Trump´s Brand of Foreign Policy
Alfredo Toro Hardy argues that Trump’s foreign policy could qualify as anachronistic territory-grabbing imperialism.
America’s foreign policy is usually categorized under the following two dualities: Idealism versus realism and internationalism versus isolationism. Does Trump’s foreign policy fall under any of those four categories?
Idealism
Idealism is the result of America’s belief about being an exceptional nation. That is to say, a force for good within humankind. Two facts can shed light on the reasons of this peculiar notion. First: The cradle of American society was formed by dissident Protestants who felt in intimate contact with God. The notion of a covenant between them and God was a central theme in their social and political organization. (Manseau, 2016, p. 60). Second: As argued by Samuel Huntington, the United States never stopped being what its puritan colonists wanted it to become. The essential culture of the country was, and remains, profoundly impregnated by its colonial legacy. (Huntington, 2004, p. 65).
America’s national mythology thus makes its citizens see themselves as a society with a particular sense of purpose. As pointed out by Colonist James Winthrop in his famous seventeenth Century “City upon a Hill” sermon: “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us (…) we shall be made a story and a byword through the world”. (Manseau, 2016, p. 61).
America’s foreign policy was called, since its inception, to spread its model of society around the world. Thomas Jefferson made this clear when expressing that the country’s foreign policy was to rest on the moral values rooted in their civil religion: Democracy. Fast forward to the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson put that tradition at the service of a crusading ideology. The U.S.’ special mission was to become a beacon of liberty for the world and to promote democracy as the cornerstone of is foreign policy. (Kissinger, 1994, pp. 44, 45).
Realism
Theodore Roosevelt, though, was a political realist for whom American foreign policy was to be based on notions such as national interest, the search of power, and balance of power. A few decades later within the same 20th century, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, under the notorious influence of Henry Kissinger, followed this realist route. In addition to Kissinger, towering U.S. foreign policy and academic figures such as George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, John Mearsheimer, Kenneth Waltz, or Stephen Walt have also been labeled as realists.
But does this mean that with the exception of the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt, Nixon and Ford, realists’ foreign policies had been in a clear minority? Not at all. The U.S.’ Cold War was hybrid in nature. Beneath the missionary purpose of fighting for America’s free world values laid an overtly realist foundation. Containment of the Soviet Union’s expansionism followed a realist geopolitical worldview. One in which, the enemy of my foe was my friend, whether or not he was a thug.
Internationalism versus isolationism
And then, of course, there is the other duality: Internationalism versus isolationism. The first of them seems to align with the idealist tradition: Proselytizing American values abroad. However, this is not as clear cut as that. Internationalism is essentially about engaging with the rest of the world, and that engagement can also come under a realist clothing, as seen.
Conversely, isolationism has much to do with the idealist notion of possessing a superior model. Indeed, the United States’ foreign policy has shown to possess its very curious yin and yang qualities. Meaning, seemingly opposing forces that actually belong to the same Oneness. The Oneness, being America’s self-perceived moral superiority, and the yin and yang representing the shifting periods of international missionary impulses and isolationism. As such, the high moral ground that Americans always have reclaimed for themselves can relate to both. That is, by putting barriers to alien models or foreign events that can contaminate it, or by the missionary crusade of converting others to its superior beliefs.
Between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II, isolationism prevailed. During that period, a majority of Americans refused to be involved with the League of Nations or with the serious problems that were shaking both Europe and Asia. Only the destruction of the bulk of its Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor was able to awake them from the illusion that they could remain aloof and detached from the events taking place in other parts of the world. Not surprisingly, the end of the war brought with it an international liberal consensus, according to which America’s security and prosperity was to be found by engaging abroad and promoting its values.
Where does Trump’s foreign policy fit in?
Where, then, can we place Trump’s foreign policy? What is crystal clear is that it doesen’t belong within the idealist tradition. There is no “City upon a Hill” vision in the Trumpian mindset. Is it, thus, realist in nature? Realism emphasises the competitive and conflictual side of international relations, with power being the main currency of international relations. In this sense, Trump’s policy would seem to fall under this category.
Things are not so simple, though. Amid the main characteristics of the Realist School of International Relations are the following two. First, states are assumed to behave rationally in pursuit of their national interests, carefully calculating the costs and benefits of their actions. Second, states seek at forming alliances and counter-alliances, aiming at a balance of power able to mantain international stability. Does Trump act on the basis of rational cost-benefit calculations? Does he care about alliances? Does he seek balance of power? Does he want international stability? Definitely not. His transactional and disruptive approach to foreign policy, where case by case arm-twisting is directed at obtaining “good deals”, can not qualify as realist by any measure.
Could his foreign policy be labeled as isolationist, then? Actually, a group of important authors believed that such was the case during his first term in office. Among them, Richard Hass (Hass, 2017); Daniel Quinn Mills and Steven Rosefielde (Mills and Rosenfielde, 2016); Robert Kagan (Kagan, 2018); and Victor Bulmer-Thomas (Bulmer-Thomas, 2018). Trump’s practice of casting aspersions upon traditional allies and alliances, and the intent of wrecking multilateral organizations and mechanisms, projected the impression that the U.S. was indeed retreating from its international commitments.
However, how to reconcile the pugnacity shown by Trump on almost every international front, with the low profile normally associated with isolationism? At any rate, in this second Trump administration, isolationism is obviously out of the equation. He wants the Panama Canal back. This, notwithstanding the fact that after negotiations that involved several American administrations, the canal was transferred to Panama by way of the Senate’s duly ratified 1977 Torrijos-Carter treaties. He has ramped up his threats to annex Groenland, potentially by force. This, although it belongs to a NATO partner, Denmark, thus pushing Europeans to stand together against what would constitute a violation of international law and of the 1975 Helsinski Accords. He wants to seize control of Gaza and permanently displace the entire Palestinian population, by use of force if necessary. This, even though the U.S. has no title whatsoever over that faraway land.
Can his foreign policy be thus considered as internationalist? Not a rules based liberal internationalism of the kind that prevailed during the last eight decades, for certain. However, how to deny Trump’s objective of getting deeply involved with the world? His brand of internationalism, though, is of an revisionist nature, and precisely the sort promoted by China and Russia, which challenges liberal norms and seeks an alternative global order.
Anachronistic time jump
More precisely, Trump’s foreign policy could qualify as old fashioned territory-grabbing imperialism. Like the one the U.S. engaged in during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, or the Hawaiian Annexation of 1898, or the Spanish-American War of 1898, or the Panamenian-supported independence from Colombia to gain control of the canal zone in 1903.
Indeed, as Ezra Klein put it in an conversational interview with Fareed Zakaria:
“A pretty significant difference between Trump’s first term and his second is the intensity of his fascination with territorial expansion now. I think Trump and the people around him believe the norms of the world turned against territorial expansion in a way that was bad for America (…) Trump fundamentally wants the landmass of America to be larger when he leaves office”.
Fareed Zakaria concurred with this interpretation:
“It feels to me like a kind of bizarre, anachronistic way to look at the world. But I agree with you, that is the way Trump is thinking about it (…) He loves the idea that he would be able to put his stamp on history by saying: Trump added Greenland or something like that to the United States. The physical expansion of America would be a great legacy to Trump”. (Klein, 2025).
Trump’s forein policy, thus, would fit within the mold of James Polk’s or William McKinley’s predatory ones. An anachronistic time jump into an era that bears no relation to America’s approach to international affairs since the beginning of the 20th century.
But although Trump's foreign policy represents a jump into the past, it is in tune with the geopolitical mindset of the big two revisionist powers of the day. For both Russia and China, land and maritime grabs are the way forward within great powers' dynamic
Alfredo Toro Hardy, PhD, is a retired Venezuelan career diplomat, scholar and author. Former Ambassador to the U.S., U.K., Spain, Brazil, Ireland, Chile and Singapore. Author or co-author of thirty-six books on international affairs. Former Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Princeton and Brasilia universities. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and a member of the Review Panel of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center.
Photo by Jonathan Petersson
References
Bulmer-Thomas, Victor (2018). Empire in Retreat. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hass, Richard (2017). “America and the Great Abdication”, The Atlantic, December 28.
Huntington, Samuel P. (2004). ¿Quiénes Somos? Los Desafíos de la Identidad Nacional Estadounidense. Barcelona: Paidós.
Kagan, Robert (2018). The Jungle Growths Back. New York: Knopf Publishing Group.
Kissinger, Henry (1994). Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Klein, Ezra (2025). “The Dark Heart of Trump’s Foreign Policy”, The New York Times, March 1.
Manseau, Peter (2015). One Nation Under God: A New American History. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Quinn Mills, Daniel and Rosefielde, Steven (2016). The Trump Phenomenon and The Future of US Foreign Policy. New Jersey: World Scientific.
