Trump II: Challenges Ahead

What could Donald Trump do in his second term to restore America's prestige across the globe and reassert itself as the indispensable power that it still is? The answer is: plenty. Trump, even if he doesn't do anything, will repair some of the damage that the past three administrations shaped by Barack Obama have done to US standing and credibility as a world power. Pictured: Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 14, 2024. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

What will Donald Trump's foreign policy look like in his second term?

This is the question currently making the buzz in the commentariat around the world.

Western European pundits claim that Trump will abandon the Ukrainian lamb to the Russian wolf or, at least, force the European shepherd to foot the bill for keeping it half alive.

Indian oped-writers hope that Trump will cut China down to size, thus elevating India as Asia's new indispensable giant. Progressive Davos collectivists warn that unless checked, Trump will go through the globalist ideology like a bull in a china shop.

In the past few days, I have run into even more interesting speculations regarding Trump II foreign policy -- from Iran and Israel.

From Iran comes a lengthy editorial in the daily Kayhan claiming that, keen to maintain friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump will also refrain from attempts at toppling the Islamic Republic of Iran, which Moscow has adopted as its "faithful Ruslan."

An even stranger reading of the tea-leaves came from an Israeli strategy "expert" who wanted Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran and destroy its infrastructures before Trump re-enters the White House. The rationale for this is that President Joe Biden's lame duck administration won't be able to do anything to stop such an event, while Trump would not have a sizzling potato on his hands so soon in his second term.

So, what will Trump do?

The honest answer is that nobody knows, perhaps not even Trump himself. In any case, the United States has never been a one-man show and its president can't be a modern version of Kublai Khan or Tsar Vladimir of the 40 daughters.

The real question, therefore, is what could Trump II do to restore America's prestige across the globe and reassert itself as the indispensable power that it still is? The answer is: plenty.

In fact, Trump, even if he doesn't do anything, will repair some of the damage that the past three administrations shaped by Barack Obama have done to US standing and credibility as a world power.

In those 12 years of Obama and Biden, US leaders went around the world to apologize for imaginary injustices done by Americans to various segments of mankind, mused about "leading from behind" and presented the United States as a room service that doesn't even ask you to sign the bill let alone offer a tip.

What Trump is seeking, however, is a restoration of the classical meaning of an alliance as a partnership in which pain and profit are shared proportionally.

Trump has also shown that the US should not give its word only to get a few good headlines or help incumbents collect votes in an election.

One example was Trump's decision to implement the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, transferring the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018. Another was the pledge to disengage from the Afghanistan imbroglio via an agreement with rival factions in that forlorn land -- a deal that turned into a fiasco because its execution came under Biden's presidency.

Under the three Obama administrations, with Trump I as a brief interlude, the US saw Russia attack and occupy parts of Georgia and annex Crimea and eventually invade Ukraine, and the US did nothing.

Obama drew a red line against the use of chemical weapons to kill Syrian people, but when Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, did so, went into purdah.

To divert attention from the Middle East, Obama conjured the "pivot to Asia" slogan, while letting China grab a bigger chunk of the world, including US markets, in the name of free trade.

However, for US to regain credibility, it won't be enough that Trump not be Obama or Biden. Trump left much unfinished business when he had to leave the White House in 2021.

One such piece of business is the Abraham Accords peace process, which altered the established pattern of politics in the Middle East but ended up as an unfinished symphony. Trying to finish it would be one of the challenges Trump II will face, albeit in a much less promising context.

Trump will also have to provide an alternative to the Paris Agreement on climate change, a deeply flawed if not fraudulent deal he courageously rejected almost eight years ago.

The pas-de-deux that Trump I performed with North Korea's Kim Jong Un across Asia led to a brief interlude in Pyongyang's nuclear game, which resumed with a vengeance as Biden entered the White House.

As for Iran, Trump's "maximum pressure" policy reined in the mullahs for almost four years, during which they didn't attack US forces in Iraq and kept their proxies in Lebanon and Gaza on a tight leash, thus allowing Israel a brief respite.

Trump II will have to decide whether the same result could be obtained with the same means, or something other than "maximum pressure" would be required.

The Trump II machine won't be in full gear before next spring. Trump has to complete his team, have its members approved by the Senate, and replace Senator Mitch McConnell as the Senate Republican Leader.

Then it has to organize goodbye and gold watch retirement parties for at least 30 US ambassadors and reorganize the State Department to free US diplomacy from deeply entrenched but misguided beliefs marketed by lobbies, think-tanks and peddlers of progressivism within the beltway.

Doing meaningful business with European allies will also have to wait until after Germany gets a new stable government, if it can, next spring and France's ramshackle coalition shows that it can go beyond grandstanding by just standing.

We must remember that Trump's current unassailable position produced by an unexpected victory may not last beyond the next midterm elections in two years' time. Nevertheless, he would have enough time to spell out his policy options and set up his shop-window, so to speak.

Also remember that regardless of what experts or even Trump himself say, the 47th president is likely to be as unpredictable as the 45th one, a feature that helped him in foreign policy last time and may do so again.

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.

This article originally appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat and is reprinted with some changes by kind permission of the author.