What should we expect from Donald Trump in foreign policy?

Donald Trump will begin his new mandate in January, but in the meantime we understand how he will position himself on the Ukraine, Middle East, China and EU dossiers.

• On Ukraine, it is likely that Donald Trump will reduce the United States' commitment, but peace in 24 hours is impossible.
• Trump's victory is good news for Israel, but the Middle East is of little interest to the tycoon.
• Relations with China will remain marked by tariffs, but there are those in the country who prefer Trump to Harris.
• A new trade war also looms for the European Union with the election of Trump.

Donald Trump he won presidential elections and will be the 47th President of the United States.In the summer, when the weakness of President and Democratic rival Joe Biden had emerged in all its strength, the outcome seemed obvious, but the change of Kamala Harris he had put everything back on the line, or so the polls said.

In the end Trump established himself in all the swing states, such as the North Carolina and the Georgia, and this paved the way for his victory.His installation will take place in January, but what we can do now is try to imagine what the new Republican administration will do in the field of foreign policy.There are many sensitive dossiers at an international level, but the hottest are undoubtedly those relating toUkraine, al Middle East, at the China and toEuropean Union.

Let's try to understand something, with the help of experts.

Trump and Ukraine

If there is a country that more than any other has held its breath in the face of the US elections, it isUkraine.Since Vladimir Putin's Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has increasingly relied on Western weapons and aid.In 2023 just under half of its military spending (25 billion of dollars) was carried out thanks to US donations, and if the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has always shown her intention to continue in this direction in the event of election, the Republican candidate Donald Trump he made opposite statements.Now that the latter has won the elections, things could change a lot on the Ukrainian dossier.

"A disengagement possible and in some respects probable of the United States from supporting Kiev would mean for the Ukrainian government having to accept a peace on conditions that are certainly less favorable of those that could have emerged in the event of Kamala Harris' election", explains a LifeGate Gianluca Pastori, analyst at the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI).“Clearly the choice of disengagement also depends on what will be the structures that emerge at the level of American political system in general”, continues Pastori.“We know the attitude of Trump and the vice president J.D.Vance However, foreign policy is not made only by the president, the vice president and the administration.There is also the Congress which will certainly have a Republican majority but will not necessarily be a friendly Congress.To understand exactly how US policy will evolve, we need to wait some more time, even if the trend will clearly be that of a commitment to Ukraine less pressing compared to the current one."

Among Donald Trump's election campaign promises there was also that of being able to stop the war in Ukraine within 24 hours.“A statement that is absolutely not credible,” continues Pastori.“Peaces are always the fruit of a negotiation process and a negotiation process requires time and being out of the spotlight."

Trump and the Middle East

Among the first to publicly congratulate Donald Trump after his victory was the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.In his first term, the one that began in 2017, Trump was a president very close to Israel, indicating Jerusalem as the country's capital and moving the US embassy there, but also working hard to normalize relations between Israel and the Arab nations with the Abraham Accords and withdrawing the United States fromIranian nuclear deal.During the election campaign, Trump confirmed his support for the country, underlining at the same time that he wanted to put an end to all wars as quickly as possible.

“Like Ukraine, the Middle East it is another theater from which Trump wants to withdraw because one of the indications that has emerged in this electoral campaign is that Trump's foreign policy priority will be the relationship with China and therefore the others will be subordinated”, continues Ispi analyst Gianluca Pastori.“The intention to withdraw from the Middle East and reduce US commitment in the area passes through a delegation all in all large in favor of the Israeli ally, so Trump in the White House is certainly a blessing for Netanyahu“.

But what will become of one Palestinian state, the unresolved question par excellence in the area?“If Kamala Harris had expressly supported the two-state solution and the Biden administration had been and still is in favor of the two-state solution, Trump is on this point much vaguer“, continues Pastori, according to whom the Palestinian issue is the big elephant in the room and is increasingly less important, interesting and attractive for the leadership of the Arab countries.

What we could expect in the months following Trump's inauguration is a pressure on Israel to put an end to its military offensives, not so much dictated by the desire for peace, but rather to recreate a balance in the triangle United States-Israel-Arab countries functional to US trade affairs in the area.

Trump and China

The competition between China and the United States exploded during Donald Trump's first term as president of the United States.In the 2018 the tycoon gave the go-ahead at the trade war, imposing duties on 50 billion dollars of goods imported from the country and also raising the bar of dialectical tension with the Chinese Communist Party.During the election campaign, the incoming president said he wanted to continue along this path.

“On the commercial level, Trump has already announced the resumption of duties in great style”, explains Gianluca Dottori.“Trump has said that the heart of American foreign policy will be the containment of China, to clip the wings of Beijing's growing international role and for this reason the privileged weapon will beeconomic weapon“.As the ISPI analyst underlines, there is a fairly clear convergence of views between Trump's political proposals and those of Harris on China.“Trump is the one who started the trade war with Beijing, but theBiden administration he has done a lot in the last four years to support her.Maybe this is really the big deal bipartisan point, which tells us how important the Chinese challenge is to the United States today and how important the United States perceives it to be.

But how was Donald Trump's victory received in China?“Chinese analysts had specified that little would have changed with a victory for Trump or Harris, underlining how probably the only thing in common between the two candidates was perception of the Chinese threat“, explains a LifeGate Simone Pieranni, journalist expert on China.“Then there are those who underlined that Trump, as an entrepreneur, could be a better interlocutor and those who said the opposite.They are certainly waiting for the first moves to understand the extent of this victory, keeping in mind that the USA unstable or perceived as such due to the Trump presidency are generally considered an advantage by Chinese leaders, so as to present China as sole responsible power.Let's think, for example, about the signature of climate agreements“.

Trump and the European Union

Donald Trump's victory has led to reactions of great enthusiasm in a political segment of the countries ofEuropean Union.From Matteo Salvini to the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, passing through the Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and the President of the French Rassemblement National Marine Le Pen, it was a succession of jubilant messages.Yet, it is likely that the new Trump administration will get its act together hostile positions towards the Old Continent.

“Trump was very clear, he spoke explicitly about linear duties, which therefore affects Chinese imports but also European imports", underlines Gianluca Dottori.“We must also prepare ourselves in this field for tensions that will be significant also because the European Union ideologically and as a supranational structure it represents something that Trump is fighting against and against he feels like he's at war“.