DONALD TRUMP has always said he wanted to be unpredictable, especially in conducting foreign policy. And so he is. Nearly a decade after Trump became the commanding figure in American politics, his real intentions in many areas remain as elusive as ever. Here in Washington, erstwhile insiders await Trump’s return to the White House and puzzle over how the most basic of policies will look in the coming years. Visiting delegations arrive to gather on-the-ground insights, only to come away with the same speculations they could have gleaned from the op-ed pages. For now, Trump has imposed his philosophy of history on the world: “We’ll see what happens!”
At the same time, Trump’s outlook has an inviting quality. It indicates that although he may have important ideas and instincts about international relations, he has few set plans and abides by few orthodoxies. He is willing to think situationally and act flexibly. In his first term, Trump sometimes heeded the advice of foreign leaders. South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed that he come to the table with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, redirecting threats of “fire and fury” into a round of unprecedented summitry. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shaped Trump’s position in the summits. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan persuaded him, for a time, to withdraw US troops from northern Syria. Polish President Andrzej Duda steered him to relocate some troops from Germany to Poland rather than pull them out of Europe. Trump’s second term brings no shortage of risks for the world, but countries should not underestimate their ability to steer the next administration in better or worse directions.
In Asia, better directions are distinctly possible. Under President Joe Biden, the United States attempted to make Asia its priority region and bolstered US alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific, but it struggled to convert activity into influence and effectiveness. Worse, the strategic rivalry between the US and China intensified to the point of threatening to upend the region’s longstanding security and prosperity. While the Biden administration effectively froze US policy toward North Korea, Pyongyang built up its nuclear and missile arsenals, established a potentially far-reaching partnership with Russia and strengthened its economic position.
In each of those areas, the incoming Trump administration could improve on the record of its predecessor. To be sure, it may do just the opposite. “Trump the China hawk” could intensify what his selections for secretary of state and national security adviser openly describe as an ideologically infused “Cold War” with Beijing. “Trump the aggrieved nationalist” could impose excessive, across-the-board tariffs and spoil relations with allies. But “Trump the dealmaker and peacemaker,” another self-image of the president-elect, has promise. If that persona prevails, it could serve the US and the region well. To encourage Trump’s best impulses, however, countries in Asia will have to be dexterous and take a different line toward Washington than the one to which they are accustomed.
Settling Ukraine, Completing the Pivot
Since the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022, the Biden administration has sought to highlight the interconnection of European and East Asian security problems and build “connective tissue” between US allies in both regions. By taking this stance, the administration has resisted pressure to concentrate more decisively on Indo-Pacific affairs, a concern of Republican critics who charged that investments in Ukrainian and NATO defenses came at the expense of capabilities needed for Taiwan and Asia. Biden’s all-at-once approach received meaningful rhetorical backing from key Asian partners themselves. Former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen recently argued that the US should prioritize Ukraine and seek “victory” there. Americans, she said, should “do whatever they can to help the Ukrainians.”1 Similarly, former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told the US Congress in April that American leadership is “indispensable” to saving Ukraine, protecting the Indo-Pacific and upholding international order worldwide.2
But central figures in the incoming Trump administration think otherwise. Both Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have made clear that they prioritize ending the war in Ukraine over pursuing victory for Ukraine. More broadly, a growing cohort of Trump-aligned voices draw a sharp distinction between the US military role in Asia and that in Europe.3 They argue that the US ought to shift much of the burden for securing Europe onto Europeans themselves so that US forces can remain strong enough to deter Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific. In the coming years, some of this agenda may be realized. If Russia and Ukraine reach a ceasefire that holds, the US could refocus its political attention on Asia and replenish its military stockpiles. This in turn would make it easier for Washington to pare back its conventional force presence in Europe, adopt the limited role of backstop for European collective self-defense and concentrate long-term US defense efforts on the Indo-Pacific.
Benefits for Asia
A policy shift of this magnitude will be hard for the Trump administration to execute. Domestic critics in both political parties — advocates of US global military primacy — will seek to obstruct a settlement of the war in Ukraine, which will necessarily involve painful concessions to Russia. They may be even more opposed to moving away from American leadership of European defense. The voices of US allies will figure prominently in this debate, adding weight to either side. America’s friends in Asia should consider encouraging rather than resisting a peacemaking effort in Ukraine and a military pivot away from Europe (and for that matter, the Middle East). Contrary to fears that a US pullback anywhere would open the floodgates to so-called isolationism everywhere, there are no actual isolationists in US politics today — and selective retrenchment in Europe or the Middle East would likely enhance rather than diminish security in Asia as well as US influence there.4
For one, ending the war in Ukraine would relieve Russia’s acute dependence on China and North Korea, which have enabled Russia to prosecute its war of attrition. Although terminating the conflict would not necessarily reverse the growing alignment among China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, it should limit the extent to which those countries assist one another in the future and create the possibility of creating fissures among them over the long term.5 Primacists in Washington, including some members of the incoming administration, depict the “axis of upheaval” as a consolidated bloc that the US should confront in toto.6 Countries in Asia could help show that such a strategy would be costly and risky and point to alternatives. South Korea, Japan and even China each has an interest in keeping Moscow from improving the sophistication of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
In addition, if the US
begins to reduce its conventional forces in Europe and the Middle East,
this shift will vastly improve the solvency of US global strategy,
bringing America’s overall defense obligations into line with its
military and economic resources and political realities. America’s Asian
partners would benefit: the US could sustain or increase its
investments in the region and reduce the risk that a large conflict
elsewhere in the world might suddenly draw US forces in and render them
incapable of meeting commitments in Asia.
Moreover, retrenchment outside Asia could improve the quality and effectiveness of US engagement within Asia. It would minimize the tendency of militarized policies elsewhere, such as US support for Israel’s war in Gaza, to inflame anti-Americanism in the region. It would also provide a stark refutation of Beijing’s claim that the US is out for global hegemony and should be resisted. Pruning America’s global military footprint in Europe and the Middle East would show, to the contrary, that the US has limited and legitimate aims: it seeks to contribute to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific and keep China from establishing a regional hegemony of its own.7
Dealmaking with China and North Korea
In
addition to adopting a more Asia-focused foreign and security policy,
Trump is capable of reaching diplomatic agreements and understandings
with US adversaries in Asia that could benefit all parties and the
region as a whole. In his first term, following a nuclear standoff with
North Korea, Trump held an unprecedented pair of summits with Kim Jong
Un. The diplomatic flurry came to nothing, however, in part because
advisers such as John Bolton and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
encouraged Trump to reject incremental changes to North Korea’s nuclear
program and push for comprehensive “denuclearization.”
In retrospect, accepting a deal along the lines of Pyongyang’s offer, which included shuttering the Yongbyon nuclear complex, would have been better than walking away. The breakdown of diplomacy has since freed Kim to develop his nuclear and missile arsenal without constraint, deepened his distrust of the US, and positioned him to conclude a strategic partnership with Russia. Now that North Korea enjoys a stronger bargaining position, it may be reluctant to reach a new deal over the next four years. But Trump, working in tandem with Seoul, could succeed by demoting denuclearization from an operative objective to an aspiration for the long term. He should firmly prioritize reducing the risk of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula through arms control measures, nuclear posture changes and political trust-building.8
Even
on China, Trump himself was something of an outlier within his first
administration, the chief foreign policy legacy of which was to elevate
China as a full-spectrum threat and rival to the US. The president was
always personally more concerned with the trade war than with what his
Pentagon dubbed “great-power competition.” In his second term, Trump’s
own inclinations are likely to play a larger role in shaping policy, and
his desire to avoid a military conflict with China could come to the
fore given that US-China tensions have intensified since he left office
and Trump has taken to warning of the dangers of “World War III.”
While no one should expect US-China relations to grow warm in the coming years — the two sides will very likely escalate the trade and technology competition and perhaps move decisively toward economic decoupling — Trump could see value in attempting to stabilize the Taiwan issue by issuing new assurances to China.9 Such a move could appeal to Trump for several reasons. It could lower the risk of a war that Trump wants to avoid, keep economic tensions from spilling over into political-military conflict, and demonstrate that the US should not be blamed for subsequent Cross-Strait tensions. It could also constitute a display of leader-to-leader bargaining that Trump could cast as rectifying his predecessor’s mistakes, namely Biden’s repeated vows to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack and his suggestion that independence is for the Taiwanese people to decide.10
New assurances would aim to bolster Beijing’s confidence that the US remains committed to the One China policy and continues to deter Taipei from taking unilateral measures to establish permanent separation from the mainland. These could take a number of forms, from a fourth US-China joint communique to unilateral declarations to private statements. Building on the proposal of historian Odd Arne Westad, Trump could affirm that “under no circumstances” would the US support Taiwan independence unless the island faced an armed attack, a statement that would go beyond the customary position that the US “does not support” Taiwan independence.11 Trump could also underscore that the US would accept any kind of eventual resolution of cross-strait differences, including unification, that is reached peacefully and with the assent of the people of Taiwan. Finally, Trump could reintroduce some of the restrictions on US-Taiwan official contacts that were loosened in 2021. In return, as analyst Michael Swaine has suggested, China could limit its military activities around the island and affirm that it has no deadline for achieving reunification.12
This proposal intentionally falls short of constituting a comprehensive US-China “grand bargain,” for which there is too little trust on either side. But an exchange of Taiwan-specific assurances has a decent chance of reducing tensions over the flashpoint most likely to send the two superpowers to blows, and that is no small thing. China would be less likely to fear that it faces a closing window to prevent Taiwan’s permanent separation, and less prone to view the US as encouraging Taiwanese independence. The US could have its fears of a near-term Chinese attack allayed, especially if 2027, often discussed in Washington as a potential invasion deadline, passes without incident. After four years, the domestic pressures building toward confrontation in both Beijing and Washington could be set on a different path, and the threat to security in the Western Pacific substantially reduced.13
A Pivotal Choice
Trump will re-enter the White House at a pivotal moment for US foreign policy, and countries in Asia should ask themselves which future they prefer. Do they wish to see the US become an overburdened and distracted superpower, clinging to its fading military pre-eminence while deepening hostilities with multiple enemies at once? Or is a better trajectory possible, in which the US fosters sustainable security structures, engages pragmatically with rivals, and balances against bids for hegemonic power rather than seeking hegemony for itself? To an unusual degree, the new president, and members of his administration, will not be of one mind on this question. Wise counsel from America’s allies and partners, and outstretched hands from its competitors and adversaries, can help the US find its way.
1 “Taiwan’s former president says Ukraine needs US weapons more urgently than Taipei,” Jack Detsch, Politico, Nov. 23, 2024, www.politico.com/news/2024/11/23/taiwans-former-president-says-ukraine-needs-u-s-weapons-more-urgently-than-taipei-00191400
2 “For the Future: Our Global Partnership,” Address to US Congress, Fumio Kishida, Apr. 11, 2024, www.mofa.go.jp/files/100652749.pdf
3 Dan Caldwell and Reid Smith, “Trump Must Not Betray ‘America First,’” Foreign Affairs, Nov. 13, 2024, www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/trump-must-not-betray-america-first
4 Stephen Wertheim, “Who’s Afraid of Isolationism?” New York Review of Books, Feb. 3, 2022. https://www.nybooks.com/online/2022/%2002/03/whos-afraid-of-isolationism/
5 Christopher S. Chivvis and Jack Keating, “Co-operation Between China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia: Current and Potential Future Threats to America,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Oct. 8, 2024, carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/cooperation-between-china-iran-north-korea-and-russia- current-and-potential-future-threats-to-america?lang=en
6 Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Richard Fontaine, “The Axis of Upheaval: How America’s Adversaries Are Uniting to Overturn the Global Order,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2024, www.foreignaffairs.com/china/axis-upheaval-russia-iran-north-korea-taylor-fontaine
7 Ishaan Tharoor, “The war in Gaza looms over Asia’s geopolitics,” The Washington Post, June 5, 2024, www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/05/asia-gaza-support-israel-china-sympathies-geopolitics-war/
8 Ankit Panda, “Missiles, Preemption, and the Risk of Nuclear War on the Korean Peninsula,” Arms Control Today, March 2024, www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-03/features/missiles-preemption-and-risk-nuclear-war-korean-peninsula
9 Christopher S. Chivvis, ed., U.S.-China Relations for the 2030s: Toward a Realistic Scenario for Coexistence (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 2024), carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/us-china-relations-for-the-2030s-toward-a-realistic-scenario-for-coexistence?lang=en
10 Zack Cooper, “The Fourth Taiwan Strait Slip-Up,” American Enterprise Institute, Sept. 19, 2022, www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/the-fourth-taiwan-strait-slip-up/
11 Odd Arne Westad, “Sleepwalking Toward War,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2024, www.foreignaffairs.com/china/sleepwalking-toward-war-united-states
12 Michael D. Swaine, “Stabilizing the Growing Taiwan Crisis: New Messaging and Understandings are Urgently Needed,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Mar. 20, 2024, quincyinst.org/research/stabilizing-the-growing-taiwan-crisis-new-messaging-and-understandings-are-urgently-needed/#
13 Evan S. Medeiros, “The New Domestic Politics of U.S.-China Relations,” Asia Society Policy Institute, Dec. 7, 2023, asiasociety.org/policy-institute/new-domestic-politics-us-china-relations