David Schultz, professor of political science at Hamline University, visiting lecturer at Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) and member of the MRU LAB Justice Research Laboratory.
Historically the best predictor of a new US president’s former policy is to look at what his predecessor did. This is the case both because of the broad overall continuity of American foreign policy since WWII, but also because presidents take office within a context of real-world events that dictate their choices.
Yet in the first month of Donald Trump’s second presidency, he is breaking this rule. His actions so far demonstrate both a significant break with US foreign policy overall, but especially in Europe. But the break is in some cases backwards looking, returning the US to a place either pre-1991 or even before 1945.
Prior to WWII the US was an isolationist country largely disengaged from Europe. Separated by oceans and thousands of kilometres, the US developed for much of its history with a desire to break free and isolate itself from the rest of the world. Isolationism became part of American culture. It did not see its security interests in Europe. WWII changed that isolationism.
After 1945 US foreign policy changed. It became internationalist. It created the UN and other international organizations as part of an effort to remake the world in its image and to erect what came to be known as the rules-based order of international law that was to exchange war for diplomacy to resolve disputes peacefully. Moreover, support for democratic values and opposition to communism and containment of the Soviet Union led the US to forge alliances such as NATO to guarantee European security.
Yet this security guarantee came with a caveat that emerged out of the Yalta talks with Joseph Stalin in 1946. The US along with England and the USSR agreed to relative spheres of influence. This divided Europe along the so-called iron curtain that declared Eastern and Central Europe as part of the Soviet sphere of influence. This included Lithuania, the Baltics, and Ukraine which were part of the USSR then.
From 1945 to the present the US was a guarantor of European security through NATO was central to US foreign policy. Under US president Richard Nixon his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger refined this world view to include closer relations with China to contain Russian influence. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the breakup of the USSR in 1991 changed some of this strategy. Yet the US remained committed to European security with an expanded NATO. While initially embracing a post-Soviet Russia as a possible friend, this quickly dissipated as Putin became more aggressive and grew in power. However, not even the 2014 invasion of Ukraine by Russia completely convinced the US that Russia was a security threat, and perhaps not until the 2022 invasion did it start to realize that. But even then. President Biden’s reluctant support for Ukraine and his abrupt pullout from Afghanistan questioned US international commitments.
Enter Donald Trump. His first term questioned US foreign policy internationalism and talked of isolationism. He disparaged alliances such as NATO and seemed dismissive of Russia’s threat to US or US security interests. His new presidency has picked up where his first term left off.
He has fought with Denmark over Greenland. Engaged a trade war with Canada. He again questions NATO and seems to view them as foes and not allies. His administration has effectively split the European alliance and there is a real question whether the US will continue to guarantee European security much longer. Moreover, Trump’s stance on Ukraine, his pressure on it to capitulate to Putin’s demands, and talk of doing business with Russia all represent both a break with some parts of US foreign policy since WWII, but also a return to both a pre-WWII isolationism and Yalta-style spheres of influence politics.
So far Trump’s second round as president is a break questioning of recent US foreign policy. But if one looks deeper, one can see its roots have a long history.