Tag Archive for: Donald Trump

In dealing with China, Trump just needs to step up his first-term approach

As in his first term, Donald Trump should continue a resolute approach toward China in his second term. This approach was and is grounded in the belief that a more assertive posture will deter China’s expansionist ambitions, reinforce US credibility among allies and safeguard economic and technological leadership.

Trump’s track record and cabinet nominations suggest a consistent approach moving forward, with several initiatives needing only formal adoption or targeted reinforcement of existing policies.

The United States should, and under Trump’s leadership again probably will, prioritise four key objectives: counter Chinese advances in the Indo-Pacific, insist on Taiwanese self-defence, oppose Beijing’s predatory economic practices, and compete in economic and technological development.

Key priorities of the first administration included promoting US interests, economic prosperity and preserving peace through strength. Trump’s proposed foreign policy team for his second administration, including Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Michael Waltz as national security advisor, signals a maintained firm stance on China, reflecting the general trajectory of the first term.

Their records suggest the new administration’s priorities will include more stringent economic and cybersecurity policies to address evolving challenges posed by China. As secretary of state, Rubio may also spotlight China’s human rights violations, potentially amplifying international pressure on Beijing. Overall, however, the tone and intent will likely follow Trump’s previous hardline approach.

One of the most pressing foreign policy challenges is China’s growing global influence through economic coercion. The first Trump administration’s recalibration of US-China relations included confronting predatory economic practices, prioritising US business interests and asserting technological leadership.

The Biden administration largely continued these strategies, affirming their effectiveness. The incoming administration is likely to build on this foundation, focusing on peace through strength, advancing technological competitiveness and bolstering economic resilience.

Countering China’s advances in the Indo-Pacific is another priority. To do so, the US military will need to modernise key capabilities such as space, cyber and missile defence systems. Since Trump promoted military modernisation in the 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Defense Strategy, it’s likely to be a key strategy under his second administration.

Trump’s first-term efforts to push allies to share the financial and operational burdens of defending the free world have yielded results, particularly among NATO members. NATO’s annual defence spending increased due to additional contributions from several European allies, while Germany committed to significant military spending hikes. Expect more of this in Trump’s second term, strengthening collective security and alleviating the US’s disproportionate burden.

To confront China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, the US needs to deepen cooperation with allies through joint exercises, intelligence-sharing and expanded base access. NATO and like-minded democracies have expressed shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, presenting an opportunity for unified action. Trump has endorsed AUKUS, talks for which began under his first administration.

Taiwan remains a flashpoint. Since 1972, the US’s One China policy has insisted that the Taiwan question must be solved peacefully by the two sides themselves. Accordingly, one of the main provisions of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act places the burden of defending the island on Taiwan. Trump’s demonstrated expectation that allies must help themselves indicates he will expect Taipei to do more.

Taiwan must strengthen its military capacity, harden key infrastructure and reduce its reliance on foreign military support. Previous administrations have rarely demanded this, but the incoming administration should strongly encourage Taiwan’s self-reliance in defence matters. Enhanced self-sufficiency and readiness are essential to preserving peace and minimising the risk that the US would have to intervene to defend the island. Taiwan must make the costs of invasion and occupation prohibitively high for China.

The US must also lead in countering China’s predatory economic practices, including forced technology transfers and state subsidies. Promoting compliance with international trade rules, diversifying supply chains and supporting US businesses will strengthen the global economic order. Free-market principles and expanded trade partnerships will challenge China’s state-driven model and showcase the benefits of an open, rules-based system.

To outpace China’s ambitions, the US must invest in critical technologies—such as AI, quantum computing and advanced manufacturing—and diversify critical mineral supply chains. Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy emphasised the strategic value of innovation, underscoring the need for continued investment in research and development to protect US security, create jobs and drive economic growth. In 2017 Trump signed an executive order addressing the US’s reliance on foreign sources of critical minerals.

Strengthening public-private partnerships and securing supply chains will safeguard US infrastructure and economic independence. Trump is likely to continue this trend in his second term.

This cohesive strategy—one that’s designed to counter China’s influence, strengthen alliances and promote peace—is a vision for the incoming administration that’s consistent with the core principles of Trump’s first term.

From the bookshelf: ‘American Policy Discourses on China’

In her new book, Yan Chang Bennett explores historical US views of China. They have ranged from evangelical promises of redemption to hard-nosed capitalism exploiting vast opportunities. Bennett argues that these perspectives have shaped US foreign policy for centuries and often form the bases of China policy for new administrations.

Based on examination of recently declassified foreign-policy documents, Bennett guides readers through three centuries of United States-China relations focusing on three pivotal moments: president Richard Nixon’s rapprochement with China; Jimmy Carter’s normalising of US-China relations, and Bill Clinton’s advocacy of China’s World Trade Organization (WTO) accession.

Before Nixon’s presidency, China was viewed in the US as a communist foe. The administration reshaped policy and in doing so drew on 19th and early 20th century US views and sentiments. These included a mix of missionary impulse and the idea of China as an untapped economic opportunity. Nixon promoted the idea that China, if left in isolation, would be an aggrieved giant threatening global peace, whereas reintegrating it into the global community would bring advantages to the US and also to China.

Building on Nixon’s rapprochement policy, and in line with earlier notions that helping China was the US’s ‘special undertaking’, the Carter administration saw the country as a candidate for democratisation as well as a vast market for US goods. It believed that if China normalised relations with the US, its economy could move to free markets, and its system of government could become more like those of Western Europe and the US. Bennett’s historical analysis shows Carter could not have been more naive about these reform prospects when dealing with China’s then leader, Deng Xiaoping.

It was at that time the US acknowledged the Chinese position ‘that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China’, declaring, however, that the US would ‘maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan’ and that it would ‘continue to have an interest in the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue.’ The US opened official diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China on 1 January 1979.

Clinton’s presidency, in turn, built on the policy steps taken by Nixon and Carter by championing China’s accession to the WTO. He too was convinced this would lead to liberalisation and democratisation. Bennett argues this enduring belief reflects those long 19th century US attitudes. They were false. At the same time these US policies were being advanced, the Chinese government held its own shrewd and pragmatic perspectives about its relationship with the US, concerned about its interests and historical contexts.

US activities to assist China’s entry to the WTO, which Clinton predicted would enable almost unlimited access to the Chinese market, were flawed on many levels. Systematic misinterpretations came from US perceptions of China that were not rooted in reality.

China did not go for fundamental economic liberalisation, and Bennett says Clinton’s China hands should not have expected any such thing from China’s authoritarian government. For example, Beijing established tighter controls over its giant state-owned enterprises and pegged its currency to the dollar at artificially low levels, ‘bestowing significant competitive advantages to Chinese exporters’.

As Bennett says, it is now clear that WTO accession granted China entry into the world economy, fuelling its astounding economic growth. But what was also clear all along is that China acted in its own economic interest, exploiting Clinton’s vocal support. Not once in Clinton’s eight years in power from 1993 did China say it would become a democracy in the likeness of the US or would make economic reforms that would lead to political liberalisation.

With China rejecting Western ideologies, Bennett advocates a pragmatic reassessment of US policy. She argues it must avoid ‘emotional rhetoric, and idealised frameworks’, such as the belief in liberalisation and democratisation which drove support for China’s accession to the WTO, even though evidence for such hope was weak.

Bennett sees an enduring nature in 19th and early 20th century US perceptions of China, with their repetition in current US policy. Present narratives continue to emphasise China as ‘buried deeply in the past’. They extend to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, who is presented in media as a ‘timeless Confucian emperor’.  In fact, since his birth after the establishment of the People’s Republic, his entire education has been steeped in Marxist-Leninist principles of governance.

Using historical data, Bennett’s book offers insights for the incoming administration of Donald Trump. Her analysis matters in a world where China charts an independent path under Xi Jinping and where Trump’s agenda of making America great again aims to counter perceptions of US decline.

Since Trump’s 2024 victory, Bennett has separately proposed six ways for the US to counter China: modernising US military capabilities; prioritising the Indo-Pacific; strengthening economic leverage; sharing the burden of global leadership; investing in technology and innovation; and building energy independence and resilience.

Trump-proofing the Quad

The Quad was revived in Donald Trump’s first term as president, but that does not guarantee he will pay much attention to it during his second. Non-US Quad members will need to demonstrate its ongoing value, make its purpose clear and find a strong advocate to make this case.

Back in 2017 the resurrection of the Quad was one of the strongest signals that, after almost a year of uncertainty in Asia policy, the first Trump administration had committed to strategic competition with China. Its revival was met with almost audible sighs of relief in Canberra, New Delhi and Tokyo, where fear of abandonment had gripped policy elites since the election. Australia, Japan and India had all been rattled by the new president’s open hostility to alliances and by talk that he might cut a grand bargain with Xi Jinping over their heads. The Quad’s revival showed that the Trump administration was more committed to regional security and prosperity and more convinced of the value of working with long-standing partners than the president’s rhetoric had sometimes suggested.

Since then the Quad has evolved beyond a vehicle for reassuring friends, signalling resolve, sharing assessments of China’s capabilities and intentions and discussing ways to work together more closely and effectively. It now has a broad agenda, ranging from artificial intelligence to space situational awareness, and year-round interaction, from leaders’ summits to ambassadorial meetings.

Yet none of this—neither the history nor the activity nor the level of trust and comfort felt by officials involved in these processes—ensures the Quad will survive or prosper during the second Trump administration. The president-elect is not known for sentimentality, so the revival of the Quad that he saw on his watch is unlikely to sway his view of its value. Trump is likely to ask how much the minilateral costs the United States and what it delivers, not in terms of public goods provided to others but tangible gains for American interests.

Canberra, New Delhi and Tokyo may be able to work with Trump’s national security team to find at least some answers to these questions, as they did during his first term. As secretary of state during much of that time, Mike Pompeo emerged as a strong champion of the Quad, facilitating the upgrades to regular foreign ministers’ meetings and then leaders’ summits. In theory at least, any one of the China hawks whom Trump has nominated for high positions—Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Peter Hegseth as secretary of defense and Mike Waltz as national security advisor—could play a similar role, if the Senate approves their appointments.

The problem, however, is that the Quad lacks a robust advocate outside the US. In 2017 prime minister Shinzo Abe quickly established himself as an adept Trump whisperer, proposed the reconvening of the grouping and rallied regional allies and partners to the cause. Today, it is not clear whether Anthony Albanese, Narendra Modi or Shigeru Ishiba are willing and able to do the job.

Of the three, Albanese is the least likely, given the looming election. The Indian prime minister is better positioned, given an established relationship with Trump and a relatively successful track record of playing to his whims. Modi is also due to host the next Quad summit in India, sometime in 2025. But Japan’s newly elected leader might be the best candidate for the role.

Ishiba has long spoken with clarity on regional security—and clarity is one thing the Quad needs. Politicians and bureaucrats from all four members will tell anyone who asks, entirely sincerely, that the grouping has achieved much in the last seven years. But even they still struggle to express what it aims to do and why it operates as it does. The sprawling and ever-expanding agenda does not help. Nor does a certain evasiveness in talking about China, due partly to deference to sensitivities of Southeast Asian elites, and reluctance to even talk about quadrilateral defence cooperation.

This timid approach is unlikely to find much sympathy in the Trump White House. If the Quad is to survive and continue the good work it is doing on maritime security, critical technologies, cyber and connectivity, it will need a harder edge and a clearer purpose. The region does not need the Asian NATO that Ishiba has mooted, but there is good work the Quad could and should do to deter Chinese and indeed Russian adventurism in the Indo-Pacific. Front and centre should be defence industrial and technological cooperation; enhanced interoperability; capacity-building for regional navies and air forces, not just coastguards; improved logistics and rights of access; and greater intelligence- and data-sharing.

This agenda will not succeed, however, if it makes greater demands on US leadership and resources. Others need to step up, and fast.

War and appeasement: why a deal with Putin will backfire

US president-elect Donald Trump’s boast that he will quickly negotiate a deal with Vladimir Putin about Russia’s war with Ukraine is likely to fail. This will be the case even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed last month that the war ‘will end sooner’ under Trump.

The question is: in whose favour will it end?

My central concern here is that all this is occurring as the military outlook for Ukraine is grim. How long Ukraine can keep going militarily is uncertain and Kyiv may be unable to resist a demand for a Trump deal. This uncertainty is made worse by nobody knowing what Trump will actually do.

Trump grievously underrates Putin’s determination to win his war at all costs. And Putin will not allow peace talks to get in the way of eliminating Ukraine as a nation-state. He continues to assert that there is no such country as Ukraine. He also makes it brutally clear that Ukraine can never be allowed to be a member of NATO.

Last month, in reaction to the United States allowing Ukraine to use longer-range missiles (such as the 300km-range Army Tactical Missile System) to strike deeper into Russia, Putin has promised ‘an appropriate and palpable response’. But this is not the first time Putin has promised, in effect, a nuclear response.

As NATO’s former secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has noted, if Putin wants to escalate with the use of weapons of mass destruction, he can create all the excuses he needs but ‘so far, we have called his bluff’. And the Pentagon has just announced there are no increased signs of a higher level of Russian nuclear alert.

There are, however, different opinions on this contingency. Kim Darroch, Britain’s former national security adviser, warned that allowing Britain’s long-range Storm Shadow missiles to be fired by Ukraine into Russia ‘risks a major escalation of the conflict’.

So, after almost three years of war, Putin’s views are in fact even more—not less—expansive. According to Anne Applebaum, a leading Russia expert, Putin is fighting not only to destroy Ukraine as a nation but he also wants to show that America, NATO and the West are weak and indecisive, regardless of who is the US president.

Putin believes he and his ‘closest friend’, Chinese President Xi Jinping, are the world’s leading authoritarian powers, increasingly powerful militarily and attractive not only to North Korea and Iran but also to many of the so-called global south countries.

More than 70 percent of Russians now are apparently of the view that the West, led by NATO and the US, is seeking to fundamentally destroy Russia. A large majority of Russians allegedly now see the West as an existential threat to the Russian motherland. So, Putin is about winning much more than a war with Ukraine.

Then there is the question of Putin’s personality. Unlike Trump, Putin has been Russia’s dominant authoritarian leader for practically a quarter of a century now. And there is no sign—at least foreseeable—of any credible opposition to him. He recently has implied that China and Russia have created a new geopolitical concept for world order that is stronger than a confused and inward-looking US.

As a former KGB officer, Putin was trained to believe the ‘correlation of world forces’ is logically moving towards Russia’s national interests because of the collective weakness of the West.

According to Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre in Berlin, ‘The sad truth is that the fight against the West has become the organising principle of Putin’s regime and has created too many beneficiaries to be abandoned any time soon. Trump or no Trump, Russia’s foreign policy will be guided by anti-Americanism for at least as long as Putin is in the Kremlin.’

Gabuev goes on to argue that mistrust between Russia and the West will outlast the Trump era. He also argues that while the Kremlin remains guarded in its official expectations of the new US administration, the hope in Moscow is that Trump’s presidency will be ‘a gift that keeps on giving’.

This is because Trump has pledged to end the war in Ukraine quickly and the main fear in Western capitals is that he will drastically reduce military support for an embattled Ukraine—greatly to Russia’s advantage.

But Trump’s anxiety to reach some form of a deal on Ukraine next year will not eliminate the root causes of the Kremlin’s confrontation with the West.

Rather, it will only confirm in Putin’s mind the lurch of the US to be inward-looking with Trump’s preoccupation to ‘make America great again’.

This brings us to what form such a Trump deal might involve. Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, appears to be toying with the idea of an exchange of Ukrainian territory for a ceasefire. This might involve acknowledging Russia’s current occupation of 18 percent of the territory of Ukraine—which includes not only Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk but also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—in exchange for a ceasefire that will be internationally supervised. By whom? Presumably, Putin will categorically reject the presence of any NATO troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine.

In my view, such a ceasefire and territorial settlement would leave Putin with the freedom to rearm the Russian military with a view to a massive attack when he is ready, which might be aimed at occupying the entire eastern half of Ukraine along the Dnipro River from Kyiv to Odesa.

But as Gabuev’s colleague Tatiana Stanovaya observes, no Western leader—including Trump—has a plan for ending the war that would be remotely acceptable to Putin. She says none of the mooted solutions comes close to meeting Russian demands for a pro-Russian government in Kyiv and a NATO that will never admit Ukraine to its membership. There are also many in Moscow who argue that Russia should not squander its current battlefield advantage for the empty promise of talks with Washington.

There are other options being toyed with in Europe. For example, there is the model of West and East Germany after World War II. The latter was a Soviet-occupied puppet regime called the German Democratic Republic, which few countries in Western Europe recognised. It existed cheek by jowl with an independent Federal Republic of Germany, which—unlike the GDR—was internationally recognised and was a key member of NATO. That model existed for more than 40 years until the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

The problem with extrapolating that model to today’s Europe is that at that time the US continued to support NATO through its large Cold War military presence in West Germany for more than a half-century and the US was also undoubtedly the strongest military power in the world. Arguably, neither of these facts exist right now.

Now we face a situation with an America that is decidedly turning inwards in focus. As Charles Kupchan (who was special assistant to the US president on the National Security Council from 2014 to 2017) argues in his book Isolationism: A history of America’s efforts to shield itself from the world, the central question is not whether the US retrenches but whether it does so by design or by default. He considers that the likelier outcome is retrenchment by default—an unplanned and perilous American retreat from global affairs.

In other words, a disruptive inward turn is now a real possibility for today’s America—more so than when Kupchan’s book was written four years ago. Trump’s clarion call of making America great again may mark ‘an unplanned and perilous American retreat from global affairs’. And there can be little doubt that Putin is about to test Trump’s mettle in this regard over Ukraine.

After congratulating Trump on his election, Putin implied he would have discussions only if the US initiated talks (he will not talk directly with Zelensky), dropped its economic sanctions and refused to offer any further support for Ukraine. In other words, Putin demands a Russian victory and the complete and utter destruction of Ukraine as a separate country.

And let’s not pretend that Putin’s ambition to restore Russia’s past empire in the ‘near abroad’—especially the Baltic countries and Poland—would be satiated if he wins in Ukraine. Far from it: this war in Ukraine is not just some distant territorial dispute, as some members of Trump’s inner circle assert. If things go horribly wrong in Ukraine, we could see a wider war in Europe.

Trump’s idea of negotiating a swift end to the war is unrealistic while Ukraine is fighting an outright invasion for its existence, not just a territorial dispute. Stopping the war now on Moscow’s terms will only further encourage Putin’s highly dangerous adventurism.

Putting economics before security leaves us exposed to Trump’s tariffs

World leaders convening at the APEC and G20 multilateral summits this week seemed to be nervously shadow boxing Donald Trump, who was relaxing ringside at the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York.

Anthony Albanese recited talking points on ‘free and fair trade’—not to influence any counterparts present but as a message to Trump that Australia was well placed to be exempted from any broad tariffs that the incoming administration might impose. In doing so, he cited the healthy trade surplus that the United States enjoys with Australia, which will indeed be an important starting point.

But the Albanese government needs to reflect a little more deeply on the direction it has taken on economics and security before it assumes its credentials speak for themselves as befitting a reliable global player and partner.

In 2024, it’s not enough just to say we seek maximum economic engagement with all partners, minimising trade restrictions in pursuit of the frictionless flow of money, goods and services. That might have worked as a Platonic ideal of free trade back in the early 2000s but, as an approach to both free and fair trade in the 2020s, it ignores half the picture.

Australia stood its ground on its own security and sovereignty for a number of years and, as a consequence, incurred the wrath of Beijing in the form of several waves of economic coercion and diplomatic unapproachability. We did this not under pressure from Trump during his first administration—nor any other US government—but because it was in our own interests and adhered to our values.

Yet despite Albanese’s insistence that we ‘have not changed our position’ on anything, Australia has steadily become silent and acquiescent on key issues that would risk upsetting Beijing. In return, we have been rewarded with diplomatic charm and trade assurances. We have, in short, chosen domestic economics over our national security and our standing as a stout defender of an international system based on rules. We have all too quickly forgotten that economics and security are inseparable.

How so? We’ve failed to stand up for our neighbours, including the Philippines, as they are bullied by China in the South China Sea. We withdrew from World Trade Organization cases that would have held Beijing to account for its coercive measures and set an example to the rest of the world. We’ve gone completely silent on China’s appalling human rights record. We have stopped referring to the case of Australian Yang Hengjun as arbitrary detention. We say nothing about China’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. We are dawdling on defence investment when we should be readying ourselves to make a steadfast contribution to regional security as Beijing flexes its muscle across the Indo-Pacific. We’ve all but lost interest in the diversification that we agreed was vital for our resilience in the wake of the double hit of China’s coercion and the global shockwaves of the Covid pandemic.

We should do all of these first and foremost because they are the right things to do. But they would also mean we could say with real conviction that Australia is not one of those countries that is relying on the US to singlehandedly make the world a fair place for everyone—even those unwilling to carry some of the load themselves by, for instance, investing in their own defence and security.

To be sure, Trump’s global tariffs threats are a blunt instrument, articulated with his characteristic flair for appealing to the sections of US society—a clear majority, as it turns out—who feel that the world is taking advantage of them. We can hope that Trump will distinguish between allies—even if he is right to grumble that some have free-ridden on US security and leadership—and adversaries such as China, which was welcomed onto a level economic playing field only to cheat remorselessly at every turn of the game.

But we shouldn’t easily assume we’d be exempted as we were from Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs in 2017. The fact is, our exemption back then was won by proving we were investing in our own security and were a true partner to the US rather than a hanger-on.

AUKUS provides us with a good starting point this time, demonstrating real investment in our own security and in the alliance. But the partnership is not enough on its own, when we are cutting other defence programs, including in space security, while also criticising countries that can’t harm us economically—whether friends such as  Israel or foes such as North Korea—while excusing China’s malign behaviour as just what ‘great powers do’.

Albanese only ever answers China questions with the same trope that Australia is ‘cooperating where we can and disagreeing where we must’. This is not good enough when we don’t actually know where we disagree anymore, nor indeed if the ‘must have’ disagreements would arise only if China used military force.

For Albanese to be able to prove his statement in Peru that Australia is a free and fair trading nation, we need to show we are willing not just to reap the benefits of selling goods to China but to share the burden of security requirements.

Instead we are pursuing our economic interests with China while deprioritising security threats to ensure diplomatic meetings, as well as lobster and wine sales. That’s trade, yes. But it’s neither free nor fair.

Relying on the US, as well as other friends such as Japan, to do the heavy lifting on security is not equitable. It is actually an ‘Australia first’ policy—even while we fret about Trump’s putting America first.

As Trump returns, European countries’ first priority must be backing Ukraine

As European leaders wake up to the reality of Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House, they must take care to avoid two big traps: panic and denial. It won’t be easy, but the stakes are too high to fail.

The reasons for panic are obvious. Trump may be unpredictable and mercurial, but there is little doubt that his political instincts and stated plans will shake the pillars of Europe’s security, economic and political order.

On security, Europeans have every reason to fear that Trump’s proposed ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine will deprive that country of its territorial integrity and leave it demilitarised and permanently excluded from NATO. And NATO itself may well go dormant, with the United States radically reducing its participation and handing responsibility for the alliance’s military command and resources over to the Europeans.

In the Middle East, Europeans rightly worry that Trump’s plan to secure peace will mean supporting the expansionist plans of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition, perhaps even including the Palestinians’ expulsion from Gaza and the West Bank and their resettlement in Egypt and Jordan.

The economic scenarios are even scarier. Trump has talked about imposing a universal import tariff of 10 percent to 20 percent and a 60 percent tariff on goods from China. Such a policy risks triggering a global trade war, with governments introducing retaliatory measures against the US. If China is shut out of the US market, Europeans will be even more vulnerable to the supply effects of its manufacturing overcapacity.

Making matters worse, Europe’s response to another Trump presidency may well be hampered by the illiberal international, which includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

For all these reasons, European leaders are on the verge of panic and feel tempted to rush to Washington to cut bilateral deals, as many did during Trump’s first term. Doing so would come directly at the expense of European unity.

But the second trap is just as dangerous. If European leaders fall into denial about the scale of the threat Trump poses, they will not take steps needed to build resilience. Europeans have known for the past four years that Trump could return, and they have made some progress toward addressing their new geopolitical vulnerability with higher defense spending (collectively, Europeans now spend more than 2 percent of their GDP on defence) and diversification away from Russian gas. But overall, they have been far too slow.

Some are buoyed by false confidence, telling themselves that if they survived one Trump term, they can survive another. But the Trump of 2017 to 2020 was an outsider who had been surprised by his own election and craved establishment recognition. This time, he is dead set on revenge against the establishment that thwarted him before, and he has had plenty of time to prepare for office. European leaders must take him at his word and brace themselves.

Confronted with these scenarios, the most urgent task for European leaders is to use the 70-odd days between now and his inauguration on 20 January 2025 to agree on their common interests and work out how to defend them—with the US if possible but alone if necessary. That means drafting a concrete plan to protect Europe from both security and economic pressures.

The most immediate concern is Ukraine. To prevent a deal that leaves Ukraine demilitarised and shut out of NATO, Europe needs to ensure a steady flow of ammunition and air defence equipment in the short term while providing Ukraine with credible long-term security guarantees. It also must figure out how to spend more efficiently on defence, increase the volume of combat-ready forces available to NATO and the European Union, and, if necessary, strengthen its own nuclear deterrence.

The second most challenging issue will be trade. If Trump keeps his promise of levying across-the-board import tariffs, a trade war between the EU and its biggest export market is inevitable. In a world where geopolitics and geoeconomics are increasingly intertwined, the bloc should prepare countermeasures against the US and seek to expand trade with the rest of the world.

Trump’s victory also completely changes the context for the EU’s relationship with Britain. Since the Labour Party took office in July, cross-channel contacts have increased significantly. But now there should be an accelerated push to make a big, bold offer to Britain to create a new partnership.

For his part, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer should commit to working toward a stronger and more united Europe. He should put everything on the table, including exploring how Britain’s nuclear deterrent can contribute to collective European security. And he should show how Britain can help extend European power and security through cooperation on sanctions, technology controls, supply chains, critical raw materials, energy security, migration and joint action against gangs and human traffickers, among other issues.

To make that happen, the biggest EU member states—France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain —will need to transcend their respective domestic politics to establish a pan-European consensus. German leadership—whether it comes from the current government or from a new Christian Democratic-led coalition after the spring elections—is more important than ever, but the smaller, more exposed northern and eastern European countries will also have an important role to play. Accordingly, they should form a caucus within the EU to work with officials in Brussels to make geopolitical Europe into a reality.

Europe’s response to Trump’s return will require creativity, resilience and an unshakable commitment to defending its own interests. Every crisis offers an opportunity, and Europeans have a chance to craft a stronger, more self-sufficient bloc that can stand up for itself in an age of global disorder.

Trump’s likely foreign policy: selective engagement, and helping those who help themselves

In his second term, Donald Trump will be determined to pursue a foreign policy that more closely resembles how the US engaged with the world for the first 170 years of the republic: pursuing abundance at home and selective engagement abroad.

He will do so not because the US is weak and in decline but because it is powerful. Its power is a function of its economic size, military superiority, cultural influence, energy security, business innovation and productivity, labour flexibility, growing population, deep capital markets and immense private wealth, and the omnipresence of the US dollar and US Treasury bonds. US power will give Trump greater freedom to act, including by asking more of allies and partners who seek to benefit from the application or deterrent effect of that power.

True, US power faces several structural challenges. Compared with the Cold War era, America’s industrial base is weaker, as evidenced by its current inability to build nuclear-powered attack submarines at a fast enough replacement rate, which will likely compromise Australia’s ability to acquire Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s.

There will be a reckoning in relation to US public debt, which will rise to 122 percent of GDP by 2034 and already requires more to be spent on public debt interest than defence. Trump will need to better balance America’s commitments and its power if his foreign policy is to command domestic support.

However, these and other structural problems are reversible. They do not qualify as the great power killers that have led to the decline and fall of more conventional powers throughout history.

By virtue of its power, the US is able to shape world order to an extent no other actor is able to, China included. Trump is a power politician. He understands that foreign relationships and transactions are an unsentimental function of power relativities and not abstract global rules that seek to fetter the exercise of sovereign power by nation-states. (On this, his speeches to the UN General Assembly are worth re-reading.)

Trump will be prepared to continue to extend US security to those who are prepared to do more to defend themselves, so long as doing so is also in the interest of the US. Those who spend less on defence than the US (at least 3 percent of GDP) will have to lift their spending or make commensurate in-kind contributions to their own security.

Australia is well placed to make or extend mutually beneficial deals with the second Trump administration, especially in relation to critical minerals, the production of nuclear-powered attack submarines at a faster rate, advanced military technology and further access to our geographically crucial facilities and infrastructure.

However, our weak levels of defence spending will become a point of contention if it is judged that we are not doing more to ensure the self-reliant defence of Australia.

We should not assume, however, that a return to this older style of US foreign policy will result in a withdrawn and isolated US. The world is today too interconnected and closer than was the case in the early 1940s, when isolationists held significant sway in US politics. On the contrary, the US is likely to remain very active in the world, but under different terms and in pursuit of more focused objectives. When it is in the US national interest, Trump will take resolute action—as he did in his first term against Iran, including by way of imposing oppressive sanctions, withdrawing from the Obama-era nuclear deal and ordering the assassination of Qassem Soleimani.

As a disrupter, Trump may strike a grand bargain between the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others, whereby Israel would be secure, Palestinians would be able to live in peace and Iran would be contained. That deal would be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The US will be a powerful actor under and after Trump. For it to be great again, there is one challenge it will have to meet. Trump will have to intensify efforts to ensure that China does not establish itself as the hegemon of Eurasia.

Were it to do so, across time it would gain dominance over the resources, markets and economic power of the world’s strategic heartland. This would undercut the strategic and commercial interests of the US.

A hegemonic China would grow in strength and eventually threaten the US in its hemispheric citadel. It will be in the interests of the US to prevail in this struggle for mastery in Eurasia.

Trump will prefer to do this by way of aggressive trade, investment, technology decoupling and strategic deterrence, avoiding a military clash if possible. Intrinsic to this approach will be the maintenance of forward-deployed US forces in the western Pacific and the strengthening of the latticework of US-centred regional security partnerships that has emerged across the past decade.

Still, he will need to be convinced to defend Taiwan. The arguments for doing so would have to be framed within this counter-hegemonic strategy. Taiwan will need to show it is willing to do much more to defend itself, including by way of an extensive rearmament program.

There is a prospect of a golden age of American power, where a self-interested US, working with equally self-interested allies and partners, and not embarrassed to wield that power, accomplishes a world-changing quadrella: to thwart China, flip Russia, contain Iran and isolate North Korea. If it can accomplish this sweep of the grand chessboard of Eurasia, the US will be not just powerful but great again. Motivated by America-first instincts that are deeply rooted in US strategic culture, Trump has the opportunity to bring about a transformation of the world order that would rival the earlier achievements of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan at the bookends of the Cold War.

We did well last time. Here’s how Australia should work with Trump again

Australia managed the first presidential term of Donald Trump as well as any nation. Now it can also manage the second term well.

In doing so, we must work with friends in our region to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains the main US strategic focus. That also means stressing to Trump and his team that Ukraine’s survival is an Indo-Pacific priority.

Trump will demand more of allies, and we should revel in doing more to attend to our own security and that of others.

In 2017, Australia quickly understood that invoking its long friendship with the United States was not enough in dealing with the then newly elected Trump. He expected to see ongoing efforts in helping the US with its burdens. And we could show that: we had begun, in the national interest, taking stronger security measures against China and were paying an economic price for them.

It helped, too, that we were increasing our defence budget. Altogether, our relationship with the United States actually strengthened during Trump’s first administration.

In his first term, Trump turned US strategic attention decisively towards China. This was deeply in Australia’s interest. The US focus on the Indo-Pacific has continued through the administration of President Joe Biden, and we want it to continue in the coming Trump term.

It was also in the interests of such friends as India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, and still is. So, we should together send the reminder to Trump and his team that the Indo-Pacific is the main game, particularly because China is the captain of the totalitarian Axis.

In the face of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea working together, we should heed Edmund Burke’s clarion call of ‘when bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fail one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle’.

Vitally, Australia and its friends, including other Five Eyes members, should ensure Trump’s team knows that what happens to Ukraine matters for all of us. Trump and his future vice president, JD Vance, have campaigned on quickly stopping the war in Ukraine.

Australia cannot be silent on how damaging a victory for Vladimir Putin would be for Indo-Pacific countries, which would lose trust in the US and its allies and fall into fatalistic acceptance that China will dominate the region.

North Korea’s entry into the fight may have been the turning point needed to ensure the Trump team knows that Ukraine cannot be isolated from Indo-Pacific interests and that a victory for Putin would be a victory for his no-limits partner, Xi Jinping. This victory would be a setback for Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and the US itself.

Trump’s decision in his first term to compete with China included economic action, setting the West on a path away from policies that misjudged trade and financial links with China as proof of stability.

There can be no stability when the Axis regimes’ routine is destabilisation. They sometimes pause their campaigns, not in good faith but to seek compromises from us while they reload for their next phase of attacks on global rules.

So, we should work with the new Trump administration to further reduce economic dependence on China. For that, Trump has the right instincts.

He has the right instincts on China’s exploitation of the information domain, too. Australia should encourage him to continue what he started in applying sanctions and tariffs on the Chinese tech sector.

Australia and the US must strive together to counteract China’s abuse of the information domain to divide our nations, turn them against each other, undermine our democratic institutions and shift the global order. The tech sector and digital world should be high on the Australian list for engagement with the Trump team.

Both AUKUS and NATO are vital and must be strengthened. The US’s partners within those groupings will need to show Trump they are pulling their weight.

AUKUS should thrive, since Britain and especially Australia are already spending on it and will spend more, deepening their cooperation with the US. NATO members will likely start with a lesser goal of just keeping their alliance together. Most will have to prove they will not fall back into military slumber, leaving the US to do everyone’s job.

For them, Australia and other US friends in the Western Pacific, Trump’s expectations will mean, above all, that they must spend more on defence. They should do so willingly.

Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s foreign policy adviser, Takashi Kawakami, said recently that an America that demands more from allies could be an opportunity for Japan to become a ‘truly independent country … and create an environment that allows Japan to defend its sovereignty with its own strategy against foreign forces.’

It’s an argument that Australia should consider. It doesn’t mean isolation and terminating alliances with the US but, rather, strengthening ourselves to strengthen those alliances. We become stronger individually and collectively.

Trump vs China, round two

In August 2019, amid an escalating trade war with China, then-US president Donald Trump fired off a series of tweets directing US companies to ‘immediately start looking for … alternative[s] to China’ and shift their manufacturing back to the United States. The demand sent stock markets into a tailspin and alarmed US businesses with exposure to China.

While Trump ultimately softened his stance, the threat underscored a disturbing reality that the world must face now that he is returning to the White House: the president has the power to sever ties with the world’s second-largest economy and can do so on a whim.

With Trump’s resounding victory over Kamala Harris, the spectre of his impulsive, heavy-handed approach to diplomacy looms large. If his past actions are any indication, corporate America might soon be bracing for another round of erratic, high-stakes manoeuvres—or worse—against China.

The US constitution delegates authority over foreign relations to both the president and congress, a structure designed to temper executive discretion with legislative oversight. But this balance has shifted dramatically in recent decades. Foreign policy is now overwhelmingly concentrated in the executive branch and goes largely unchecked, a trend that political scientists attribute to a rise in partisanship and a decline in congressional expertise. With both parties favouring a hardline approach toward China, Trump will have even more freedom to lash out at the country.

Meanwhile, national security has proven to be remarkably pliable, extending far beyond traditional concerns such as homeland defense and cybersecurity. It now covers everything from cross-border data flows and supply chain vulnerabilities to protecting industries deemed too critical to be dominated by foreign competitors.

This broadened definition has enabled presidential actions that would have been unimaginable only a decade ago. Consider some of the measures taken by Trump and his successor, Joe Biden: sanctioning Huawei and ZTE; banning TikTok; blocking Chinese investment in a dating app; launching the controversial China Initiative, which disproportionately targeted Chinese scientists working in the US; imposing a semiconductor embargo on China; restricting US investment in Chinese artificial intelligence and quantum computers; and, most recently, slapping 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and batteries.

Many of these aggressive policies should be implemented only in emergencies. But what constitutes an emergency has also expanded considerably and now includes curbing China’s rise. And when Trump takes office in 2025, the executive branch’s capacity and willingness to declare an emergency and impose extraordinary measures under the banner of national security could increase substantially.

While US courts have the authority to check presidential powers—as they did in blocking Trump’s attempts to ban TikTok and WeChat—they have limited oversight of foreign policy. On matters of national security in particular, federal courts have historically been very deferential—even more so when congress and the president are aligned. The recent passage of the TikTok legislation illustrates how congress can quickly restore executive power after a judicial ruling constrains it. As a result, TikTok and other Chinese companies are constantly contending with renewed hostility from the executive, like an endless game of whac-a-mole.

Ironically, this concentration of power in the US presidency mirrors the Chinese governance model that US leaders criticise so sharply. As I show in my book, High Wire: How China regulates Big Tech and governs its economy, the consolidation of political power in China over the past decade has often led to dramatic policy swings that undermine investor confidence and dampen entrepreneurship. The Chinese government’s recent missteps—from mismanaging the Covid-19 pandemic to crackdowns on the tech and property sectors and now a sluggish response to mounting deflation risks—should serve as a cautionary tale.

The US is likewise beginning to feel the unintended consequences of its own hostile approach toward China. The China Initiative has led to an exodus of talented Chinese scientists, many of whom have returned home. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of tough US sanctions and export controls is waning. Huawei, which initially struggled under these measures, has grown stronger of late, invigorated by state support and a firm resolve to achieve self-sufficiency. In its efforts to contain China, the US risks creating a more resilient rival—one strengthened by the very pressures meant to suppress it.

But instead of reassessing the efficacy of its hardline tactics, US agencies are doubling down on sanctions and restrictions. Even the notorious China Initiative, despite being ‘discontinued’, persists in a barely concealed form.

So far, much of the discussion about the Sino-American rivalry has framed China’s rise as the primary catalyst for US policy shifts. But this misses a crucial point: the conflict can also be traced back to a democratic deficit in US foreign policymaking. If the US takes increasingly extreme measures to contain China, as it likely will during Trump’s second administration, it risks widening that deficit—and becoming defined by what it opposes.

America under Donald Trump: views from ASPI analysts

Foreign policy

Greg Brown, senior analyst, ASPI DC—If personnel is policy, we have a fair idea of the Trump foreign policy. The voices competing for the president’s ear all emphasise peace through strength and agree that China is the first order of concern. The debate to watch is between advisers arguing that confronting China is an imperative for maintaining US global primacy and others calling for a narrower strategy that prioritises US attention in the Indo-Pacific.

Nishank Motwani, senior analyst, ASPI DC—As president, Trump will likely reinforce foreign policy unpredictability. This could undermine US commitments to NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, including Australia. This in turn could embolden Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea to act aggressively. Trump views alliances transactionally, favouring financial returns over strategic interests. This could prompt him to scrutinise AUKUS, perceiving missed financial gains and seeking to renegotiate for greater Australian contributions—a move in line with his art-of-the-deal approach.

Raji Pillai Rajagopalan, resident senior fellow—Trump’s presidency brings uncertainty, as he is unlikely to have a steady policy. It is more likely that each issue will be taken in isolation rather than as part of a strategic whole. Such unpredictability will likely scare adversaries such as China and Iran, as it did in Trump’s first term. But US partners will also be concerned by Trump’s shotgun approach, particularly on issues such as trade and economic security partnerships, if he does not distinguish between friends and foes. For this reason, minilateral groups, especially the Quad, may need to play more of a leading role than bilateral relationships, with Australia, Japan and India working together to ensure Indo-Pacific principles and interests are met.

 

China

Bethany Allen, head of China investigations and analysis—Trump is a wild card on foreign policy, including towards China. On the campaign trail he promised increased tariffs on China but criticised Taiwan. Anti-China sentiment runs deep in the Republican Party, but so does its opposition to US support for Ukraine. A Russian win in Ukraine would be a major foreign policy victory for Xi Jinping, Putin’s top supporter, and would make the world safer for revisionist authoritarians such as Xi.

 

Defence

Alex Bristow, senior analyst—Although Trump will probably abandon the term ‘integrated deterrence’, because of its association with Biden, he could retain and more forcibly assert the expectation that allies must step up and share risk if they want US nuclear protection. Elbridge Colby, who is tipped for a senior national security role in the new Trump administration, has said ‘all options are on the table’ for shoring up the nuclear umbrella in the Indo-Pacific. That may hint at stationing or sharing US nuclear weapons on allied territory, which would test legal barriers in Australia. Trump’s dismissive approach to multilateral non-proliferation regimes could fuel disinformation about AUKUS, but Trump may also help pressure Australia’s Labor government to disavow the counterproductive Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The prospects for nuclear arms control look bleak as long as Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang keep seeking leverage by expanding their nuclear forces.

 

Southeast Asia

Fitriani, senior analyst—Trump’s re-election may diminish US engagement with Southeast Asia, given his transactional engagement with the region during his first term. One point to focus on is whether the US will uphold its commitment under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and stand by with the Philippines when tensions with China over the South China Sea flare. As Southeast Asian countries are small to medium in power and size, Trump will care about them only when he can use them to counter a bigger bully: China.

 

Climate

Mike Copage, head of the Climate and Security Policy Centre—Trump will weaken climate policy and international engagement, with deeper and longer-lasting effect than in his first term. If his administration follows the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 recommendations, US national security institutions will be prevented from addressing climate resilience, and world-leading US agencies may see their climate science programs disrupted. This would damage climate resilience and momentum among key allies and weaken important relationships with Pacific island countries.

However, Trump’s close circle includes major private sector proponents of clean energy technology, such as Elon Musk. Their influence may moderate his effect on climate policy.

 

Space

Malcolm Davis, senior analyst—Trump is likely to take a much bolder approach to space, in part driven by a need for personal prestige. This could see him try to get US astronauts back to the lunar surface before the end of his four-year term. He will also confront the growing risks presented by Chinese and Russian counterspace capabilities by promoting the role of the US Space Force. He’s likely to shrug aside notions of international cooperation on space and de-emphasise international diplomatic efforts to maintain norms of responsible behaviour.

Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, will also prioritise space policy. The administration is likely to demand a greater effort by allies such as Australia to step up and share the burden of military space capability, including space control. It may also encourage Australia to more rapidly open its launch sites for US space launches and returns, potentially including SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship rocket.