The Trump Era Archive

Other than a wall at the border with Mexico, Donald Trump promised little to address drug trafficking in the Americas during last year’s U.S. presidential campaign. Two months into his presidency, it is clear that the Trump administration’s disengaged and military-first approach to the drug trade could bring more volatility to the region. On March 13, the White House released “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” which raises more questions and concerns than solutions on many issues, including the drug trade. It notably recommends a $54 billion increase in military spending, proposes reduced funding to the […]

Guest columnist Nikolas Gvosdev is filling in for Steven Metz this week. As the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump enters its third month in office, it is quite striking how conventional its approach to geopolitics has been in practice. Overblown fears that Trump, after his inauguration, would summon his Russian and Chinese counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, to a secret conclave at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, roll out a map of the world, and start negotiating spheres of influence have not materialized. Instead, the United States has continued with its mission to reinforce the eastern flank of […]

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump, like all of his recent predecessors, thinks America’s NATO allies have been free-riding on Washington’s largesse and should contribute more to their own security. In the familiar terms of NATO alliance management, that is understood to mean meeting the target of budgeting 2 percent of GDP for national defense. Set in 2006, that benchmark is currently met by only four other alliance members—one of them being tiny Estonia—with a fifth, France, falling just short. But last week, at a news conference following his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump went further than […]

Intelligence controversies moved center stage in the lead-up to Donald Trump’s presidency and through its first months in office. As both president-elect and president, Trump accused the U.S. intelligence community, and the CIA in particular, of politicizing intelligence by leaking reports about investigations of contacts between his campaign advisers and Russian officials. Yet, Trump’s first appointment was a politician to head the Central Intelligence Agency—Mike Pompeo, a Republican congressman. Pompeo was clearly brainy enough for the job, having graduated first in his class at West Point and earned a law degree from Harvard University. Critics wondered, though, whether Pompeo, a […]

While much about U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policy remains uncertain, his official 2017 “trade policy agenda,” released on March 1, clearly stated the preference for bilateral over multilateral negotiations. Echoing what he said during the election campaign, the trade agenda also emphasized national sovereignty and the enforcement of U.S. trade laws. Trump’s focus on bilateralism, however, comes with real costs. Bilateral negotiations are time-consuming and entail significant negotiating resources. Even when “successful” in narrow market access terms, firms can incur significant transaction costs from having to navigate the resulting tangle of inconsistent or conflicting rules. Multilateral trade rules—such as […]

As President Donald Trump contemplates a new trade order, one that puts “America first,” he may be surprised to find he is pushing on an open door. From both a top-down geo-economic level and a bottom-up corporate level, 21st-century trade is in urgent need of a new vision. If he is serious about offering one, Trump should consider a global growth model based on what could be termed the tripolar world, in which deepening ties within three main regions—the Americas, Asia and Europe—become the next catalyst for economic growth. Globalization as it has existed since the end of the Cold […]

U.S. President Donald Trump indicated what he really thinks about democracy in his address to a joint session of Congress late last month, and he did so without ever uttering the actual word. As his administration leaked details about his budget, including plans to raise defense spending by 10 percent and slash funding for the State Department and foreign aid, Trump pronounced that “Free nations are the best vehicle for expressing the will of the people—and America respects the right of all nations to chart their own path. My job is not to represent the world. My job is to […]

U.S. President Donald Trump campaigned as an outsider candidate, though under the banner of the Republican Party. His message was decidedly populist and continues to be: He alone can save the country from the challenges it faces; the elite and traditional establishment are dangerous and corrupt; the mainstream media cannot be trusted; and other tropes commonly used by populists. America’s election of a president promoting this type of message has led many experts on authoritarian politics to draw parallels between what’s happening in the United States, a country with well-established and robust democratic institutions, and developments seen in authoritarian settings. […]

Ever since Donald Trump became president of the United States, the Middle East has been abuzz with speculation about what exactly he intends to do in the region. There has been much talk about his plans for attacking the self-declared Islamic State, getting tough on Iran and strengthening ties with Israel. But there is another idea that is making the rounds. According to a number of reports, Trump is aiming to forge a new security alliance, with Arab countries at the core, along with the U.S. and, in what would constitute a groundbreaking development, Israel. It is noteworthy that in […]

In his first address to Congress last night, U.S. President Donald Trump promised to deliver a budget to Congress with “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.” A day earlier, an administration official outlined plans to raise defense spending by $54 billion, or roughly 10 percent, in next year’s federal budget, while slashing outlays for the State Development and foreign aid. Though any final budget numbers will take months of negotiations with congressional leadership, the proposals are emblematic of Trump’s approach to foreign policy and international affairs. His is a world where the strong impose […]