The Trump Era Archive

There’s little reason to believe that U.S. President Donald Trump will successfully achieve his foreign policy objectives. But as a thought experiment and for the sake of argument, what would America and the world look like if he did? Trump’s “America First” agenda is predicated on a number of notions, explicit and implicit, regarding how to promote strength at home and abroad. First, the U.S. should maintain balanced accounts, and where possible net surpluses, in its trade relationships. Second, America’s alliances and security partnerships should be as close to cost-neutral as possible. Third, the U.S. should not shrink from leveraging […]

Two weeks after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined the parameters of the “new Iran strategy” that he believes would lead to a “better deal” with Iran. It is a laundry list of 12 demands Iran must meet if it is to avoid getting hit by what Pompeo called the “strongest sanctions in history.” But Iran won’t accept these sweeping demands. Would it actually return to the negotiating table? And how could this new strategy shape Iran’s domestic politics? The Trump administration’s move is a huge gamble […]

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Last week, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel solemnly declared that from now on Europe would have to take its destiny in its own hands. It’s hard to disagree with Merkel. But that was already true the first time she expressed the sentiment in May 2017, in the aftermath of Trump’s first visit to Europe as president. In the meantime, Europe has not done anything to fundamentally address the challenge of managing trans-Atlantic relations under Trump. As a result, […]

Overturning seven decades of U.S. policy and international consensus, President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital marked a turning point in the prospects of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement based on the principle of two independent states. Trump once insisted that his decision should not translate into an official American position on any of the so-called final status issues for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Yet, contradicting his own statements, he also stressed that by “taking Jerusalem off the table,” Palestinians and Israelis would somehow get past Jerusalem and “don’t have to talk about it anymore,” even though the city’s […]

In all likelihood, Gina Haspel will be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It is also likely that she will perform her duties competently and will be respected by the CIA’s workforce and the larger national security community. Nonetheless, her nomination and her record on torture, which was addressed during her confirmation hearing last week, will linger in the minds of those who worry about the direction of U.S. national security under the Trump administration. Haspel’s long career in intelligence, along with her experience and reputation as a team player […]

On Tuesday, from the Diplomatic Room of the White House, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal, which waived multinational sanctions on Iran in exchange for strict controls on Tehran’s nuclear program. Listing a litany of destabilizing actions by the Iranian regime, including sponsorship of terrorism, support to armed proxies, the development of ballistic missiles and “plundering the wealth of its own people,” Trump declared that no action is “more dangerous” than Iran’s “pursuit of nuclear weapons—and the means of delivering them.” The […]

This week, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was the first leader from sub-Saharan Africa to visit the White House, 15 months after President Donald Trump took office. Trump, by contrast, hosted leaders from every other major region of the world within the first few months of his presidency. The only other African leader he has welcomed to the White House is Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, more than a year ago. In his Rose Garden press conference with Buhari, Trump pointedly did not deny calling African nations “shithole countries” earlier this year, in widely reported comments made during a meeting in the […]

What do the Iran nuclear deal, U.S. trade policy and North Korea summits all have in common? The answer is a persistent feature of U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump: uncertainty. Trump’s election in November 2016 brought more questions than answers about the future of American foreign policy. Would Trump follow through on his most provocative and incendiary campaign promises and threats, or use them as leverage to win concessions? Would he radically and durably reconfigure America’s global role, or find himself hemmed in by the inertial constraints of the international order? What is so striking, and what the […]