Since Donald Trump’s re-election as President of the United States in November 2024, questions have been raised throughout Europe and further afield, regarding what form his foreign policy will take in his upcoming term. 

During his first term, Trump was frequently called an isolationist, favouring policies that remained separate from international affairs. His announcement in 2017 that the US would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, which he plans to do for the second time following his inauguration, was one indicator of this tendency. 

However, characterising Trump’s foreign policy now, or ever, as solely isolationist would be folly. The idea that we can box his policies into one category (i.e. isolationism) would be too reductive of the variation in Trump’s decision-making. This is particularly prominent when considering his new cabinet appointees dealing with foreign affairs. This includes Elise Stefanik, Mike Weltz and Marco Rubio, names that some sources have recently labelled as “war hawks”. Furthermore, with Trump’s recent suggestion of Greenland as a potential target for US annexation, the US’s involvement in foreign affairs seems more relevant than ever. This contrasts with the majority of Trump voters who chose the new President based on domestic concerns regarding the economy and immigration

So, whilst we might find it to be naïve to label Trump an isolationist now, what term can we use to describe his foreign policy? Is the term “expansionist” applicable, or merely speculatory, and what can we expect from Trump in the international sphere in his coming term?

The issue that has most recently caused Trump to hit the headlines is his claim to want to take Greenland as American territory. This was accompanied by comments he made about the reacquisition of the Panama Canal; integrating Canada into the US as its 51st state, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”. In discussion of these goals, he cited his aim in taking these territories as being for purposes related to “national security” and did not completely rule out the use of military force against Denmark, another member of NATO, if he felt pushed to annex Greenland.

Following these comments, the world is considering what this could mean for their own nations, and news agencies have reported on whether or not Trump’s claim to any of these territories is substantiated. However, what these comments better illuminate, rather than the somewhat speculative idea that Trump would ever want to try and annex these territories, is the form Trump’s foreign policy might take in the next four years. In this regard, it becomes quite easy to want to label Trump as a power-hungry expansionist, but the claims that he wants to annex all of these areas are not particularly well-founded. As has become characteristic of his personality, he has not yet lingered on these issues for particularly long. 

What is more likely as an explanation for these outrageous claims, is that he is simply throwing ideas out there to see the world’s reaction. This is not too dissimilar to Nixon’s “Madman theory of international diplomacy.” This theory involves appearing volatile and combative to prevent hostility from non-allied forces. Instead, this style of diplomacy aggressively sweetens the deals he makes with his allies, for example, by threatening Greenland with military force. 

Political commentators have suggested that this could ensure that the US receives raw materials critical for the green transition from the territory for cheaper, which are abundant in Greenland. Acting with such volatile bravado towards Canada may pressure the US’s northern neighbour to pay more for joint defence, or to tighten up their immigration policy. It seems fairly unlikely Trump would use military force to achieve these aims. Instead, these are used as an exaggeration of his proposed policies, almost forcing his allies into a form of appeasement. Consequently, these allies feel pressured into giving Trump something small, rather than engage in a full-blown offensive.

This phenomenon, sometimes known as “Anticipatory Compliance,” involves putting pressure on US allies, by acting harsher in international relations. This approach, in turn, causes them to be more flexible in their policy-making. This subsequently causes these allied nations to comply with his demands to a small extent before he can execute his wishes by force. 

Primarily, this banks on the fact that the rest of the world wants to avoid a conflict with the US at all costs. In this sense, the “America First” policy which Trump himself claims to be his primary foreign policy goal, is not merely an expression of the domestic interests of the US. Rather it is more of an international offensive, using “imperial bullying” as a means of increasing the US’s international sphere of influence. 

This can further be seen in Trump’s recent demands regarding NATO countries’ defence spending. Trump has demanded that NATO countries allocate 5% of their GDP to military spending if they want America to continue to defend them. According to NATO’s defence spending report from 2024, only 5 NATO countries (including the US) would meet a 3% target for defence expenditure as a share of their GDP in the past year. Furthermore, only 1 would exceed 4%, which would be achieved by Poland, not the US.

What is so interesting is that Trump’s policies appear to be neither isolationist nor completely expansionist in any regard. On the surface, Trump’s declaration that he will be less inclined to defend NATO countries if they don’t allocate more funds to defence spending seems to reflect policies of isolationism. Yet this policy can rather be viewed in this sphere of “bully” politics, as a hostile attempt to force the NATO members to comply with his goals ever so slightly. In reality, the fact that Donald Trump originally only demanded them to allocate 3% of their GDP to defence spending further illustrates this point. This also implies the possibility that this 5% target was never actually a realistic target for Trump. Instead, this appears to be a mere exercise in fearmongering, pushing his allies to comply with his interests out of fear of invasion or sanctions. For example, if NATO countries choose not to comply with Trump’s wishes, it could lead to the US withdrawing their military aid to Ukraine, forcing NATO to comply out of fear. What this shows us is that Trump’s foreign policy is not necessarily exclusively interested in an increase in NATO countries’ defence spending, but rather that he is interested in maintaining and increasing his influence over these countries.

What this means for other contemporary global issues remains to be seen. For example, when it comes to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, Trump has recently made comments about ending the war within 24 hours of taking up his position as President. On the other hand, he has offered an almost contradictory statement about his plans to cut funding to Kyiv once he is re-elected. Hence, we are left with little understanding as to what Trump’s actual stance regarding the conflict is. 

As there is no quick way for Trump to make a power grab in this situation without further involving the US in the drawn-out conflict, one potential course that seems entirely plausible is that he’ll quickly lose interest in the conflict. Trump’s admiration for what he defines as “strongmen” in politics is well established, and so it tracks that one of his top priorities as a leader is to appear as strong. As such, taking a shortcut, like forcing a deal onto a weakened Ukraine to put an end to the war, might serve his public image better than continuing to support Ukraine in an extended conflict. So it’s not difficult to see that Trump would never feel pressured by NATO to stand in Putin’s way regarding this conflict if he’d be able to claim a quick deal as his victory in the public eye, such as he has tried to do following the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza. However, this again would not simply be an isolationist move, but rather a move that would suggest opportunism. Where Trump can increase his influence through inaction, he feels no obligation to interfere. As shown by his new cabinet’s pressure on Ukraine to “actually mobilise their country,” rather than on an increase in US support, which would inevitably involve them in the war for an extended period. 

Another potentially contradictory strategy has arisen following Trump’s inauguration. Robert Wilike suggested that should Trump’s efforts to force Putin to make a deal with Ukraine fail, one of Trump’s executive orders “will unleash American energy power.” This would be in the hope that the US’s presence in the European energy market could bankrupt the Russian economy. This contradictory possibility further demonstrates how Trump’s policies don’t suit any one label of isolationism or internationalism, but rather that he operates in the interest of gaining control and power.

In this situation, the US sphere of influence over the European energy market seems to be a potential focus, with an anonymous EU diplomat urging Europe not to reproduce the mistake of “overdependence on one country” in that regard. So it’s reasonable to expect Trump’s position on Ukraine and other global conflicts to shift back and forth as we have seen within a matter of months, as and when he sees an opportunity to benefit from them. 

There are still few explanations behind the claims Donald Trump has been making in the past couple of months. So it would be appropriate to approach his coming term with apprehension as to how global affairs will unfold over the next few years. Although we might like to see through Trump’s bold statements and supposed intentions, it is becoming clearer that the US is no longer the “self-appointed guardian of the global liberal international order” that it once was, but rather a nation pushing to increase its global sphere of influence

Under Trump, the US’s reliability as an ally is currently cast under much doubt. What we know about Trump’s approach to foreign affairs is that he handles them with a flair of volatility and unpredictability, acting in his best interest wherever possible. If a valuable opportunity presents itself, Trump may choose to be isolationist, expansionist, or something else entirely, as long as it puts “America First.” Nevertheless, this policy of putting “America First” comes across less as a patriotic defence of the US, and more as a power grab on behalf of Trump.