WASHINGTON: While campaigning to regain the US presidency, Donald Trump said that he would be able to end Russia’s war in Ukraine in 24 hours, warned that the Zionist entity would be “eradicated” if he lost the election and vowed sweeping new tariffs on Chinese imports. Now that Trump has claimed victory, many at home and abroad are asking an urgent question: will he make good on his long list of foreign policy threats, promises and pronouncements?

The Republican has offered few foreign policy specifics, but supporters say the force of his personality and his “peace through strength” approach will help bend foreign leaders to his will and calm what Republicans describe as a “world on fire”. They blame the global crises on weakness shown by President Joe Biden, though his fellow Democrats reject that accusation.

America’s friends and foes alike remain wary as they await Trump’s return to office in January, wondering whether his second term will be filled with the kind of turbulence and unpredictability that characterized his first four years. Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency was often defined on the world stage by his “America First” protectionist trade policy and isolationist rhetoric, including threats to withdraw from NATO. 

At the same time, he sought to parlay his self-styled image as a deal-making businessman by holding summits with North Korea, which ultimately failed to halt its nuclear weapons program, and brokering normalization talks between the Zionist entity and several Arab neighbors, which achieved a measure of success. “Donald Trump remains erratic and inconsistent when it comes to foreign policy,” analysts for the European Council on Foreign Relations wrote in a blog post during the US campaign. “Europeans are still licking their wounds from Trump’s first term: they have not forgotten the former president’s tariffs, his deep antagonism towards the European Union and Germany,” they said. Trump and his loyalists dismiss such criticism, insisting that other countries have long taken advantage of the US and that he would put a stop to it.

A freer hand

Trump will confront a volatile Middle East that threatens to descend into a broader regional conflict.

He has expressed support for the Zionist entity’s attack on Gaza, which it claims is to destroy Hamas, but has said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump ally widely believed to have favored his return to power, must finish the job quickly.

Trump is expected to continue arming the Zionist entity, whose existence he said would have been endangered if Harris had been elected - a claim dismissed by the Biden administration given its staunch support for the Zionist entity. His policy toward the entity likely will have no strings attached for humanitarian concerns, in contrast to pressure that Biden applied in a limited way.

Trump may give Netanyahu a freer hand with Iran. But Trump could face a new crisis if Iran, which has stepped up nuclear activities since he abandoned a nuclear deal with Tehran in 2018, rushes to develop a nuclear weapon. When Trump was last in the White House, he presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords between the Zionist entity, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But those diplomatic deals did nothing to advance Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. Still, Trump is likely to push for historic normalization of relations between the Zionist entity and Saudi Arabia, an effort initiated during his first term and which Biden has also pursued.

Ending the Ukraine war

How Trump responds to Russia’s war in Ukraine could set the tone for his agenda and signal how he will deal with NATO and key US allies, after Biden worked to rebuild key relationships that frayed under his predecessor. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Trump on social network X, describing Trump’s peace-through-strength approach as a “principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer”. Trump insisted last year that Russian President Vladimir Putin never would have invaded Ukraine in 2022 if he had been in the White House, adding that “even now I could solve that in 24 hours”.

But he has not said how he would do so. He has been critical of Biden’s support for Ukraine and said that under his presidency the US would fundamentally rethink NATO’s purpose. He told Reuters last year that Ukraine may have to cede territory to reach a peace agreement, something the Ukrainians reject and Biden has never suggested.

NATO, which backs Ukraine, is also under threat. Trump, who has railed for years against NATO members that failed to meet agreed military spending targets, warned during the campaign that he would not only refuse to defend nations “delinquent” on funding but would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to them. “NATO would face the most serious existential threat since its founding,” said Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration. — Reuters