Trump’s actions in dealing with Russia and Ukraine and conflict in Gaza have been disruptive and unpredictable. With more holistic foreign policy statements still in the works, only speculation can tell us where Trump might head regarding the Indo-Pacific.
File photo: U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin
The broad parameters of U.S. foreign policy during Donald Trump’s second presidential administration have become evident regarding many areas, with the important exception of the political-military strategy regarding China.
President Trump is pursuing overtly disruptive foreign and domestic policies designed to transform unwanted legacy practices. He has not reappointed most senior officials from his first term, selecting instead many cabinet and agency heads who had not previously worked in the institutions they now lead. Though many directors at the National Security Council have served in Trump’s first term, more months will likely pass before they issue the new administration’s core national security documents, such as the National Security Strategy. These texts can provide a theoretical framework to explain and justify core defense and diplomacy policies. As a result of these complications, perceptions of the new administration’s policies remain open to multiple interpretations.
Besides questions related to Israel’s security, especially conflict management regarding Gaza and Lebanon, the second Trump administration’s main political-military focus so far has been securing a peace agreement regarding Ukraine. At first, the administration applied reversible pressure against Ukraine. This tailored coercion included publicly criticizing the Ukrainian president and suspending military and intelligence assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces.
Though the Ukrainian government initially offered a limited ceasefire to encompass air, sea, and long-range infrastructure strikes, the Ukrainian negotiators attending the March 11 bilateral meeting in Saudi Arabia embraced the U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire as an acceptable near-term solution that satisfied Washington without fundamentally risking Ukraine’s security.
Fundamentally, Ukrainian national security managers do not want a lengthy but unenforceable pause in the fighting that would grant the Russian military a couple of years to consolidate its control over occupied Ukrainian territories further, reconstitute the battered Russian armed forces, and then resume the invasion a several years later, perhaps after Trump leaves office. Hence Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian national security leaders still demand strong U.S. and allied security commitments before they accept an enduring peace accord with Moscow. Unfortunately for Ukraine, while the United States has the means to render such a pledge, and many European governments have the resolve to make such a commitment, no Western government seems to have both the will and capacity.
American-Ukrainian differences are also evident in the much-discussed U.S.-Ukrainian mineral deal. The White House primarily wants the agreement to secure access to Ukraine’s mineral riches, but also maintains that the deal would enhance Ukraine’s security in several ways—by strengthening its economy, generating resources for Ukrainian defense procurement, giving the United States a greater economic stake in Ukraine’s security, and making Russian leaders think twice about killing Americans if they continue their invasion.
Ukrainian and other analysts, though, point out that U.S. foreign investment does not by itself provide a security guarantee. For three years, Russian missiles have targeted buildings in Ukraine where Americans and other Westerners reside. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait despite the Western companies there—and even exploited their presence to grab some hostages. Even so, a U.S.-Ukrainian mineral deal would not preclude a later security agreement—and without the deal, which Trump has made a priority despite its questionable commercial foundations, a U.S. security guarantee would be even less likely. Additionally, future Ukrainian and U.S. governments can renegotiate its terms later as more data about Ukraine’s resource assets and companies’ interest and ability to develop them becomes clearer.
The root of the American-Ukrainian differences lies in their diverging temporal perspectives. The White House is preoccupied with securing a near-term cessation of the fighting. President Trump believes that, however badly Russian President Vladimir Putin has treated other leaders, he would not violate a ceasefire agreement that Trump personally helped secure due to Putin’s respect for him and fear of provoking severe retaliation led by a strong U.S. President.
The enticements the Trump administration has offered Moscow to participate in truce talks are also reversible. The United States can curtail as well as resume diplomatic ties with Russia and can endorse rather than defer Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO. Such a reversal will come sooner if the Russian government continues to refuse to make significant compromises with Washington, repeating the mistake Moscow made during Trump’s first term. In 2017, Russian officials met the White House’s overtures with the presumption that the United States was solely responsible for the breakdown in bilateral relations and therefore Washington had to change U.S. policies without Russian reciprocation. Though Russia is now offering its own enticements to the Trump administration, hinting at renewing arms control and nonproliferation cooperation and hinting at improbably unprofitable business opportunities, Russian negotiators have yet to offer fundamental concessions regarding Ukraine and other fundamental European security issues.
Of course, both Kyiv and Moscow are maneuvering to please Trump while making Washington perceive the other party as the main obstacle to peace. The United States has contributed some concessions too, such as not pressing for Ukrainian national elections pending a peace agreement. The Trump administration has also not threatened to leave NATO even while demanding higher European defense spending and better burden sharing regarding Ukraine and other issues. Though Trump, like the presidents of Russia and China, prefers to deal with European leaders individually rather than multilaterally, he has threatened the EU collectively with tariffs and other economic countermeasures. In the future, it would be unsurprising if Trump expected Europeans to pay more for the weapons and other military assistance the United States provides Ukraine.
Looking elsewhere, though the administration’s policies regarding Africa and South America understandably remain inchoate given the imperative of responding to global hotspots, the modest policy attention regarding China is more surprising. The administration has largely continued, and in some cases strengthened, export controls to constrain China’s access to AI, semiconductors, and other technologies that could advance its military buildup. The administration has also increased its tariffs on China along with other countries.
Yet, many of the administration’s senior officials had, before assuming their current positions, supported confronting China ideologically and strategically as well as economically. But second administration leaders have largely eschewed the highly publicized attacks on the Chinese Communist Party that marked President Trump’s first term. The Defense Department has also essentially continued previous administrations’ military policies in the Asia-Pacific region without yet launching major new initiatives.
Furthermore, President Trump has returned to the pre-Biden policy of ambiguity regarding whether the United States would intervene militarily to help defend Taiwan from a PRC invasion. He has also expressed interest in holding a high-level summit with President Xi later this year. We may need to await such a meeting before the main parameters of the second Trump administration’s China policy become clearer.
