What Trump’s Win Will Mean for NATO, Ukraine, Israel, and Iran

Emma Ashford: Morning, Matt. We finally have an answer to the question the world has been asking for months. The next president will be Donald Trump—and he seems to have won, if not by a landslide, then by a healthy margin in almost every key swing state. It’s a clear mandate from the voters for another four-year Trump term.

I assume you’re popping Champagne?

Matthew Kroenig: Trump supporters drink beer.

The results of Trump’s foreign policy were objectively better than Biden’s (who likes major wars in Europe and the Middle East with no end in sight?), and I am optimistic about a Trump 2.0.

On the results, it proves the adage that Washington, D.C., is 12 square miles surrounded by reality. Progressive elites in Washington and other capitals are horrified by this outcome, but the American people clearly were not buying what Kamala Harris was selling. They prefer Trump by a decisive margin.

EA: Harris was a weak candidate, though Democrats didn’t have a lot of choice given the late-stage switch from President Joe Biden. But it’s definitely interesting that foreign policy seems to have played a role. Remember we asked that question last time: Do voters care about foreign policy? The answer is that they usually don’t.

But this time, I’m pretty confident that at least some of Harris’s trouble with younger voters, and Arab Americans in particular, come from her decision to double down on Biden’s unpopular foreign policies and her strange embrace of the neoconservative architects of the Iraq War. She lost by about 80,000 votes in Michigan, more than 100,000 voted third party, and some clearly stayed home—that’s easily enough to lose it.

MK: I think you are right that it contributed to the outcome. Reports from Dearborn, Michigan, suggest a protest vote against Biden.

EA: Yes, Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, took 18 percent of the vote in Dearborn! That’s several thousand votes that are clearly Arab American protest votes. And Trump won the city of Dearborn overall 42 percent to 36 percent. (Biden took nearly 69 percent there in 2020.) By comparison, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who is Palestinian American, won her district in the Dearborn area with about 70 percent of the vote by a margin of 160,000—double Trump’s total winning margin in the state!

And Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, narrowly defeated her Republican challenger by 0.3 percent—overperforming Harris. To be clear, this doesn’t explain the whole election. Donald Trump not only took the Electoral College, but it’s looking as if he’ll claim the popular vote, too, and he has won almost every swing state and leads in the two that haven’t been called. I’ll be very interested to see how turnout among young voters looks in those races, though, which could also potentially have been shaped by foreign-policy concerns.

MK: In hindsight, the outcome might have been overdetermined. Harris was a weak candidate who was thin on substance. Americans are struggling with high prices due to the inflationary economy. The world is on fire. Voters were ready for change, and Trump was better positioned than the sitting vice president to be the candidate of change.

But this is a column in Foreign Policy, so should we turn to what this election outcome means for foreign policy?

EA: Well, it’s going to be an interesting couple years, that’s for sure. The big question is what kind of foreign policy Trump will pursue. Last time around, he vacillated between extremely hawkish and fairly restrained—often pushed one way or the other by advisors. Do you think that’s going to happen again? Or will we see a more disciplined, coherent Trump foreign policy?

MK: I think it will be more disciplined. In 2016, I don’t think Trump himself even expected to win, and the team was not prepared. The Trump team learned many lessons, and, by all accounts, there is an organized transition project underway. As another indicator, we also saw the campaign was more disciplined this time around.

What is your answer to that question? And, also, if you agree that it will be more disciplined do you think he will pursue an internationally-engaged foreign policy or a more restrained one? (As a reminder to our readers: Intervention versus restraint is the essential divide between the two of us, not right versus left, or anything else).

EA: It’s going to be more disciplined because Republican Party insiders are willing to consider serving in the administration; last time, Trump was literally picking the dregs from the barrel in the early days. Remember National Security Advisor Michael Flynn? He lasted something like 28 days before being ousted.

That said, in some ways, that will only make the internal fighting over whether Trump is more traditionally Republican in his foreign-policy stances—you can say internationalist, but I think hawkish or neoconservative might be more apt—or whether he will move further toward the emerging nationalist, realist, or restrained consensus among younger folks on the right. Much will depend on personnel—who is hired into which cabinet positions, and, in particular, who is advising Trump on foreign policy in the White House.

Certainly, if J.D. Vance is going to play a major policy role in the administration—as some are suggesting—then it’s likely to be a more realist approach. Vance is now the heir-apparent to the GOP and has been outspoken over the years on the need for Europeans to do more for their own security, and—as a veteran of the war on terrorism—he has called for the United States to stop fighting stupid wars in the Middle East.

If the future of the Republican Party is J.D. Vance, not Nikki Haley, then that will mean a foreign-policy shift in the long run, no?

MK: In the long run, we are all dead. What does it mean for January 2025? The best guide is how Trump governed in the first term and his statements on major policy issues since then. I would argue that these data points show his instincts are not isolationist as many scary media reports suggest.

He engaged in personal diplomacy with Kim Jong Un. He used military force against Iran and Syria. He increased U.S. defense spending for, and troop deployments to, Europe. On the campaign trail, he has discussed plans for Europe, China, and the Middle East. His instinct seems to be for active global engagement, not isolation.

EA: You know how I feel about the I-word. I’ve never met an isolationist. It’s not a real thing these days. The real division in U.S. foreign policy is unilateral versus multilateral engagement, and I think with Trump, we’re heading toward the former.

Perhaps we should talk about the areas of biggest change in foreign policy? My short list includes Ukraine, European security, and trade policy. Anything else?

MK: I see more continuity in Europe, and I would add the Middle East to the list of biggest changes.

Ukraine will be a change of approach that will lead to the same outcome more quickly and at lower cost in blood and treasure. The current plan appears to be to support Ukraine “as long as it takes” for Kyiv to fight to a military stalemate with Russia. Trump’s stated objective is to force a negotiation to get to that stalemate now.

On Europe, there will be continuity in asking European countries to do more for their own defense, but Trump won’t say “pretty please” and will be asking NATO to raise the burden-sharing requirement from 2 to 3 percent of GDP.

EA: Well, I doubt policymakers in European capitals waking up this morning are as blase as you about whether Trump will be business as usual on NATO. He wanted to withdraw from the alliance during his first term, and there’s been open discussion of a move to a “hollow NATO” or dialing down the U.S. commitment to the alliance by Trump-leaning think tanks like the Center for Renewing America and former Trump officials like Elbridge Colby and Keith Kellogg. This might just manifest as a demand for higher spending, but at this point, European leaders would be fools not to plan for the worst.

On Ukraine, certainly, there will be a clear shift. Trump wants out of the war and will bring pressure to bear on Kyiv to make that happen. The question is whether Trump can actually find a deal that Kyiv and Moscow will both tolerate or whether he just pulls the United States back from the conflict and leaves Europe to deal with it.

Trade?

MK: On trade, the Trump team will prioritize fair and reciprocal trade and will be more willing to use tariffs and their threat as a tool for leverage in negotiation.

EA: Actually, not to drag us back to Europe again, but it’s also probable that Trump will be willing to use tariffs against allies in Europe as well as China. The European Union has been gearing up for a trade war in the event of a second Trump term, so it’s a real possibility.

On China, there’s a wide range of possibilities; there are those in Trump’s orbit very keen to impose draconian tariffs, but it’s also worth remembering that the Biden approach to China tariffs was basically just a continuation of Trump’s approach, so there might not be significant changes here. I do think you’re right about leverage; unlike Biden, Trump was also trying to actually get a deal with China, though he never achieved it.

What am I missing? Any other big areas of change or continuity?

MK: In the Middle East, there will be a big shift. Instead of centering U.S. policy on searching for an accommodation with Iran—hasn’t Washington learned yet that the mullahs just aren’t that into us?—the policy will center on backing Israel and other traditional partners in the region against Iran and its terror proxies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent firing of his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, gives him a freer hand, and a Trump administration will be unlikely to hold him back. Recall that Trump was tough on Iran in the first term, and now he knows the Iranians have been plotting to kill him and his former top aides for the past several years. There will be no love lost.

EA: On Iran, the question is going to be whether a second Trump administration can actually walk the fine line they’re proposing. They want to get tough on Iran, reimpose maximum pressure, and prevent nuclear proliferation. At the same time, it’s fairly clear that Trump himself doesn’t want a war, nor does Vance. Can they get tough without sliding into conflict? I’m skeptical, but it’s always a possibility.

Can we wrap up? I have not had nearly enough caffeine yet after staying up to watch the election results.

MK: Yes, I better get going, too. I have already agreed to give multiple public talks around town today about how the world will not end with a Republican in the White House.

Until next time?

EA: Unless the world ends before then, sure.