Which of the foreign policy breakthroughs that Trump has promised will be actually delivered, now that he has taken office? In the flood of promises, some concrete signs are emerging. Recent statements, including the most inflammatory ones, point to securing exclusive control over those parts of the world chosen for the direct hegemony of the United States, keen to oust competitors so as not to be stripped of advantageous opportunities. This is, however, testimony to an ongoing multipolar competition, even if it is played out in a heavy-handed manner. With no ideological pretence and, if necessary, no concessions to its allies: ‘America first’ also means putting aside consuming commitments and passing them on to others. Trump’s call for NATO members to increase their defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP has a twofold implication, and it certainly isn’t about dismantling the Alliance. The threat to withdraw from NATO is designed to increase US military exports, while simultaneously handing over local crises to the most appropriate satellite nations.
His remarks on Panama, Canada and Greenland suggest an orientation towards the territorial continuity of a continental power: a return to earlier territorial geopolitics, which for the US dates back to the Monroe Doctrine. In 1823, President James Monroe postulated the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States over the rest of the Americas. This was implemented through “gunboat diplomacy” and later consolidated by the Corollary, whereby Theodore Roosevelt – Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1906 for his mediation in the Russo-Japanese War – established that the US could intervene in the internal dysfunctions of the New World through international police operations. After two world wars, the Doctrine was eventually extended to new latitudes, until the end of the Cold War, when realism was replaced by liberal universalism, pushing for global governance under unipolar US leadership.
Trump, newfound Th. Roosevelt, will not invade Panama, Canada and Greenland, where China is also expanding its presence. However, it is possible to imagine initiatives along the lines of those that took place in the 19th century, when Alaska and Florida were purchased from Russia and Spain respectively. Greenland would be a good deal. Denmark lacks the resources to exploit it fully, and by giving it up, it would free itself of the subsidies paid to its inhabitants with strong aspirations for independence (especially the Inuit). A quarter of the land mass of the United States, however, is precious to those with the capability to capitalize on its natural gas, oil, rare earth deposits, uranium, etc., as well as its Arctic routes. Indeed, the future thaw is bound to increase the availability of shorter shipping routes between the continents of the northern hemisphere. Although not for sale, Canada lends itself to similar considerations. Its inclusion in Washington’s agenda would help expand its Arctic projection. Canadian gas and oil would allow the United States to export energy without undermining the need to revitalize its national industry. On the other hand, Russia, whose coastal supremacy is defended by its icebreakers, is likely to be annoyed by China’s ambitions in the Arctic. Not least because the Dragon’s foothold in the Arctic region would reduce Beijing’s dependence on energy and metals from Moscow. For Trump, this is a key asset for eventual agreements with the Kremlin.
Furthermore, Russia, China and India also have their own “Monroe Doctrines” regarding their respective spheres of influence. Thus, Trumpian realism could well be the source of pragmatic deals with other multipolar players, thereby effectively acknowledging their standing as equals. Significantly, Trump – oblivious to his first term’s role in the wreckage of the Minsk accords, NATO’s ties to Petro Poroshenko’s Ukrainian military, and the US’s unilateral withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the USA and the USSR – described Russian concerns about NATO’s gun pointed at Moscow’s doorstep as understandable, claiming that Washington had the same concerns about Cuba and Latin America. It is clear that Trump’s intention is to extricate ‘his’ America from the threat of defeat in Ukraine by blaming it on the Biden-led Euro-Atlantic alliance. Capitalising on the gains of the Euro-Russian divorce, Trump’s promise of peace would be tantamount to a freeze in the conflict, while Moscow demands a stable and definitive solution. But it is of little consequence if Trump’s negotiations fail. Outside the United States, an increasingly divided Europe can decide whether and how it wants to remain an accomplice in the fiasco.
The Middle East is a different story. Trump was able to impose a ceasefire thanks to a number of fundamental factors that were absent in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The first is his direct influence on the main actor: in this case, Israel, which depends on the US like never before, exhausted by the Gaza massacre and frustrated by Hamas’s continued resistance. The second element is the evident interest in stopping the conflict in order to revive the Abrahamic Accords and bring Saudi Arabia on board, thus distancing it from China and handing over the region to the Israeli-Saudi deputyship.
But there is much that remains to be seen, and the unknowns matter a great deal. Will loyalty to Washington be shattered by EU divisions? Would the US stand by in the face of a European escalation? What will be the next move of Netanyahu, who is being pressured by the ultra-Zionists in his government? How will Iran’s deterrence, driven into Russia’s embrace, be dealt with? What will be the obstacles posed by Turkey’s ambitions via the new Syria? The pragmatic effectiveness of the new Trump administration will be tested by these and other thorny issues.
