How to predict Donald Trump’s foreign policy
Stay up to date with our new daily update, The US in brief, and our presidential poll tracker. Read more of our coverage of the US elections of 2024. Admirers and detractors alike, however, struggle to predict specific policies Mr Trump might adopt. Even those close to him admit that, until he is in the room with the likes of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping or Prince Muhammad bin Salman, he may not know himself what he wants to do. The art of the deal, they claim, lies in personal dynamics.
Yet both the critics and the true believers argue that those around Mr Trump play a part in channelling his urges, whether muddled or masterful. To understand what Mr Trump might do around the world, therefore, it pays to look at the competing ideologies of his advisers. Republicans have now splintered into at least three distinct schools of foreign policy, to borrow the taxonomy of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank: primacists, restrainers and prioritisers.
At least a few members of each group are likely to have Mr Trump’s ear if he becomes president again. Where these groups all align, it is relatively easy to predict policy. Where they are at odds with each other, or with Mr Trump’s impulses, expect erratic policymaking.
The primacists, the heirs of Ronald Reagan, want to preserve America’s global hegemony. They include many “never-Trumpers" who have been largely sidelined within the conservative movement. Also weeded out of Mr Trump’s inner circle is the “axis of adults" that once held him in check, such as John Kelly, his former chief of staff, James Mattis and Mark Esper, both former defence secretaries, and Mr Bolton and another former national security adviser, H.R.
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