A New Trump Administration

By The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

The 2024 U.S. presidential election has global implications. As a new administration steps into power, world leaders, allies, and adversaries are closely watching to gauge the impact on foreign policy, trade, security, and diplomacy. On this page, Fletcher faculty and scholars — experts in international affairs and global policy — offer their unique perspectives on what the election results signify for the world. Through their analyses, we explore the early signals and policy shifts that could reshape global dynamics in the first 100 days. Join us as we navigate the implications of these historic developments from an international standpoint.

East Asia

By Aram Hur, Assistant Professor of Political Science

(December 18) Trump’s Asia policy boils down to two things: hawkish against China and a “prove your worth” stance. Trump threatens massive tariffs on products coming from China. He also wants to withdraw American troops from South Korea unless it pays more—a leftover agenda from his first term—and is unlikely to promise anything to Taiwan unless it does the same.

In stark contrast to Biden’s approach of building a democratic alliance against China, Trump will bring a tit-for-tat pragmatism. His hawkishness against China will not imply support for Taiwan in the event of cross-strait conflict. South Korea’s status as a long-time, democratic U.S. ally won’t buy any grace period for withdrawing American troops, even as the country stands vulnerable from the leadership vacuum left after president Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment following a brief martial law decree. North Korea’s mutual defense treaty with Russia will likely bring Kim Jong-un back into the fold of strongman leaders Trump praises, including Putin. Japan’s special relationship with the U.S. will go from assumed to conditional, depending on where it stands in Trump’s economic war against China, which carries collateral for Japan’s economy.

The result is a more atomized and internally competitive East Asia vying for U.S. support. This might achieve Trump’s “America First” vision during his term, but at the long-term cost of destabilizing a region that is critical to U.S. legitimacy. Sticks rarely buy respect, which is the currency America needs most.

Russia Diplomacy

By Mikhail Troitskiy, Visiting Professor

(December 10) Fifty-five years ago, President Richard Nixon instructed his diplomats to convince the Soviet Union that he was a “madman” who might escalate the Vietnam War at any moment. Today, Donald Trump appears to be adopting a similar approach. During the campaign, he signaled that he may apply maximum pressure on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine if Russia resists the kind of compromise his new administration would favor.

As president-elect, Trump and his transition team have a limited window to explore a possible ceasefire without bearing full responsibility for the outcome. Members of his team acknowledge that the outgoing Biden administration’s heightened pressure on Russia aligns with their strategy of strengthening the U.S. negotiating position before Trump takes office. This contrasts sharply with Trump’s first administration, when his advisor Michael Flynn privately urged Moscow not to escalate in response to the Obama administration’s expulsion of Russian diplomats.

Notably, the handover from Biden to Trump is unfolding without overt hostility. This relative harmony may confirm Moscow’s concerns that both administrations are coordinating their tactics, leaving Russia with fewer opportunities to exploit differences in U.S. policy.

In 1969, the Soviet Union never truly believed Nixon’s “madman” act. Today, Russia must decide how far it can push without forfeiting whatever goodwill remains in a Trump-led Washington. Excessive brinkmanship risks eroding support within the Russian ruling class, placing additional stress on the Kremlin and potentially undermining its position as it navigates the Trump era.

Migration

By Katrina Burgess, Professor of Political Economy

(December 9) President-elect Donald Trump is promising to quickly close the U.S. southern border and deport the nearly 12 million immigrants without legal authorization to remain in the country.

As a scholar of migration in the Americas, my research shows that Trump’s approach is unlikely to stop migrants from trying to enter the U.S. but very likely to enrich criminals. In 2023, my research team and I interviewed over 130 migrants in Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. What we found is that deterrence isn’t working because of shifts in who is migrating and why they are leaving home.

Until 2011, the vast majority of illegal border crossers were Mexicans, mostly young men seeking higher incomes to support their families. Today, more than 60% of the migrants who cross the U.S. border without legal authorization are from places other than Mexico, including Central America, Venezuela, Ecuador and Haiti. Forty percent of them are parents traveling with children.

Many of these migrants are fleeing chronic violence, rampant corruption, natural disasters or economic collapse. For these migrants, it is worth the risk of being kidnapped, dying in the desert or being deported to escape a desperate situation.

While prevention through deterrence has not stopped migrants, it has enriched smugglers, corrupt government officials and other criminals who take advantage of vulnerable migrants on their way to the U.S. border. According to one estimate, smuggling revenues in the Americas grew from $500 million in 2018 to $13 billion in 2022.

For more, read Professor Burgess’s piece in The Conversation

Tariffs

By Michael Klein, Clayton Professor of International Economic Affairs

(December 7) President-elect Trump plans to impose across-the-board tariffs, with especially high tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, the top three countries of origin of U.S. imports. Tariffs are like a sales tax that will raise prices for consumers on imports and on domestically-produced goods that compete with those imports – and, unlike a sales tax, the higher prices of domestically-produced goods will not provide any tax revenue. 

In a world with international supply chains, tariffs also hurt American companies.  For example, steel tariffs raise production costs for companies that produce things like refrigerators, cars, and dishwashers; for every job in America that produces steel there are 80 jobs for which steel is used as an input.  Jobs in other sectors will be threatened by retaliatory trade restrictions, as occurred with the retaliatory tariffs imposed on American agricultural products during the first Trump Administration. This retaliation prompted the Administration to provide unprecedented levels of financial support to farmers, so it was a net drain on the government’s finances. Tariffs also reduce efficiency and increase uncertainty which makes it difficult for companies to plan. 

For all these reasons, there is a broad consensus among economists that high, across-the-board tariffs are a bad idea. 

American Statecraft

By Daniel Drezner, Professor of International Politics

(November 19) Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement will define U.S. foreign policy for the next four years. The United States will speak with one voice on foreign policy, and that voice will be Trump’s.

There are likely to be three significant differences between Trump’s first- and second-term foreign policies. First, Trump will come into office with a more homogeneous national security team than he had in 2017. Second, the state of the world in 2025 is rather different than it was in 2017. And third, foreign actors will have a much better read of Donald Trump.

It will not be surprising if foreign benefactors approach Trump’s coterie of advisers with implicit and explicit promises of lucrative deals after their time in office—as long as they play ball while in power. Combine this with the expected role that billionaires such as Elon Musk will play in Trump 2.0, and one can foresee a dramatic increase in the corruption of U.S. foreign policy.

Trump will navigate world politics with greater confidence this time around. Whether he will have any better luck bending the world to his “America first” brand is another question entirely. What is certain, however, is that the era of American exceptionalism has ended. Under Trump, U.S. foreign policy will cease promoting long-standing American ideals. That, combined with an expected surge of corrupt foreign policy practices, will leave the United States looking like a garden-variety great power.

For more, read Professor Drezner’s essay in Foreign Affairs

(This post is republished from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.)