The late US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld once famously explained his taxonomy of information in typically gnomic terms. “There are known knowns,” he said. “There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: that is to say we know there are some things [we know] we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Rumsfeld, a wily bureaucratic operator of no mean reputation who endorsed Trump in 2016, would have a challenge on his hands trying to figure out the knowns from the unknowns in Trump’s second term. What bedrock principles, if any, will govern Trump’s approach to foreign policy? Which ideas and allies will catch his fancy? Which enemies will become friends and which friends will become enemies? Will he act on his whims or simply float disruptive ideas and forget them in the space of a single news cycle? The broad outlines of Trump’s approach to foreign policy, “America First,” have been known for some time, but how they will shape up in 2025 and beyond is the real unknown unknown. And there are a lot more unknowns coming.
The Madman Theory
As with his approach to government in general, disruption seems to be the key to Trump’s emerging foreign policy.
His second term approach will be broadly organized around the same principles that animated his first, summarized by the “America First” catchphrase. At his confirmation hearing for his nomination as secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States would remain committed to close allies, mentioning Israel and Taiwan (but not NATO). Global issues that do not necessarily “advance US interests,” such as Ukraine and foreign assistance, Rubio said, will be subject to close examination. Ukraine will have to make “concessions,” and “every penny” of foreign aid “should be scrutinized to ensure its sincerity and effectiveness,” he added. China is “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted,” according to the new secretary of state, and countering China will be a major focus of Trump’s second term.
Trump’s second term approach will be broadly organized around the same principles that animated his first.
Rubio’s hearing, in contrast to that of Pete Hegseth, Trump’s controversial pick for secretary of defense, was cordial, substantive, and reasonable, but it could not disguise the harsh edges of Trump’s emerging approach to the world. Abandonment of Ukraine, a more confrontational policy on China, and pressure on friends and allies alike are all on the agenda.
Just days after Trump took office, the world got a glimpse of things to come, when the president announced 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, America’s two largest trading partners, to force action on non-trade issues. (Those tariffs are now on hold after the two countries made minor concessions.) The new administration also moved quickly to sharply reduce or end cooperation with international organizations, as the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the imposition of sanctions on the International Criminal Court showed. Trump appears to be interested in dismantling the entire global trade system through an imposition of “universal tariffs” while he is at it.
Also on Trump’s agenda is an apparent desire for a new American imperialism. Shortly before returning to the White House, Trump told reporters that he wants to acquire Greenland from Denmark and returning the Panama Canal to American control, by force if necessary, on national security grounds. “It might be that you’ll have to do something,” Trump said. “The Panama Canal is vital to our country…We need Greenland for national security purposes.” Trump also raised the idea of leveraging “economic force” to merge Canada into the United States as the fifty-first state. Not surprisingly, all three countries rejected Trump’s comments out of hand.
The fact that they took the comments seriously, though, demonstrates just how hard a time the international community is having in evaluating what Trump will or will not do in his second term. Armed with what Trump himself apparently believes is an unassailable mandate and backed by a ruthless cast of characters—as well as by a loyal Republican majority in Congress—ready to enable his growing authoritarian appetites, there are no clear limits on Trump’s freedom of action.
Armed with what Trump himself apparently believes is an unassailable mandate, there are no clear limits on Trump’s freedom of action.
Indeed, Trump has warmly embraced the “madman theory” of international politics, once used by President Richard Nixon in his dealings with North Vietnam and the Soviet Union. This theory holds that in managing relations with a leader seen as irrational and unpredictable, it is too dangerous to confront him—making concessions is the wiser course. The problem is that this theory does not work as often in practice as it does on paper. Unpredictability may be situationally useful, but as the basis for an entire foreign policy it has serious flaws.
The Wrecking Ball
The first order of business in the new administration appears to be attacking key mechanics of foreign policy itself. In the three weeks since the inauguration, the wrecking-ball approach of Trump and Elon Musk—whom he appointed to lead a so-called Department of Government Efficiency—has succeeded in closing down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), placing most of its domestic employees on leave, and recalling most of its US employees overseas (a federal judge has temporarily halted some of Trump’s moves against USAID). Most foreign aid projects administered by USAID (as well as by other government agencies including the Department of State) have been suspended for 90 days. Rubio, who has been placed in charge of the agency’s shell as acting administrator, promised a “review and potential reorganization of USAID’s activities” that could include “suspension or elimination of programs,” closures of USAID missions overseas, and other cuts. Trump has promised to fold what is left of the agency into the Department of State, possibly in violation of its congressionally-mandated independence.
But this does not look like a reorganization—it looks like the complete destruction of an agency that administers $40 billion in overseas assistance, including vital heath and food programs in some 100 countries. Hostility toward USAID practically radiates from Trump and Musk, with the former charging the agency has been run by “a bunch of radical lunatics” and the latter claiming, with no facts, that USAID is “a criminal organization.” Musk confirmed that he and Trump agreed it was indeed time to “shut it down.”
Other key agencies are also affected. One hundred and sixty members of the White House’s National Security Council (NSC) staff have been placed on leave pending a review, potentially to be reassigned or terminated. About two dozen senior employees of the Department of State were asked to step down from their roles, and some 60 contractors who managed programs for the Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor were fired. A buyout offer was extended to CIA employees who offer to resign. This is all against the backdrop of the administration’s extension of an early retirement offer to every federal employee (a move that a judge temporarily halted on February 6), to fulfill Musk’s plan to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. The question of higher taxes, or cuts to the $850 billion defense budget or other entitlements, have not been raised in the supposed discussion of fiscal responsibility. Neither have questions about the very real costs of eliminating foreign aid, such as increased violence and economic disruption that will follow a cessation of US foreign aid.
Truth and Consequences
Trump apparently wants to “demolish the deep state” and install political loyalists, a desire enabled by his early moves to make it easier to fire federal workers and by the government takeover-blueprint spelled out in the pro-Trump Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025.”
As with his attacks on other federal agencies like the Department of Justice, Trump’s goal across the national security and foreign policy apparatus appears to be to replace civil servants with intensely loyal operatives who will not object to his every foreign policy whim. This is much in the style of Robert O’Brien, one of Trump’s four first-term national security advisors, who was said to distribute Trump’s tweets to NSC staff and instruct them to find a way to implement them as policy.
Trump’s and Musk’s moves so far against the national security bureaucracy signal that on foreign policy there are to be no more “adults in the room” to restrain Trump’s dangerous and possibly illegal impulses. This may fit in well with the madman theory of international affairs, but restructuring US foreign policy around Trump’s impulses, and slashing personnel critically weakens interagency decision-making mechanisms designed to help the president make good decisions and implement them effectively. Moreover, across-the-board staff cuts may leave the United States without the experienced personnel needed to respond in times of crisis and the president without sufficient capable staff to implement his own decisions.
All this, alongside the destruction of American soft power represented by USAID, furnishes significant opportunities for Russia, China, and others to take advantage of perceived US disorganization and weakness, and to fill the vacuum left by the administration’s abrupt withdrawal from the stage. It may also encourage American allies, especially in the Middle East, to develop ever closer ties with Moscow and Beijing as a means of hedging their bets at a time when wagering on Washington may be a losing hand.
L’État, C‘est Moi
It can be argued, however, that such policy considerations and even specific policies themselves are simply beside the point: US foreign policy and national interests are now as Trump defines them. As historian John Gans wrote in the New York Times in 2019 after Trump fired his third national security advisor John Bolton,
Bolton’s singular achievement was to dismantle a foreign-policymaking structure that had until then kept the president from running foreign policy by the seat of his pants. Mr. Bolton persuaded Mr. Trump he didn’t need the National Security Council to make decisions; it is no surprise that the president eventually felt confident deciding he did not need a national security adviser, either.
This appears to be very much the way Trump intends to conduct foreign policy in his second term. While Trump’s style will be spun by anonymous White House sources as deliberate strategic unpredictability to confound global rivals and keep opponents from accurately guessing US tactical moves, it may not be. In practice it is at least partly a case of hubris and a lack of discipline, with the president making foreign policy at times depending on his mood or short-term political calculations. This often results in chaos, on which Trump seems to thrive and encourage.
Trump’s Policy in the Middle East: Literally All Over the Map
Nowhere has Trump demonstrated his disruptive approach more clearly than in the Middle East. At a press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 4, Trump stunned his staff, a roomful of reporters, and apparently Netanyahu himself by announcing that “the US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too, We’ll own it…get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing” to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Trump stated that this would require the removal of the nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza, probably permanently, to other countries, namely Egypt and Jordan.
Not surprisingly, right-wing members of Israel’s government embraced the idea; Netanyahu was approving but noncommittal. Egypt and Jordan, fearing for their own political stability, quickly rejected the idea, as did other Arab states and much of the international community. The White House began walking back the idea almost immediately. Much of the administration seemed caught off-guard; Secretary Rubio reportedly heard about the plan while watching the Trump-Netanyahu press conference on television. Trump has since doubled down on his plan, on February 9 telling Fox News, “I would own [Gaza]. Think of it as a real estate development for the future.”
The Gaza episode neatly illustrates the emerging features of Trump’s second-term foreign policy: the new imperialism, unpredictability, a minimal staffing process, and a blithe indifference to established policies that did not originate with Trump. These characteristics are likely hallmarks of US foreign policy for the next four years.
As Trump’s second term unfolds, there may be superficial consistency in relations with key allies in the region (although not without surprises and pitfalls, as the Gaza episode suggests). Trump will excuse Arab autocracies for their non-democratic nature and human rights abuses, and transactional approaches to regional states will be the norm. Hard security interests such as counterterrorism and military cooperation will be priorities, and business deals and arms sales will be heavily pushed, particularly with the wealthy Gulf Arab states. They learned long ago that with Trump (and perhaps with President Biden), heavy doses of flattery and dealmaking go a long way to remaining on his good side.
This does not always work, as Saudi Arabia found out in the first term. In 2017, alarm bells rang in Riyadh when Trump accused the Saudis of cheating the United States on defense spending. “Saudi Arabia has not treated us fairly, because we are losing a tremendous amount of money in defending Saudi Arabia,” Trump claimed. In 2019, he upset the kingdom when he decided not to undertake retaliation against Iran for a missile and drone attack on major Saudi oil facilities. In 2020, Trump told Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) he would not prevent Congress from withdrawing troops from the kingdom unless MBS ended an oil price war with Russia that threatened the US oil industry. But Trump also backed the kingdom at a number of crucial junctures, defending MBS from charges that he ordered the 2018 murder of US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and vetoing congressional bills to cut off arms sales. The mixed signals may not have been what Riyadh was expecting.
Saudi Arabia has insisted it will not normalize relations with Israel without a path to a Palestinian state.
Still, the basic Gulf playbook for dealing with Trump is clear. It may be tested again if Trump continues to press for US ownership of Gaza and the expulsion of the Palestinians there; Saudi Arabia has strongly rejected the idea and has insisted it will not countenance a deal to normalize relations with Israel in the absence of a clear and irrevocable path to the Palestinian state. This is likely to irk Trump, who badly wants to cement a legacy as a peacemaker by sewing up a Saudi-Israel peace deal. If he cannot persuade the Saudis to give up on the two-state solution, and if the blandishments that the Saudis seek—a defense treaty with the United States and civilian nuclear assistance—are insufficient, relations between the president and the kingdom could turn testy. And perhaps what may doom the president’s dream of becoming a Saudi-Israeli peace maker is the current spat between the kingdom and Israel following Netanyahu’s suggestion that a Palestinian state can be created on Saudi land. Naturally, Riyadh categorically rejected the idea.
Not that much has changed, it seems, since the 1943 meeting between the founder and first king of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz bin Abdul-Rahman Al Saud, and President Franklin Roosevelt. The king told the American president then that the European Jewish population should be resettled in the Axis lands that oppressed them: why should the Arabs pay the price? The rest, as they say, is history.
Policy Toward Iran and Syria
With regard to Iran, Trump has already returned to his previous policy of “maximum pressure,” issuing a national security memorandum directing measures to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero (with little regard for the impact on global oil prices). Here again Trump suggested he could also do the opposite, saying at the signing of the memorandum that he would be willing to talk to his Iranian counterpart, and later writing on his social media network Truth Social that he “would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper.” This is similar to his position in 2020, when he first proposed a compressive agreement with Iran, urging Tehran in a tweet not to “wait until after U.S. Election to make the Big deal.” Some officials in Iran, including the foreign minister, have signaled some openness to potential US talks in recent weeks, although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appeared to dismiss the idea in a February 7 speech. Even so, the possibility of US-Iran contacts remains on the table.
Trump appears far less interested in engaging with Syria. He told reporters in January, “We’re not involved in Syria. Syria’s its own mess. They’ve got enough messes over there. They don’t need us involved.” The Pentagon is now reportedly drawing up options for a complete withdrawal of the approximately 2,000 US troops in-country on an anti-ISIS mission. Such moves, however, risk the resurgence of the so-called Islamic State, and could endanger US partners in the region.
New World Disorder
While some members of the international community are deeply worried about Trump’s second term, US adversaries seem less concerned. They likely hope that the United States is retreating from its global leadership role and allowing a more multi-polar world to emerge in which countries pursue their own economic, military, and territorial ambitions, free of moralizing from the United States and constraints imposed by US-led “rules-based order.”
If it is true that “personnel is policy,” as Ronald Reagan maintained, and the only person who counts is Donald Trump, both the United States and the international community need to prepare for a lot more whiplash over the next four years.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Flickr/The White House
