For the past year, allies and adversaries alike have cautiously tried to position themselves on the right side of former President Trump in case he returned to the White House in 2025, through meetings with the man himself or ongoing conversations with his advisers.
The goal of this outreach was to gain insight into how a second iteration of “America First” might play out on the world stage, with Trump more adept at how Washington works and surrounded by advisers less interested in checking his impulses.
Now that the would-be president is the president-elect, the world will soon see how Trump revamps U.S. foreign policy, with his penchant for dealmaking, gut instincts, ego-stroking and flattery.
Here are five major foreign policy issues confronting the president-elect:
Ending the war between Russia and Ukraine
Among Trump’s campaign promises is ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. Holding back U.S. commitment to help Kyiv achieve victory, the president-elect has instead said he will get the war settled before inauguration day.
Trump has said his plan is to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and “get them together.” And Trump’s vice president-elect, JD Vance, has outlined the contours of a potential cease-fire deal that largely echoes demands Putin has made to halt his war of aggression.
Trump has not confirmed reports that he spoke with Putin at least seven times since leaving office in 2021, but said it would be a “smart thing” for the U.S. if he had.
While Trump’s election has spurred fear of the U.S. abandoning Ukraine or pushing it to cede territory, some are hoping a new approach may ultimately help Kyiv almost three years into the war.
Maksym Skrypchenko, president of the Ukrainian think tank Transatlantic Dialogue Center, said that despite the uncertainty, “Trump really might be a lottery ticket for Ukraine.”
“But chances are that [Trump] is in favor of quick decisions, and we actually need quick decisions. So let’s see what these quick decisions will be,” he said.
NATO’s ‘Trump-proofing’ put to test
U.S. lawmakers, the Biden administration and European allies have taken steps to “Trump-proof” NATO and its support for Ukraine, given Trump’s skepticism of the alliance and America’s role in the European war.
It’s not clear whether those guardrails will hold, as there are questions over the practicality of legislation passed by Congress to prevent a president withdrawing from NATO, and little standing in the way of Trump drawing down American commitments to the alliance in terms of money, personnel and military cooperation.
But alliance members feel they have a strong advocate in the new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who Trump had earlier complimented when the two men came face-to-face during the president-elect’s first term in office and Rutte was prime minister of the Netherlands.
“I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through NATO,” Rutte said in a post on the social platform X, highlighting how a majority of allied members are meeting the 2 percent defense spending goal.
Trump has used that measure as a clear dividing line between which allies he says he would defend and those he would not — despite the alliance’s mutual defense pact.
But more than 100 foreign policy and security experts are working to build consensus among NATO allies on a strategy for Ukrainian victory over Russia, regardless of whether Trump withdraws support for both the alliance and Kyiv.
“This is not only the right thing to do; it is the best way to secure Europe in the short-term and buy ourselves time to build the capabilities we need to defend ourselves in future,” they wrote in their appeal.
China trade war and Taiwan
Chinese lawmakers are convening in a high-stakes planning session this week for an economic stimulus strategy, likely taking into account an expected full-court tariff press from Trump, who has promised a 60 percent levy on Chinese-made products and 10 percent tax on all imports to the U.S.
One challenge for Trump is whether he will show any desire to coordinate with European partners to increase pressure on Beijing over its unfair trade practices. European capitals are torn between anger at Beijing for flooding the electric vehicle market with subsidized prices, and seeking cooperation with Chinese President Xi Jinping to offset a more confrontational U.S.
And even as Trump talks tough on China, he has also expressed admiration for Xi. Trump has raised doubts over U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s defense, a welcome and encouraging signal for Xi who has laid out the goal of overtaking the self-governing democratic island by force or coercion in the next three years.
“Trump has already signaled a lack of support for Taiwan and seems to believe that he can deter Chinese military action through personal charisma,” said Michael Schuman, a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.
“Xi is not likely to be bedazzled, and Trump’s display of weakness could embolden Beijing to take an even more aggressive stance toward the island’s democratic government. More broadly, Trump’s overt contempt for Washington’s traditional allies will likely complicate collective action toward China and open divisions for Xi to exploit and expand Chinese global influence.”
Crises in the Middle East
Trump has repeatedly signaled that he wants Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon to be wrapped up and finished by the time he assumes office in January.
The president-elect has not detailed how that should happen, signaling to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand in the conduct of a war that has laid waste to the Gaza Strip, a ground invasion into Lebanon and assassinations of Iranian proxy leaders across the region.
Trump will “not restrain the Israelis whatsoever,” said Howard Stoffer, a professor of international affairs at the University of New Haven.
“I think he’ll keep his hands off,” he said. “Whatever the Israelis want to do, he will [support] it. He could care less about those in Michigan, other places where there are populations that support the Palestinians.”
And while Trump will likely revive a “maximum pressure campaign” on Iran aimed at bankrupting the regime, there’s fear that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could “sprint to a nuclear weapon capability to present Trump with a fait accompli,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Bowman said the balance is if Tehran believes it can develop a nuclear weapon covertly, given Israel’s recent demonstration of air superiority over Iran in the retaliatory strike in October, but he added that a regime intently focused on its survival may not be acting rationally.
“I think they’re feeling desperate,” he said.
Talking tough to Mexico
Trump has promised to return to using the threat of tariffs to negotiate with Mexico, the United States’s largest trading partner.
On Monday, Trump promised tariffs between 25 and 100 percent unless Mexico seals its border with the United States, an escalation of similar threats he used while in office last time against former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
López Obrador, a slick politician with a personal following not unlike Trump’s, left office in October, handing the reins to his protege, President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Sheinbaum told Mexicans on Wednesday “there’s nothing to worry about” with Trump’s victory.
Sheinbaum remains untested on the international stage, though she included in her Cabinet veterans like Minister of the Economy Marcelo Ebrard, who served as foreign minister under López Obrador at the tail end of U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiations.
Ebrard will be at bat when the three North American countries open the books on USMCA in 2026 as part of a scheduled revision of the deal.
With Trump threatening tariffs, Mexico seems poised to continue its policy of pushing migrants back to its own southern border, a ploy that’s helped the Biden administration tout low border apprehension numbers.
