16 Ways That Trump 2.0 Has Hurt Foreign Policy
Documenting the Damage: 100 Harmful Policies from the First 100 Days of Trump’s Second Term [website version] [PDF version]
- Intro + Part I: Democracy & Government
- Part II: Civil Rights and Liberties
- Part III: Economy and Public Services
- Part IV: Environment & Energy
- Part V + Conclusion: Foreign Policy [You are here]
Part V: Foreign Policy
Fans and critics alike have labelled President Trump an “isolationist,” someone who desires an end to US involvement in the world. This is entirely inaccurate. While it is true that Donald Trump rejects peaceful engagement with others — diplomacy, trade, and immigration — he is still an advocate of unilateral interventions in the affairs of other nations. He is not opposed to getting the US tangled up in foreign affairs, he is opposed to working alongside other nations as equal partners. The President does not want the US to dominate the world in collaboration with a network of allies and multilateral institutions — he wants the US to dominate the world alone.
The foreign policy of the second Trump administration is defined by a principled hostility towards peaceful diplomacy, an unprovoked trade war against the entire planet, imperialist claims to the resources and territories of other nations, further growth of US military spending, a complete disregard for basic human rights, and an aggressive approach towards others which risks sparking new armed conflicts around the world.
85. Abandoning Global Diplomacy
The second Trump administration is categorically opposed to multilateral diplomacy and global cooperation, instead preferring the use of unilateral violence and coercion. America First means America alone.
The US government has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, the Paris Agreement on climate change, the global minimum corporate tax agreement, and several other instruments for peaceful cooperation on major global challenges. The White House is currently reviewing US participation in all international organizations and treaties to determine which are “contrary to the interests of the United States…”
The State Department is planning a massive reorganization which will shed 15% of its staff and directly undermine its ability to engage in diplomacy on a host of important issues. Offices slated for closure include those dedicated to women’s rights, human trafficking, climate change, and more. The State Department also intends to limit the scope of its annual reports on international human rights, removing references to due process, the right to protest, corruption, freedom of movement, prison conditions, and “free and fair elections.” The President’s forthcoming budget proposal is expected to go even further, cutting the State Department’s budget in half and closing at least 27 diplomatic outposts overseas.
Many of the administration’s anti-diplomatic decisions were motivated by President Trump’s general foreign policy agenda, such as the freeze on funding to the World Trade Organization. But many others were motivated by a desire to punish institutions which have disagreed with the Israeli government, including the creation of sanctions on the International Criminal Court, the blockage of funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and the “review” of US membership in the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
More generally, the second Trump administration is signaling a principled opposition to the use of multilateral diplomacy at all, even for matters of global consensus. In March, US diplomats announced their total opposition to the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of basic priorities which the international community has organized around since 2015. This list of goals which the US government now “rejects and denounces” includes “quality education,” “zero hunger,” “gender equality,” and “clean water and sanitation.”
86. Destroying Foreign Aid
The first government agency selected for destruction by DOGE was the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the world’s largest source of humanitarian aid. The plot to destroy foreign aid began with a “90-day pause” on foreign aid to all recipients (except for Egypt and Israel). Next came plans to eliminate up to 90% of all foreign aid, which eventually materialized in the form of an 83% cut. Several other foreign aid agencies are also being targeted. Border Patrol’s move into USAID’s old office perfectly symbolizes the government’s shifting priorities: rather than helping people in need, we are simply trying to keep them away from us.
It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of life that will be lost as a result of this decision. Ending support for child vaccination in poor countries, cancelling support for famine aid, demolishing the world’s most successful anti-HIV/AIDS program — altogether, one estimate suggests that these and other cuts could kill somewhere between 2–5 million people per year. Another analysis suggests that the cuts to health programs alone could kill 25 million over the next 15 years. Already, we have already begun to hear the stories of some of those who were killed by the destruction of USAID.
Although USAID has been decimated in its original form, leaks from the White House suggest that it will survive in a worse form than before. Rather than being an independent agency, the reorganized “US Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance” would be located within the State Department, allowing for even more political interference in its humanitarian decisions than before. The agency will “not be philanthropic in nature,” but will instead focus explicitly on “advanc[ing] our direct national security, strategic, and commercial interests.” It will also direct its energies towards “supporting American companies to trade and invest in high-growth markets,” subjugating human lives to the profits of US corporations. In other words, many of the worst features of the old USAID will be amplified and intensified, leaving millions to perish.
87. Starting a Trade War
Trade is the one area in which Trump’s foreign policy breaks mostly sharply from the consensus of Washington DC. Rather than pushing for corporate-friendly “free trade” agreements, President Trump is instead dedicated to starting a mercantilist trade war against the entire world, dealing severe damage to the world economy and ensuring that the cost of living crisis will only intensify.
The second Trump administration began by placing blanket import tariffs on all three of the US’ largest trade partners — Mexico, Canada, and China — prompting retaliatory tariffs from each. These have been accompanied by tariffs on steel and aluminum; cars and automobile parts; and countries importing Venezuelan oil. Investigations into the need for future tariffs have been launched on wood, copper, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors. To solidify the nation’s new direction on trade, the March budget bill included a provision that will make some of these tariffs harder to remove.
Several other policies directed at China could further disrupt the US economy. The elimination of “de minimis” exceptions for low-value imports will subject a wide array of once-exempt consumer goods to the new tariffs. The administration had also planned to raise port fees for Chinese ships in a way that would raise the cost of maritime shipping, although this plan is now being reconsidered.
All of these changes to trade policy were only a small preview of what was to come. On April 2nd, the Trump administration announced massive “reciprocal” tariffs covering practically the entire world. This tariff plan was widely criticized for its poor reasoning, basic errors, bad targeting, and for not even being reciprocal, amongst many other complaints. Within 24 hours, this backlash led Trump to pause the tariff plan for 90 days, instead placing a flat 10% tariff on the entire world and a stunning 145% tariff on China for daring to retaliate (for some products, tariffs on China could reach as high as 245%). These massive trade restrictions on China resulted in the backup plan raising tariffs even higher than Trump’s original plan would have.
The rollout of these tariffs was marked by extreme inconsistency. On Friday, April 11th, the White House issued a “Clarification of Exceptions” to the tariffs; two days later, the President claimed that “There was no Tariff ‘exception’ announced on Friday.” Indeed, there were some moments when the White House itself was unsure what tariff rates they had just set. These large, chaotic shifts in US tariff policy within such a short time frame created deep confusion amongst foreign diplomats and raised economic policy uncertainty to its highest ever level in the 21st century so far, bringing much of the nation’s economic investment to a halt. Some even suspect that the odd timing around these back-and-forth moves may have been an opportunity for insider trading, as billionaires had their “best-ever day” on the stock market after the first reversal was announced. For now, there’s no way to know whether tariffs will rise or fall in the near future.
Unless the negotiations to deescalate the trade war show some major results, the United States will have an effective tariff rate of about 27%. This is the highest tariff rate of any country in the world today, as well as the highest tariff rate that the US has seen in nearly 100 years. Economists from across the political spectrum believe that the tariffs will be economically destructive and highly regressive (hitting the poorest more than three times as hard as the richest). Others note that the President’s authority to grant exemptions to the tariffs creates enormous opportunities for corruption — Trump himself said that the decision of who to give exemptions to will be made “instinctively, more than anything.”
88. Advocating Expansionism
President Trump has repeatedly praised former US President William McKinley, noting that his presidency featured an “expansion of territorial gains for the Nation.” This is true: President McKinley oversaw an aggressive campaign of imperial expansionism, dominating foreign territories from the Philippines to Puerto Rico. The naked expansionism of the McKinley era has returned to American politics today through President Trump’s disturbing fascination with stealing others’ lands.
The US-Canadian border — the longest land border on the planet — has been directly challenged by the White House, while the President continues to refer to the US’ northern neighbor as the nation’s “51st state.” Trump has repeatedly reaffirmed this position: “When I say they should be a state, I mean that. I really mean that.” The combination of a trade war and expansionist threats has forced Canada to seriously reconsider its long-standing alliance with the US. According to the Canadian Prime Minister, “The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over… It’s clear the US is no longer a reliable partner.” Almost half of all Canadians now see the US as a hostile nation.
President Trump has also made clear his desire to annex the Danish territory of Greenland, saying in his first congressional address of the term that “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He has discussed these colonialist ambitions in multiple meetings with Danish and NATO officials, statements which were condemned by all five of Greenland’s elected political parties. Even though only 6% of Greenlanders wish to become a part of the US, the second Trump administration has continued to study a potential takeover and place pressure on the island territory, even threatening invasion: according to President Trump, he “never take[s] military force off the table.”
Next, President Trump repeatedly called for US “ownership” of the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The President referred to the territory as “an incredible piece of important real estate” and shared an AI video (made with the intention of parodying of him) featuring a Gaza Strip adorned with massive golden statues of Donald Trump. Meanwhile, a proposal under discussion at the White House would treat El Salvador’s mega-prison as a US territory, allowing for people to be disappeared into the mega-prison without it even counting as a deportation.
The case of Panama proves that these expansionist broadsides are not mere bluster — they’re extortion. Trump’s repeated threats and military coercion aimed at the Panama Canal Zone were enough to force the nation into modifying its foreign policy with China, for no compelling reason other than that the US President demanded it. This type of naked imperialism backed by threats of offensive war is exploitative, immoral, illegal, and genuinely dangerous. We can only hope that the world will find a way to collaborate towards containing the American rogue state.
89. Waging Imperialist Pressure Campaigns
Territorial expansion is not the only way in which the second Trump administration is pressuring others to bend to its will — they’re using traditional imperialist coercion too. The White House reportedly leaned heavily on Iraq’s fragile government to force them into increasing their oil exports. In Argentina, the US tried to hold the nation’s access to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hostage until it dropped a currency swap deal with China. What other nations want for themselves is irrelevant — all that matters is what President Trump wants.
The IMF and the World Bank are two important institutions through which the US dominates the rest of the world: the US has de facto veto power over major IMF decisions and is given the exclusive privilege of selecting the World Bank’s President. If Trump were actually an isolationist, he would want to withdraw from both; yet these are two of the only international institutions which he plans to seriously engage with. The US Treasury Secretary stated his intention to use these institutions to push President Trump’s agenda on the rest of the world, calling for reforms that would “expand U.S. leadership,” pressure China into modifying its economic policies, and abandon projects addressing climate change and gender inequality.
The Trump administration’s disregard for the sovereignty of other nations is especially clear in its feud with the democratic government of South Africa. The nation’s post-apartheid efforts at reducing racial inequality have drawn the ire of major Trump supporters like Elon Musk, whose wealth is rooted in his father’s career in the apartheid-era mining industry. Musk’s ridiculous claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa triggered a complete meltdown in US-South African relations, including the expulsion of their ambassador, a cutoff of official support, and the absurd offer of refugee status to white South Africans (even as refugee admissions have been shuttered for those in actual need). Plain racism is one of the major causes of this conflict, but so to is personal gain: the Trump administration’s actions can be read as an attempt at coercing South Africa into repealing its recent land reform efforts, along with other laws which Musk sees as obstacles to his business ambitions.
90. Spending More on War
In public, the second Trump administration has flip-flopped on its public position towards military spending, an indecisiveness representative of the clear foreign policy divides that exist within the Trumpist coalition. But behind all of the bluster about efficiency, there is no doubt that the second Trump administration will continue to shovel more money into the single largest source of government waste: the Department of Defense (DOD).
The Pentagon announced in March that it was cutting $580 million in “wasteful spending,” along with another $5.1 billion in April. These modest cuts are a step in the right direction, but have already been completely overtaken by other changes in the opposite direction. Congress approved a $6 billion dollar increase in national security spending in their March budget bill, which may ultimately balloon into a $15 billion increase by the time that they are done with it. The budget bill also provided the White House with additional flexibility in how they spend these funds. Congress hopes to inject up to $150 billion more into the Pentagon later this year, and the President has committed himself to wasting a record-breaking $1 trillion on the military.
While closing the office responsible for crafting much of the US’s military strategy (a form of political payback), the administration also endorsed the creation of several expensive new toys that will pad the pockets of corrupt weapons companies. The proposal for a new fighter jet named after Trump is practically guaranteed to turn into a wasteful failure: the “F-47” is already expected to cost more than $300 million each, several times more than the disastrous F-35 jet which has become the most expensive weapon system in history. Trump also promoted the creation of an expensive “Golden Dome” missile defense system, a long-time dream of certain militarists despite the fact that such systems are unneeded and have never worked. War profiteers like Lockheed Martin are salivating at the opportunity, though the company most favored for the contract appears to be Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The White House’s promise of defense acquisition reform could prove to be productive, but the sections dedicated to cutting programs that exceed their cost estimates lack teeth. Other parts of the memo are committed to the deregulation of military contractors, which will just shuffle money around the military-industrial complex without lowering costs or cutting waste. While all of the parts of the government that help people are being torn apart, the war machine just keeps growing larger.
The White House is reportedly considering a reduction in the number of US troops stationed in Europe, which is a good idea in its own right. But even if they do follow through on these plans, their final goal is only to shift the costs of militarism, not to reduce it. The White House has repeatedly pressed the European powers of NATO to spend 5% of their GDP on their militaries. The demand is laughable — very few peacetime nations spend that much on their militaries, and even the US spends only 3.5% — but the pressure might still be enough to shift Europe’s resources away from human needs and towards the “organized murder” of war.
91. Killing More Civilians
One often-forgotten aspect of Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign was his explicit endorsement of war crimes, advocating for the murder of entire families. This disdain for innocent life continues into the present administration, as evidenced by the second Trump administration’s disturbing obsession with the US military’s “lethality.” In order to increase this “lethality,” President Trump is willfully increasing the number of civilian deaths caused by US military operations.
The White House has loosened the DOD’s civilian protection standards for airstrikes and special operations raids, making it easier for the US military to act without any concern for the innocents it kills. Officials working on civilian protection programs within the Pentagon report that their programs are being downsized. Training courses on the “Law of War” will soon become optional for US soldiers. Meanwhile, plans to reform the US military’s justice system would deemphasize the need to hold soldiers accountable for war crimes.
A similar philosophy has informed the government’s approach towards weapons exports: arms transfer rules intended to prevent US weapons from being used to kill civilians have been removed without explanation, making it even easier for the US to arm mass murderers around the world. One executive order indicates that the administration plans to further loosen arms export rules in the future, and insiders suggest that a massive arms sale to the Saudi monarchy is currently in the works.
The “Signalgate” scandal revealed leaked chat logs showing top US officials gleefully celebrating the destruction of an entire apartment building in order to kill one target. Not long after, the President shared a video on social media of a US airstrike which killed dozens of Yemenis; the Houthi rebels targeted by the strike claimed that the victims “had no connection” to them. This barbarism will destroy countless innocent lives and make the world a far more dangerous place.
92. Bombing the Broader Middle East
Following an airstrike in early March, Donald Trump became both the fifth and the seventh consecutive US President to bomb Iraq. Despite four decades of failure, no one in US foreign policymaking circles seems to have realized that this approach may not be the solution to armed conflict in the Middle East.
Far more than Iraq, the second Trump administration has so far focused its violence towards Somalia and Yemen. Trump tripled the level of US airstrikes on Somalia during his first term, accomplishing nothing but thousands of deaths. This year, he has returned to a policy of intensive airstrikes against one of the world’s poorest countries. In his first three months, President Trump launched more airstrikes on Somalia than President Biden did throughout the entirety of 2024.
So too has the White House been escalating its warfare in Yemen. After re-designating the Houthi movement as a terrorist organization, the Trump administration dramatically increased its bombardment of the nation and sent aircraft carriers to the region as an intimidation tactic. The US military claims to have launched more than 800 airstrikes between March 15th and April 27th, averaging more than 18 a day. This billion-dollar bombing campaign has mostly hit non-military targets, killing hundreds and destroying a cancer hospital. US “double tap” strikes that kill emergency medical personnel constitute obvious war crimes. Yet the administration is considering going further still, potentially even funding a new offensive ground operation which would further destabilize the region.
When the Trump administration’s war plans leaked in the “Signalgate” scandal, the American press focused almost exclusively on the government’s lack of information security, never seriously interrogating the fact that they contained gleeful celebrations of a war crime. The numbness with which violence against Middle Easterners is received in the US has been a major contributor to the emergence of Donald Trump as a political figure: without the authoritarianism, xenophobia, and callous disregard for humanity unleashed by the Global War on Terror, it is difficult to imagine Trump ever making it this far.
93. Doubling Down on Violence Against Palestine
Blind support for the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine is a bipartisan tradition, but Trump is always willing to take things to another level. After more than a year of intense violence, the second Trump administration squandered a brief ceasefire to continue providing support to the relentless Israeli assault on Palestine.
Upon taking office, President Trump removed sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank, blocked funding to the UN agency providing aid to Palestinian civilians, and explicitly called for an ethnic cleansing that would allow the US to “take over” the Gaza Strip. The White House has enabled and encouraged the far-right Israeli government in its most sadistic impulses, including intentional ceasefire violations and the blockage of life-saving aid. Despite arrest warrants for Israeli leaders issued by the International Criminal Court, the US government welcomed the Israeli Prime Minister and sanctioned the Court.
The second Trump administration also circumvented Congress to approve a $7.4 billion arms sale in support of Israel’s campaign of destruction in Gaza, which human rights groups have increasingly come to recognize as a genocide. The March budget bill promised even more support for the Israeli government.
The White House has been unwilling to even rhetorically condemn Israeli war crimes. Trump’s ambassador to Israel has denied the very existence of Palestinians as human beings, declaring that there is “no such thing as a Palestinian.” While the US government has always supported Israeli violence against Palestine, the second Trump administration has found a way to take this inhumanity to new depths.
94. Risking War in Iran
Both the first and second Trump administrations have been concerningly open to the possibility of a war with Iran. This time around, they have returned to a “maximum pressure” sanction regime intended to obliterate the Iranian economy, threatened to bomb Iran, drafted extensive plans for a US-Iranian war, and built up our military presence in the Indian Ocean to prepare for a potential conflict. In late February, the US Air Force conducted simulated bombing runs in the neighboring country of Iraq while also running a joint exercise with the Israeli military to prepare for an Iranian bombing run. While a war with Iran is far from certain, it is still far too close for comfort.
The administration’s offer for US-Iranian diplomacy was at first thoroughly rejected by the Iranian government, which has no reason to trust President Trump. Trump chose to violate the successful Iran nuclear deal in 2018 (despite Iran’s compliance with the agreement) and assassinated a top Iranian military official, destroying the US government’s credibility. In addition, the “diplomatic” letter which Trump sent to Iran contained obvious threats; according to Trump himself, his message was: “I hope you’re going to negotiate. Because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing — for them.”
Fortunately, the Iranian government eventually agreed to negotiations, and President Trump has so far resisted the pressure to immediately attack them. Such negotiations offer incredible opportunities for peace in the Middle East if successful, but the chances of success have been weakened by continued US aggression. Even as the diplomatic process was unfolding, the White House continued to launch new sanctions and threaten military action. While emphasizing that war with Iran is not his preferred option, Trump added “…I may go in [to Iran] very willingly if we can’t get a deal. If we don’t make a deal, I’ll be leading the pack.”
The conflicting messages offered by US officials, swinging wildly back and forth between peace and war, have already undermined the nascent diplomatic process. If a deal is made, it will be a sign of extraordinary restraint by the Iranian government in the face of endless US provocations.
95. Risking War in Mexico
Traditional US “adversaries” like Iran are not the only nations at risk of an offensive US assault. The second Trump administration has also laid the early groundwork for a new war to be fought within the territory of our southern neighbor, Mexico.
The second Trump administration’s designation of Mexican and Central American drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations did little to expand the government’s ability to address the cartels, but it did make it easier to engage in secretive “counterterrorism” operations against them. As Trump told Congress, “The cartels are waging war in America, and it’s time for America to wage war on the cartels, which we are doing.” At least one member of Congress was excited enough by the prospect to introduce a formal authorization of military force against drug cartels, with phrasing that would allow the President to wage war in virtually every country in the western hemisphere. While the odds of passage through Congress are slim, the White House would be willing to wage a war regardless of whether they had congressional permission.
Further evidence that the Trump administration is considering a war in Mexico can be found in both what they say and what they do. This year’s “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” focuses much of its attention on the threat posed by cartels, at one point grouping them together with ISIS and al Qaeda. More concretely, the Central Intelligence Agency has escalated its surveillance drone flights over Mexican territory.
Asked if he would rule out an unauthorized military airstrike on Mexican soil, President Trump’s nominee for the US ambassador to Mexico refused to say that he would. Trump himself said that he would “absolutely” consider such an attack. The White House has already been considering these types of drone strikes despite the disapproval of Mexico’s President. Combined with the military build-up on the US’ southern border, it is not difficult to see where these developments could lead. Considering the abject failure of the militarized “War on Drugs” over the last fifty years, we can only hope that this war doesn’t become far more literal.
96. Meddling in Latin America
The selection of neoconservative hawk Marco Rubio as Trump’s Secretary of State was an early indication that the new administration would take an aggressive stance against Latin America, meddling in the affairs of nations which refuse to be subservient to US demands. It did not take long for this assumption to be proven correct.
The second Trump administration reversed the Biden administration’s small steps towards normalizing relations with the Cuban government, adding the nation back onto the State Sponsors of Terrorism list despite a complete lack of evidence for this charge. It also reinstated the “Cuba Restricted List” to limit business transactions between the two neighboring countries and placed restrictions upon Cuba’s medical diplomacy program, drawing sharp condemnation from the Caribbean nations which benefit from it. In case there was any doubt about Secretary Rubio’s feelings, he celebrated the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs operation, the failed 1961 invasion of Cuba which Rubio described as a “heroic mission.”
Actions taken against the Venezuelan government have been equally punitive, tightening sanctions on the nation’s oil industry, cancelling authorizations for foreign businesses dealing with the industry, and even implementing unprecedented secondary sanctions on countries which purchase Venezuelan oil, all of which will worsen the nation’s humanitarian crisis.
In March, the Ecuadorian government led by conservative President Daniel Noboa announced the creation of a new naval facility that they hope to see “eventually occupied by US troops,” encouraging the US to take on a greater role in Ecuador’s efforts against drug cartels. Soon after, just two days before the country’s elections, news emerged that US intelligence agencies preferred Noboa over his opponent. Noboa won another term in an election marked by some questionable circumstances, and the State Department announced that it “look[s] forward to continuing our work with President Noboa’s administration” on problems like “drug trafficking organizations.”
The US government’s aggressive posture has even sparked conflicts with traditional friends of the US like Colombia, briefly picking a fight with a nation that is officially designated as an ally. This meddling in Latin America’s affairs will raise tensions across the region, endangering peace and development throughout the western hemisphere.
97. Supporting the Salvadoran Dictatorship
There is one government in Latin America which the second Trump administration has made friends with: the government of El Salvador, a dictatorship led by the self-declared “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele. Despite the extreme authoritarianism of the Salvadoran regime, the Trump administration has repeatedly praised their behavior, complimented Bukele for launching a “renaissance of capitalism,” and referred to a US “alliance” with the tyrant. The State Department even made the political decision to lower its travel advisory for the nation.
El Salvador has become the world’s worst prison state under Bukele, incarcerating nearly 1.7% of its total population. This has not phased President Trump, who a secret deal with Bukele to provide his dictatorship with millions of dollars in order to detain US immigrants in a mega-prison which no prisoner has ever been released from. Along with the direct payments, prisoner transfers offer several other benefits to the Salvadoran regime: deportees can be used as slaves in the country’s “Zero Idleness” labor program, and the few actual gang leaders with knowledge of Bukele’s secret deals with gangs can be disappeared before they ever have a chance to testify.
This US-Salvadoran cooperation has also provided one of the Western hemisphere’s worst dictatorships with propaganda materials, especially after the US Homeland Security Secretary visited Bukele’s mega-prison and called it “one of the tools in our toolkit,” thereby endorsing the use of torture on people who were jailed without trial or due process. Salvadoran activists protested this visit, decrying the Trump administration’s “use of our land as an imperial prison and the attempt to turn our territory into free zones for neofascist experimentation.”
98. Exploiting Ukraine
The Russian invasion of Ukraine left the nation’s fate at the mercy of the US and other western nations backing its war effort. Now, President Trump plans to exploit this situation to bleed Ukraine dry. Trump is not the first President to exploit Ukraine’s vulnerabilities as a money-making opportunity — the US government has been pushing the nation to privatize its state assets for decades — but his plan is by far the most offensive.
While the US government provided massive levels of military assistance to Ukraine under the Biden administration, it failed to make sufficient efforts towards a diplomatic solution which would end the violence and respect Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. The plans of the second Trump administration are a sharp reversal in the opposite direction, slashing support while pushing Ukraine to accept practically any deal that Russia offers. In exchange for such a deal, Trump is demanding US control over Ukraine’s natural resources and infrastructure.
The second Trump administration opened with a variety of policies that, when viewed together as group, can fairly be described as “pro-Russian.” Not only did they briefly pause military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, as well as offensive cyber operations against Russia; they also voted against Ukraine at the United Nations, withdrew from a European-led organization investigating the Russian invasion, shut down a project tracking kidnapped Ukrainian children, and started a public argument with the Ukrainian President.
At the same time, the White House announced negotiations with Russia. Diplomatic negotiations are the right path forward for ending the Russ0-Ukrainian War, and they have already achieved some small, temporary successes. But the approach of the Trump administration has sparked concerns that the US-Russia talks are not truly aimed at a just peace. First, these talks did not include Ukraine, leaving room for US officials to discuss “dividing up certain assets” in Ukraine between the US and Russia. Worse yet, Trump’s “final offer” proposal would require Ukraine to effectively abandon the vast majority of territories that Russia is currently occupying,
Amidst these negotiations, President Trump has insisted that Ukraine owes the US for its previous support. The US government is pushing the Ukrainian government to accept an exploitative mineral rights deal which would allow America to extract at least $100 billion of natural resources from Ukrainian territory, perhaps even giving the US ownership over Ukrainian energy and transport infrastructure. Ukraine has already agreed to an outline of a deal, though some Ukrainian officials warn that America’s proposed plans are a form of “robbery.”
Already, the idea that the US will take whatever action is necessary to dominate foreign mineral reserves is affecting US relations with other parts of the world. In response to a minerals-for-military aid offer by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the US government sent an envoy to discuss the possibility of such a deal. From Ukraine to the Congo, notions of peace, justice, and national sovereignty all fall to the wayside when confronted with the Trump administration’s hunger for other nations’ wealth.
99. Risking War in China
Though bipartisan hostility towards China is on the rise in the US, a US-China war represents a worst-case scenario for the 21st century: an entirely avoidable disaster with the potential to kill millions. Yet according to some in the second Trump administration, this war has already started. President Trump’s nominee for the US ambassador to China claims that “This is a new kind of war. It’s not a Cold War, it’s not a kinetic war, it’s a different war.”
So far this anti-China sentiment has taken largely predictable forms, like the tightening of US export restrictions on China and other measures to disentangle our economies. Other early signals are more disturbing. The US military announced that it will increase its presence in both the Philippines and Japan, reorganizing the US Forces Japan command into what they call a “‘warfighting’ headquarters.” The Chinese government has accused the US government of engaging in cyberattacks against the Asian Winter Games, which may represent another escalation in the growing cyberwar between the two great powers. And at the UN, US representatives stated that they were suspicious of the phrase “peaceful coexistence” purely because it had been used by the Chinese government.
Particularly concerning is a recently-leaked DOD memo which elaborated on the White House’s intentions to prepare for a full-scale war with China. The memo contained significant content taken directly from a report published by the Heritage Foundation, which is a major advocate of the idea that we are already in a “New Cold War” and should arm ourselves accordingly. While the possibility of a direct US-China war is thankfully still remote, it is far from clear that the White House can be trusted to keep it that way.
100. Decreasing Nuclear Security
Hanlon’s razor states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” This strikes me as an appropriate lens through which to view recent changes to nuclear security policy. Cutting funding for nuclear nonproliferation programs? That can be attributed to either the malice of militarists or the stupidity of short-term thinkers in Congress. But thoughtlessly firing the workers responsible for maintaining the security of our nuclear weapons, realizing what you’ve just done, and then immediately scrambling to rehire them? That’s pure stupidity.
Conclusion
There is a dance between change and continuity which is key to understanding the dangers of Donald Trump. While many of his critics draw attention to the ways in which he is unique, it is sometimes quite remarkable how little there is separating him from the status quo of US politics. Presidential power has been growing since Nixon, tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the rest has been the name of the game since Reagan, the US-Mexican border has been increasingly militarized since Clinton, the use of terrorism as an excuse for authoritarianism has been standard practice since W. Bush, and the use of drone warfare and “surgical” airstrikes to enable widespread interventionism was perfected by Obama. In these and many other areas of policy, Trump simply took things that were already broken and made them worse than ever before.
In particular, there would be no Trump presidency without the ground that had been set by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. For proof of this, one needs to look no further than the Heritage Foundation, the influential right-wing think tank which played an integral role in setting the conservative agenda under both Reagan and Bush. The organization has grown increasingly far-right alongside the rest of the conservative movement in recent decades, as evidenced by their “Project 2025” manifesto advocating for a comprehensive restructuring of the US government to weaken democracy and ensure a permanent shift to the political right.
While President Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, it has clearly informed his policy agenda in much the same way that the Heritage Foundation informed the agendas of Reagan and Bush. A review by TIME Magazine found that two-thirds of the executive actions implemented in the first four days of the second Trump administration bear a close resemblance to proposals in Project 2025, and independent projects have documented even more connections. The Heritage Foundation did not suddenly become extremist overnight. They, like President Trump, faithfully followed the principles of Reagan and Bush’s conservatism to one of its logical conclusions: far-right authoritarianism.
But despite this continuity, there is no denying that the second Trump administration also represents a radical change. The breakneck speed at which the administrative state is being dismantled creates unprecedented opportunities for the reactionary project of Trumpism to solidify its power and reshape American politics in favor of the wealthy and the powerful. The absolute rejection of all forms of internationalism and globalization represents an unsettling rejection of humanity’s common interests. And the complete disregard for basic democratic practices foreshadows a serious threat to the notion of popular self-governance, as limited as it may already be in the United States.
It is different this time. Trump was effectively granted legal immunity by the Supreme Court, his allies learned important lessons from the failures of his first term, his opposition is scattered and unfocused, public trust is at extreme lows, billionaire control over media and communication networks is stronger than ever, and a radicalized conservative movement has proven that it is very well-organized. President Trump claims that his “second term is just more powerful… When I say ‘do it,’ they do it.” This is a power that they are eager to use. In the words of presidential advisor Elon Musk, “This is a revolution.”
Still, it is the choices of yesterday which have set the stages for these new developments. There is widespread agreement that the current American political system is paralyzed and unresponsive, incapable of seriously addressing the challenges facing it. It is the plain truth that most of the power in our society is held by a self-interested and unaccountable elite which is largely apathetic to the public’s demands. And while the fortunes of those at the top continue to grow, far too many people are experiencing stagnation and decline.
Lacking a powerful organized labor movement or a unified progressive political force to connect these generalized complaints with their true culprits — neoliberalism and a lack of democracy in both our politics and our economy — this popular frustration has been captured by right-wing populists who instead offer a “producerist” explanation: an evil sect of liberal elites is conspiring with underserving minorities and anti-American leftists to steal your hard-earned money and destroy your beloved culture.
This type of right-wing populist scapegoating has always been a feature of American politics, arguably finding its first national success through President Andrew Jackson (one of Trump’s favorite Presidents). It was refined into a form considered acceptable to mainstream political audiences by Republican political operatives during Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and the Reagan Revolution. But the more radical strain of this thought now embraced by the Trump coalition has always been right beneath the surface, steadily growing in power. For every Donald Trump, there have been dozens of Pat Buchanans, George Wallaces, and Strom Thurmonds waiting to strike.
The current Democratic Party has shown itself to be entirely unprepared for this moment. Under the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, the party lurched significantly to the right in hopes of reshaping its coalition to include well-educated professionals, business executives with large checkbooks, and moderate Republicans. They understood that doing so might lose them support among their traditional support base, but they considered this to be a winning trade.
In 2016, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer argued that “For every blue collar Democrat we will lose in western [Pennsylvania], we will pick up two, three moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio, and Illinois, and Wisconsin.” That same year, the Democratic presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton promoted the candidacy of Donald Trump in the Republican primaries under the belief that he was so extreme that he could be easily defeated. She ultimately lost in three of the four states that Schumer predicted she would win.
Even in the face of an unprecedented shift towards anti-democratic authoritarianism, the Democratic Party has still failed to establish itself as a serious opposition party. This report makes 13 references to a budget bill passed in March which contained a variety of harmful policies. This bill was only able to pass because of the support of ten Senators in the Democratic caucus, including Minority Leader Schumer. The Democratic Party’s ceaseless capitulation to the demands of its opponents, abandonment of economic populism, and excessive focus on donors and moderate Republicans at the expense of its own voting base are all contributing factors to the rise of President Trump.
We should not assume that the second Trump administration will be willing to relinquish its power voluntarily. Their defeat will be the result of widespread popular discontent and resistance, energy which must be directed towards a credible alternative that meets the urgency of the moment and the hopes of the voting public. Business as usual will not do. A countermovement is required, once which is present both on the streets and at the ballot box.
Theoretically, the newly expanded powers of the presidency could be wielded by any future government, including a progressive one. Trump’s solution to this problem is to move quickly in cementing his vision within the permanent architecture of government. Whether or not he is joking when he discusses his thoughts of running for an unconstitutional third term, Trump does intend for the Trumpist project to outlive his second term and continue into the next Presidency, regardless of how the American people will feel about it when they realize what has happened. Given the Biden administration’s willingness to embrace many of the first Trump administration’s policies on trade, immigration, and US-China relations, this is not a far-fetched assumption.
So long as the next Democratic presidency prioritizes a “return to normalcy,” Trump will be successful in permanently reshaping US politics in his image. This is not a wound which will heal on its own, but a wound which will become infected without proper treatment. The first 100 days of the next administration must be committed to a campaign of Detrumpification which is at least as ambitious as Trump’s first 100 days, pursuing a positive vision for the future rather than promising a return to the status quo which produced Trump in the first place.
While crafting a full Detrumpification agenda is beyond the scope of this report, I might suggest the inclusion of the following: firing every single political appointee and DOGE operative of the second Trump administration; replacing empty government positions and revitalizing the civil service; investigating the corruption of the Trump administration, including criminal prosecutions when appropriate; abolishing ICE and dismantling the DHS; strengthening anti-corruption institutions and ethics standards for executive officials; repealing the Alien Enemies Act and reforming the President’s emergency and wartime authorities; strengthening data privacy laws; comprehensive campaign finance reform to limit the undemocratic power of the wealthy; electoral reform to allow for multi-party democracy; replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote; democratic and majoritarian reforms to Congress; fixed terms for Supreme Court Justices; and a steadfast commitment to the creation of a multi-racial working class political coalition capable of resisting the siren song of reactionary nationalism.
