington. Shortly after his nomination, he called China the “greatest adversary” of the United States.
Trump has yet to remark, or remake, one of Biden’s most surprising declarations. In a half dozen statements, Biden pledging that the US would militarily defend Taiwan, which China considers its own, if Beijing attacks it. The statements broke almost a half-century of US “strategic ambiguity” meant to keep China guessing about what the Americans would do if China invaded the island.
Middle East
In the Middle East, Trump desires a quick end to the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist terror group. He supports Israel, which is one of the longest-lasting constants of US foreign policy. Nonetheless, he has expressed horror at the heavy death toll among Palestinians.
As Trump was preparing to return to Washington, he entered into a diplomatic partnership with Bidden. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed Biden’s efforts to obtain a truce, even though the US administration had showered Israel with weapons to fight the war and sent naval warships to the Levantine coast to deter Iranian attacks on the Jewish state.
Trump worked to get Netanyahu to agree to a 42-day ceasefire, by adding enticements to the diplomatic pressure. Both sweeteners went beyond anything Biden had offered:
- He would order the lifting of US sanctions on Netanyahu allies who occupy settlements in the West Bank and who have violently attacked Palestinian residents.
- He also proposed a radical solution to the problems Palestinians will have as they return to badly damaged homes in the enclave. He suggested transferring more than half of the two million residents into Egypt and Jordan.
Trump said the exile could be for a short time or “long-term.”
The offers appealed to Netanyahu. Settlers represent a key voting bloc supporting his government. Moreover, Netanyahu has long favored “transfer” of Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank to Arab countries. He was once associated with an organization called “Jordan is Palestine, Inc.”
The neo-transfer idea died quickly. Egypt and Jordan rejected hosting expelled Palestinians.
There could be trouble ahead for the truce deal, which includes a full Israeli exit from the Gaza Strip.
Ultra-nationalist members of Netanyahu’s government coalition are threatening to bring down the government. Hamas must be totally destroyed, they insist, and Israel forces must stay in the Gaza Strip for an open-ended period occupation, they said. They pointed out that their demands were goals that Netanyahu himself had laid out.
If the Netanyahu government falls, it’s not clear if a new coalition can be built. The public at large wants Hamas destroyed. Elections would take time and undermine Trump’s desire to end the war immediately.
In short, it’s likely that Trump’s deal-making skill will face plenty of challenges before the Gaza war is over.
