Commentary
What will President-elect Donald Trump’s win mean for U.S. foreign policy in places like Europe, China, Russia, and Iran? Quite a lot. Most of all, fewer freebies for U.S. allies and partners and a search for deals with U.S. adversaries to avoid conflict.
Trump is a businessman, and whenever he gives something away, he wants something for America in return. His detractors call this “transactional,” but in many cases it is good for America, decreases the likelihood of a catastrophic war, and in the long run is good for democracy. And, America’s ballooning federal debt means that we simply can’t afford to be quite as generous as before.
Trump supports 60 percent tariffs on China to force the country into a $1 trillion trade deal that would move toward a balance of trade. He almost achieved this in his last administration, and this time around will be an even tougher negotiator. He wants China to import as much from the United States as we import from China.
Another possible result of the tariffs is for China to shift its production away from supplying the United States, to exports to Europe and what Beijing calls the “Global South.” China could also increase its own consumption, which economists have long supported to stop the country’s overproduction that puts industries around the world out of business. Trump’s increased tariffs on China will further decouple the United States from the country and reorient U.S. supply chains to U.S. industries, and to our global allies and partners. This will increase U.S. jobs and trade with countries like Mexico, Vietnam, and India. That may increase prices somewhat, but will also improve U.S. national security by not making us so reliant on an adversarial country.
Trump has a generally negative view of China due in part to the Chinese Communist Party’s responsibility for the pandemic, which will likely suffuse most of his policy decisions on the country. He will continue diplomatic support to Taiwan, though with a return to America’s long-held policy of strategic ambiguity as opposed to Mr. Biden’s promise to defend the country militarily. That ambiguity will incentivize Taiwan to increase its own defense spending and pursue enough military power to achieve independent deterrence against China.
This will be hard to achieve without Taiwan acquiring a nuclear weapon, which applies to many other U.S. allies and partners, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany. As noted in The Economist on Nov. 6, “At the very least America’s allies will need to spend more on their own defence. If they cannot muster enough conventional weapons to deter the local aggressor, more of them, besides Britain and France, may get nuclear weapons.”
Another option for U.S. allies is to accept the offer made by Trump to Taipei, which is to pay the United States an “insurance premium” to deepen U.S. commitment to their defense. For Taiwan, this could be about 5 percent of its GDP–$40 billion. Taipei may attempt to bargain this down by threatening to support “reunification” with China, but that would be an empty threat as most in Taiwan do not want to become the next Hong Kong.
While Trump’s detractors have incorrectly characterized his offer as “protection money,” it is in fact just part of the cost to the United States of maintaining the kind of global security footprint and “nuclear umbrella” that protected our allies since the end of World War II. Given the U.S. defense budget of about $850 billion annually, the ask from Taiwan is actually pretty low.
Meanwhile, Trump will likely maintain U.S. military spending at approximately the same levels, while looking for opportunities to draw down troop numbers based overseas. He takes this “tough love” approach to allies to save money and pressure them into spending more for their own defense. The most likely place this will happen is Europe, which Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance want to shoulder the burden of its own defense against Russia, so the United States can free resources to deter China.
So, expect the European Union to strengthen its institutional processes relative to its nation-states, like Germany and France. This could eventually mean an E.U. army, as Paris has proposed, an E.U. president empowered to make foreign policy decisions, and more frequent borrowing by the European Union for European projects. That will increase the power of the E.U. capital in Brussels relative to Paris, Berlin, and Rome. With Labour in power in the United Kingdom, and therefore potentially at odds with a Trump administration, that country could start to reverse Brexit and rejoin the European Union.
Trump’s strong support of Israel’s tough stand against Iran and its proxies, and President Benjamin Netanyahu’s newfound lack of restraints due to his firing of his defense minister gives the Israel Defense Forces more latitude against a range of threats, including Iran’s nuclear sites, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and what is left of Hamas. Tehran may respond by either doubling down on its aggressive stance or conducting a tactical retreat. It could redouble its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon, which would increase the probability of further military escalation with Israel and the United States, or it could back off, stop funding its proxies, and wait for softer politicians in Washington and Jerusalem.
So, a Trump administration will be a major shift in international politics that could inflame some conflicts, and bring others to a close. It will shore up U.S. finances by forcing the rest of the world to handle more of its own defense and move towards importing from us as much as we import from them. Our allies and partners can help ease this transition by increasing their defense spending, meeting us halfway on trade, and generally working together toward everyone’s common goal to keep the peace as much as possible.
