After his landslide victory, Trump's foreign policy is between ambiguity and expectations of new balances

The Republican sweep and the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump by an overwhelming majority to become the president-elect, as well as his victory in the popular vote, which was not expected by the polling centers, and the Republicans controlling a large number of seats in the Senate, while maintaining the majority in the House of Representatives, made the most prominent question about the nature of his controversial foreign policy.

This election took place against a backdrop of global instability. Perhaps not since 1980 has the United States been so deeply involved in conflicts around the world during a presidential election. There is Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, tensions in East Asia, atrocities in Sudan, terrorism in the Sahel. It is a period of global instability.

The program "Inside Washington" hosted by Robert Satloff discussed in his episode the US elections and the state of instability in several regions around the world.

"uncertainty" and "ambiguity"

Former US diplomat Dennis Ross believes that the US election results “send a message to the rest of the world, especially in Europe, of uncertainty and real concern about what Trump’s election as president means for NATO, the relationship with Europe, and his emphasis on implementing a comprehensive tariff.”

"I think there is a real uncertainty here, there are concerns about what this means for Ukraine," he told Alhurra.

“As for the Middle East, his election sends mixed messages. There is no expectation that he will have a greater role in the region, but there is a perception of his unpredictability that makes people, or at least some, think that he might make the Iranians and others act more cautiously, and they might be more cautious especially after the same setbacks that have affected Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as Iran itself.

So there is a feeling in the Middle East in general that this "may not be a bad thing for their interests and what the future holds for the region," said Ross, the former U.S. envoy for Middle East peace talks.

He added that concerns about the Trump administration extend to Asia: “There are real questions and concerns about Trump and his approach to dealing with allies. He usually assumes that allies should pay us money, not that we pay them.”

Ross reiterated that he believes "there will be a lot of uncertainty, and there are questions about the best way to deal with him," asking, "Will he perform differently than he did in his first term?"

stability of democracy

National security expert Juan Zarate noted that the course of the presidential election established a sense of "democratic stability."

“The fact that the elections went relatively peacefully without any major problems, accusations of fraud or any of the chaos associated with the elections that many feared would happen is a good sign of the success of the electoral process,” he told Alhurra, adding that the results were “a red wave, if I may say so, in favor of the Republicans, but the fears that American democracy is fragile as the electoral chaos indicates have not been realized, and this is a good thing.”

“We haven’t seen any outsiders tampering with the results or any of these things that were part of the feared scenarios before the election,” said Zarate, a former national security adviser on counterterrorism. “That’s a good thing, a sense of stability in democracy even if there’s uncertainty about foreign policy.”

"Balance" and US Foreign Policy

Security expert Zarate believes that the administration of President-elect Trump will work to achieve a "balance in foreign policy," and said that "the world is holding its breath in anticipation, but Trump is not a new person. The world has seen the personal character in Trump's dealings in foreign policy."

“The big question, of course, will be about Ukraine,” he said. “Will Trump and his vice president start on these issues? Will they start withdrawing support from Ukraine? Will they work to weaken NATO? Will they push (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky to accept some kind of compromise that is not in the interest of Ukraine or the security of Europe?”

“The people that Trump surrounds himself with will help set the tone for these things,” he notes. “If he appoints a secretary of defense, a secretary of state, a national security adviser who are mindful of the importance of those alliances, of rebuilding deterrence against Iran, China, and of course Russia, and who are mindful of the ability to counter the emerging alliance between China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, then that will shape a new form of foreign policy, because those ministers and senior foreign policy people will shape Trump’s day-to-day responses.”

Zarate believes that Trump will ultimately be “volatile in his foreign policy, which will increase uncertainty and ambiguity, which is not good, but at some point it will increase the value of American deterrence around the world.”

Putin and the Trump Administration

Despite the uncertainty of Washington's allies toward the Trump administration, things may be different for "Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will wake up feeling much better than he did yesterday. And the reason is that he has a set of expectations about the president, former President Trump and President-elect Trump," according to the former diplomat, Ross.

“It will be interesting to see if the predictions prove true,” he added, based on the relationship between the Russian president and Trump in his first term, as he believes that the president-elect will be more responsive to Putin’s interests and concerns. He also believes that “he will find a way out of Ukraine and reduce the level of American support, which will lead to pressure on Zelensky and create the conditions for him to become more open to negotiations, but these will be negotiations that will keep a part of Ukraine larger than Crimea, perhaps in the Donbas region, as part of Russia, and will put Russia in a position that allows it to constantly threaten the Ukrainians and continue to pressure them so that Ukraine does not become a member of NATO or the European Union.”

China and Taiwan

On US-China relations, national security expert Zarate says “the Chinese are cautious… and feel less comfortable than they did during the Biden administration.”

He attributed this to “Trump not only noticing the use of the executive authority of the White House to confront the Chinese,” noting a consensus in vision “not only from Republicans, but also from Democrats, in line with Trump’s vision of confronting China, and perhaps even somewhat exceeding it. There are growing concerns about all forms of Chinese influence and the threat to the United States that other countries have faced, realizing that the Chinese threat is greater than ever, such as Australia, Japan and India.”

He pointed out that Europe's policy towards China as well, where there is "a view in the world that Trump's approach, which adopted the imposition of harsh customs duties, the imposition of sanctions and direct confrontation with China, is the normal thing, so it will be interesting to see what Trump will do, but he promised to impose customs duties, and he promised to confront China directly and indirectly."

Zarate noted that these actions could have “an impact on other allies like Mexico, where Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on Mexican industries linked to China. So there will be repercussions and implications of the confrontation with China, there will certainly be tension, and ultimately we will see how far the Trump administration is willing to go to defend Taiwan from Chinese aggression. And that, I think, is the core issue of how aggressive the Trump administration is going to be in East Asia, which is the issue of defending Taiwan.”

He said that there are circles within the Republican Party that are sad about “Washington’s loss of deterrence against rival states and non-state actors, saying that there is a sense that our enemies no longer fear us, and that we must do more to deter them, and this places a burden on military assets and other state tools to prove that the United States will not be absent.”

Foreign policy during the transitional period

One of the hallmarks of the American constitutional system is that it takes a long time for an administration to change. It will be two and a half months, until the third week of January, before Donald Trump is sworn in as president again.

Until then, Joe Biden is still the president, so “with regard to Ukraine, he will certainly try to provide as much military assistance as he can, he knows that Trump will be president but he doesn’t know if he will continue to provide support, so he will try to get all the assistance he can from the Department of Defense,” according to Ross.

Biden is believed to "desperately want to see an end to the war in Gaza. The administration is close to reaching a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon. He wants to see an end to the war in Gaza."

“There’s a striking irony here,” Ross notes, “that Prime Minister Netanyahu realized when President-elect Trump said, ‘I want the war to end, preferably before I take office.’ I think he realized that it was in his interest to try to reach an understanding with Biden and get some commitments from Biden that might be in his favor, given the memorandum of understanding. The memorandum of understanding is expiring, which is a memorandum that provides for ten years of military aid, worth $3.8 billion a year, to Israel. The agreement expires in 2026, which means that it will have to be negotiated next year.”

“I expect that the Israeli prime minister and President Biden will try to come up with some parameters or principles for this agreement for President Trump to inherit, who may approach it from a different perspective by saying, ‘I can’t do less than what President Biden has done.’ So I think there will be interest, first, in trying to end the war, and second, in trying to come to understandings about the nature of security assistance to Israel over the coming years,” he added.

"Trump is not someone who likes to provide large amounts of security assistance to others, but that doesn't mean he won't, but he will naturally provide less, not more," Ross noted.

Biden's priorities

For his part, Zarate expects that “we will see an acceleration in measures, steps and assistance for all issues that concern the current administration and fear that they will not be among President Trump’s priorities, and this includes Ukraine and trying to end the wars or facilitate a ceasefire in the Middle East in an attempt to de-escalate whenever possible.”

He added that "the Biden administration will do everything in its power to reduce tensions and prevent any further escalation," especially between Israel and Iran.

Domestically in the United States, even during the election cycle, the Biden administration has begun to “accelerate the passage of many policies, laws, and other things that it wants to accomplish before the transition, which is not the usual situation in previous transitions,” as a way of showing respect to the incoming administration, according to Zarate.

Trump's Appointments

Security expert Zarate says the president-elect's administration is "much more organized and professional than in 2016, 2015 and 2016. That's a good thing," noting that "there's less chaos surrounding the staff and their scrutiny."

"Trump will want to appoint people who have been loyal to him through thick and thin and through the events of January 6, so there is a possibility of some sycophants in high positions," he said.

After Trump’s election victory, how will the strategies of major powers like Russia, China and Iran change? Will we see a decrease in tensions or further escalation during the transition period?
Zarate suggests that Trump will not only act on his personal desires by appointing loyalists, but that there is also “a political imperative to appoint loyalists to leadership positions. So I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw people like Mike Pompeo return to a relevant position, or Marco Rubio appointed to a position so you have a mix of loyalists in the administration.”

“One of the lessons he learned from his first term is not to appoint people who don’t do what he wants, because he won’t know until later that they didn’t do what he wanted,” says former diplomat Ross. “That means he’ll appoint people he trusts to do what he wants.”

"However, we may have some balance," he added, expecting that "he will appoint some of those close to him who he feels will be keen to implement the decisions he has taken."

(Alhurra American website)