President-elect Donald J. Trump will enter the White House having promised to radically alter United States foreign policy, with ramifications for Americans and the world.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not yet clear how. Mr. Trump offered vague and sometimes contradictory proposals during his campaign, with few of the typical details or white papers. Voters, foreign policy professionals and the country\u2019s allies are all, to a real extent, left guessing.<\/p>\n
Here, then, is a rundown of what we know about Mr. Trump\u2019s foreign policy ideas and what some experts say about their feasibility and likely ramifications.<\/p>\n
What are Mr. Trump\u2019s proposed policies?<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr. Trump has repeatedly emphasized a set of ideas that would reduce America\u2019s role in the world. He said he would take unilateral action, move away from traditional allies and move closer to adversaries.<\/p>\n He said during the campaign that he would diminish or possibly abandon American commitments to security alliances. That includes NATO and defense treaties with Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n He has threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organization and called the North American Free Trade Agreement \u201cthe single worst trade deal ever signed in this country.\u201d And he said he would \u201ccancel\u201d the international agreement on combating climate change, reached last year in Paris.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has suggested that more countries should acquire nuclear weapons, to protect themselves without Washington\u2019s help. He has said allies like Saudi Arabia must pay for American support.<\/p>\n He has voiced admiration for Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, and said the United States should work with him and align with his Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad, in that country\u2019s civil war.<\/p>\n But Mr. Trump, not a dove, has indicated a willingness to use force and promised to reinstate waterboarding, a form of torture.<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody hits us within ISIS, you wouldn\u2019t fight back with a nuke?\u201d Mr. Trump asked rhetorically in an MSNBC interview this spring.<\/p>\n When the Iranian Navy intercepted American sailors who had drifted into their waters, Mr. Trump said that, had he been president, the Iranians would have been \u201cshot out of the water.\u201d He has threatened to dismantle the international agreement that limits Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n He supports imposing punitive economic measures on China, threatening high tariffs that would devastate trade between the world\u2019s two largest economies.<\/p>\n He supported the United States-led invasion of Iraq at the time, but harshly criticized it during the campaign, and he said that American troops should have \u201ctaken the oil\u201d from that country by force. He has also said that the United States should have seized Libya\u2019s oil.<\/p>\n Perhaps most famously, he has promised to build a wall on the country\u2019s southern border and force Mexico to pay for it.<\/p>\n Are these sincere proposals, or just campaign talk?<\/strong><\/p>\n It is difficult to extrapolate concrete plans from his pronouncements, particularly since they are not always consistent.<\/p>\n Some days, for example, he called NATO \u201cobsolete\u201d and implied that he would reduce American commitments to European security. On others, he did not go as far, saying only that European states should contribute more to NATO and focus more on terrorism.<\/p>\n Some statements seemed mainly about making a political point. For example, Mr. Trump said he opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal because it \u201cwas designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door,\u201d though the deal excludes China.<\/p>\n The agenda seemed to change with his mood, and he has released relatively few policy papers, making many foreign policy analysts wonder whether he may be entering office without a plan.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should not believe anyone who says they know what Trump will do \u2014 even if that person\u2019s name is Donald Trump,\u201d Jeremy Shapiro, research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a postelection policy brief.<\/p>\n Could President-elect Trump execute his ideas?<\/strong><\/p>\n American presidents enjoy unusual autonomy on foreign issues, and Mr. Trump would be able to make some of his proposals happen quickly.<\/p>\n He could scuttle the Iran nuclear deal (though its European signatories would most likely refuse efforts to negotiate a replacement), ignore United States commitments on climate change and impose tariffs on China and Mexico.<\/p>\n But other policies would be more difficult to enact. Mexico, for instance, seems unlikely to comply with his demand to pay for a border wall. Other ideas, such as seizing Iraq\u2019s oil, may not even be physically possible (the oil rests beneath the ground of a sovereign state).<\/p>\n His own administration could be his biggest roadblock.<\/p>\n Foreign policy is conducted by vast institutions \u2014 the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence agencies \u2014 staffed with thousands of career officers.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has only a handful of like-minded advisers. So he will need to staff these agencies with his party\u2019s foreign policy veterans \u2014 a group with which he has broken so acrimoniously that many denounced him and his policies in open letters. Now, they will have a sort of veto power over moves like withdrawing from NATO or striking Iran.<\/p>\n Elizabeth N. Saunders, a George Washington University political scientist, said that foreign policy bureaucracies have often steered presidents, rather than the other way around. They can stonewall or slow policies they dislike. Selective leaks to the public or to Congress can put pressure on the commander in chief to behave in a certain way.<\/p>\n When presidents openly overrule their foreign policy staff, Ms. Saunders found, public approval of that president and his policies often dives.<\/p>\n What is the Trump worldview?<\/strong><\/p>\n Beneath his specific proposals \u2014 or pronouncements \u2014 there does appear to be a guiding worldview.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump seems to see the world as chaotic and threatening and inhospitable to traditional American objectives like democracy promotion or international institutions. In this world, the United States must pursue its interests narrowly, unilaterally and with unapologetic force.<\/p>\n Thomas Wright, a Brookings Institution scholar, wrote in a long study of Mr. Trump\u2019s views that he consistently expresses \u201copposition to America\u2019s alliance relationships; opposition to free trade; and support for authoritarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Trump calls this \u201cAmerican first,\u201d and it would be a significant break with the role Washington has played in upholding the global order since the end of World War II.<\/p>\n Perhaps owing to his years in the competitive world of New York real estate development, Mr. Trump seems to approach foreign policy as a series of deals, each divided between a winner and a loser.<\/p>\n This may explain his skepticism of alliances: If every interaction must conclude with one party\u2019s humiliating loss, then mutually beneficial agreements are neither appealing nor possible.<\/p>\n The historian Walter Russell Mead places Mr. Trump within a \u201cJacksonian\u201d tradition in American foreign policy, referring to President Andrew Jackson, who served from 1829 to 1837: nationalist, populist, suspicious of the outside world \u2014 and willing to use force to beat it back.<\/p>\n What would happen if President Trump instituted these policies?<\/strong><\/p>\n In most cases, it is nearly impossible to say.<\/p>\n Because Mr. Trump\u2019s policies are so unusual and his election victory so unexpected, foreign nations have not indicated how they might respond. So it is difficult to judge even the first-order effect of, say, a NATO withdrawal or a partnership with Mr. Assad in Syria, much less any ripple effects.<\/p>\n In practice, much of foreign policy is responding to crises. Mr. Trump\u2019s lack of experience or clear proposals make it difficult to predict how he would handle, for example, a major breakthrough in North Korea\u2019s nuclear program or a major Russian cyberattack.<\/p>\n Some proposals, though, are easier to study.<\/p>\n An analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan think tank, found that Mr. Trump\u2019s potential imposition of double-digit tariffs on China and Mexico would, by decimating international trade, set off a recession in the United States and cost 4.8 million jobs.<\/p>\n Should he unravel the Iran nuclear deal, most analysts believe that Tehran would renew nuclear development but that the deal\u2019s other parties \u2014 Russia, China and several from Europe \u2014 would blame the United States and decline to reimpose sanctions.<\/p>\n Beyond that, Mr. Trump\u2019s likely impact on the world is difficult to predict. As Mr. Shapiro wrote in his policy brief, \u201cThe essence of Trump\u2019s foreign policy will be its unpredictability.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: <\/strong>nytimes.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President-elect Donald J. Trump will enter the White House having promised to radically alter United States foreign policy, with ramifications for Americans and the world. But it\u2019s not yet clear how. Mr. Trump offered vague and sometimes contradictory proposals during his campaign, with few of the typical details or white papers. 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