One hundred days into his new administration, President Donald Trump has reset negotiations with allies and foes across the globe, and experts say one is certain: it is all transactional.
Gone are the days when the U.S. could be drawn to throw its force around the world solely in the name of defending or spreading democracy. Global leaders are learning to speak a new language with U.S. leadership, one that is less about ideology and more about how their interests benefit U.S. interests.
‘There is a lot more transactional engagement rather than I think we’re ideological-based, policy decisions that were sort of the hallmark of the Biden administration,’ said Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum.
Here is a round-up of how Trump has changed U.S. foreign policy since taking office:
Negotiating a deal to avert a nuclear Iran
Former President Joe Biden toyed with reviving a nuclear deal with Iran and criticized Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but his administration made little progress toward serious negotiations.
Trump has now expressed interest in a new nuclear deal. He told Israel the U.S. would not come to their aid in attacking Iran until diplomatic negotiations played out.
As Trump’s team met with Iranian counterparts in Oman this weekend for a second round of nuclear talks, he issued another threat: if negotiations whither away, the U.S. would not be dragged by Israel into war with Iran but will be ‘leading the pack.’
Taking Yemen’s Houthis head-on
An offensive campaign against Yemen’s Houthi terrorists launched six weeks ago has struck more than 800 targets and cost nearly $1 billion – a sharp departure from the tit-for-tat retaliatory strikes seen under the Biden administration, when Houthis attacked U.S. naval ships and Western commercial vessels.
‘Biden pursued a policy of retaliatory strikes: If you hit us, we’ll hit you,’ said Roman. ‘What Trump is trying to do is what I call a salting the earth strategy. If you dare challenge American military supremacy or the ability for us to conduct free trade to the bottom of or through the Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Yemen, Red Sea, Suez … We will attempt to end your ability to wage war on the United States in its interests.’
From funding Ukraine ‘as long as it takes’ to demanding a negotiated settlement
While Biden had promised the U.S. would stand by Ukraine ‘as long as it takes’ in the war against Russia, Trump expressed a desire to see the war come to an end, promising that he could end the war on ‘day one’ of his presidency.
One hundred days in, the war is not over. Negotiations are ongoing, and Trump has jumped between sounding off in frustration with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As Putin continues to strike even civilian regions of Ukraine, Trump questioned on Saturday whether the Russian leader truly wants peace or is ‘tapping me along.’
He again questioned whether he would need to slap ‘secondary sanctions’ on nations that do business with Russia to starve its war coffers.
On Monday, Russia offered a three-day ceasefire from May 8-10, but the White House was not satisfied. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump wants a ‘permanent ceasefire.’
Trump met face-to-face with Zelenskyy in Rome on Saturday, the first time since their infamous Oval Office spat in February, after slamming Zelenskyy’s latest rejection of his peace proposal, one that would have formally ceded Crimea to the Russians.
Strategic takeover: New pushes for Greenland, Panama
The Monroe Doctrine is back, analysts say, and Trump wants both Greenland and the Panama Canal under U.S. control.
The proposals drew shock across the world, but at least in Panama, Trump’s bold words prompted a proposal to offer the U.S. ‘first and free’ passage for its warships, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this month. It also spurred the proposed sale of two ports of entry from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison to U.S.-based BlackRock, though that deal has been delayed by Chinese regulatory and political scrutiny.
Efforts to attain Greenland have proved less successful. Tough talk against Denmark and its ownership of Greenland has ratcheted up tensions with the NATO ally and Greenland’s leadership has expressed little interest in becoming a part of the U.S.
However, Trump has called out the threat of Russia and China’s increasing arctic military capabilities – the shortest range for a missile to travel from Russia to the U.S. would be over the icy island’s territory. Trump is also interested in the rare earth mining potential of the massive swath of land.
Allies step up for their own defense
Trump’s threats to pull out of the NATO alliance – or refuse to come to the defense of allies that do not contribute enough military spending – has left nations across the world planning for the contingency that they may have to defend themselves without U.S. aid.
The European Union announced a plan for its nations to spend $840 billion to ‘re-arm Europe’ after Trump halted all aid to Ukraine in March.
Countries like Spain, Belgium and Sweden have all announced plans this year to increase defense spending to meet NATO’s 2% target, while eastern European states near Russia’s border, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland, have announced plans to increase defense spending to around 5%.
Punishing China for unfair trade practices
Concern over China’s hegemonic ambitions bridges the partisan divide, but the Biden White House never considered such drastic measures as 145% tariffs.
Trump has said the goal of the tariffs is to both bring back US manufacturing after decades of offshore production and punish China for intellectual property theft, a massive trade imbalance, and fentanyl flowing from China to the U.S. A free trade push in the early 2000s had wrongly assumed liberal trade policies would bring democratic values and free markets into Chinese borders, his supporters argue.
Trump has insisted that President Xi Jinping wants to cut a deal to lower the soaring tariffs, even as China has rejected the prospect of talks.
It is unclear what sort of realistic concessions the U.S. could get out of a deal, perhaps promises to buy more American-made agricultural products, fuel or other specialty goods.
For now, steep tariffs remain, and China is choking off U.S. supply of critical minerals, which could spell deep trouble for everyday electronics, electric vehicles and defense equipment.
