You don’t have to remember the global role of presidents like Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon or Reagan to know that the President of the United States makes their country’s foreign policy. They do not do it alone, because they needs Congress to finance it and a two-thirds majority in the Senate to ratify the treaties they negotiate. But it is the President who drives diplomacy, supported by the expertise of their National Security Council and the State Department. The foreign policy that Donald Trump will conduct from 20 January 2025 will be marked by three major characteristics: no warmongering, little multilateralism and a lot of transactional diplomacy.
Trump has never liked war. He has never shared the ideology of the neoconservatives, who prefer their idea of democracy and justice to peace. He has never been an admirer of George W. Bush, the Republican president who, in 2003, decided to invade Iraq with the proclaimed aim of imposing democracy by force, then democratising the whole of the Middle East, and finally achieving general peace between the Arab-Muslim world and Israel. If he had been in office in 2011, he would never have followed in the footsteps of France and Britain to wage war in Libya and dethrone Gaddafi. Obama did so, before admitting in his memoirs that he had made a mistake. This Western intervention created chaos in Libya, and then throughout the Sahel, which has still not been resolved.
In June 2019, after an American surveillance drone was shot down by the Iranians flying over the Strait of Hormuz (the outlet to the Persian Gulf), the Pentagon generals prepared a military response. Shortly before the hour, Trump asked them how many deaths it was likely to cause in Iran. ‘There’s no way of knowing, Mr. President, but probably between a hundred and two hundred’. Deeming the response disproportionate because the drone incident had not killed any Americans, Trump cancelled it at the last minute.
The idea of waging war on Iran to force it to change regime is contrary to Trump’s psychology. On the other hand, when the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Al-Quds Brigade set out to use Iraqi Shiite militias against the US embassy in Baghdad, President Trump did not hesitate. On General Qassem Soleimani’s subsequent trip to Baghdad on 3 January 2020, his car was reduced to heat and dust by an American missile fired from an MQ-9 Reaper drone. In Teheran, the message was received loud and clear. Not being hawkish does not mean being weak.
Multilateralism in international relations has never suited Trump’s character. He distrusts it. The former New York real estate king prefers deals with no more than two or three partners. He doesn’t have the patience to listen to countless speeches; he doesn’t take kindly to round-table discussions where all the players pretend to be equal. With no obvious gain for America, Trump has withdrawn it from the Paris climate agreement, the Vienna agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme and the Auckland agreement on trans-Pacific free trade, all of which were negotiated by Obama.
Based on the America First principle, his diplomacy will therefore have very little to do with the UN, the WTO (World Trade Organisation) or other international organisations. If he goes to NATO, it will be to give instructions, to force its European members to increase their military spending on pain of losing American protection.
Where Trump will feel most comfortable is in transactional diplomacy. He has said he is ready to resolve the conflict in Ukraine very quickly. His first move in terms of international relations after his election victory was to call Ukrainian President Zelensky to reassure him that he would not let him down. Associated with the call was Elon Musk, the man who, in February 2022, saved the communications of Ukrainians under attack from Russia by providing them with Starlink free of charge, the satellite internet access provider from his company SpaceX, which relies on a constellation of thousands of telecommunications satellites placed in low earth orbit.
Trump is convinced that he can force Presidents Zelensky and Putin to reach a ceasefire agreement, if not peace. It is true that the Russians are as war-weary as the Ukrainians and that Putin has just declared at the Valdai forum that he is open to dialogue with the West.
Within the Democratic Party, some were dreaming of overthrowing Putin and bringing democracy to Russia. Nothing of the sort for Trump, a follower of Realpolitik and opposed to interference in the internal affairs of countries other than his own. Does this mean that he will cede everything to the Kremlin? Nothing is less certain. During his first term in office, sanctions against Moscow continued to increase.
With Iran, many observers believe that Trump will harden the US stance. For my part, I’m betting that he will try to open a ‘grand bargain’, a general negotiation on all issues, with the ayatollahs in Tehran. ‘You can once again become the major trading power in the Middle East, but you must renounce your nuclear programme and the military use of the Shiite axis’, President Trump will propose to the Iranian hierarchs. Will they have the intelligence to take up the offer? That is the question. In September 2019, Trump welcomed Macron’s mediation on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly: he agreed to a meeting with the Iranian president. Unfortunately, an absurd last-minute veto by the Iranian Leader of the Revolution prevented such a summit.
In the Middle East, Trump will not hesitate to impose his views on the Israeli government in order to end the war. He will not allow himself to be taken for a ride by Netanyahu as Biden and Blinken were. On the other hand, he will be keen to extend the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia. When it comes to trade, he will not be doing China or even the European Union any favours, regardless of the fact that the vast majority of its members belong to NATO. Brussels must therefore forget its whining and get ready to build a relationship of strength with Trump. They are the only ones he will listen to.
Trump 47 will therefore have tough diplomacy. But, at least for Europeans, it will have the advantage of being clear.
This article was first published in the Chronique internationale du Figaro, 12 November 2024.
