America First — or America Alone?
The disruption of American foreign policy
Prepared with research and writing assistance from ChatGPT (OpenAI).
Sources and references are provided so readers can examine the evidence for themselves.
Summary
Since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, the United States has deliberately broken with many conventions that shaped American foreign policy for decades. The administration calls this an “America First” policy designed to put American interests ahead of international institutions, foreign aid, and traditional diplomatic practices.
The changes have been unusually rapid and extensive. The administration has challenged traditional allies with tariffs, temporarily suspended military assistance to Ukraine, sharply reduced foreign-aid programs, questioned longstanding relationships with Canada and Denmark, and demanded substantially greater defense spending from NATO members. Critics describe the result as unpredictable and damaging to American credibility; supporters argue that disruption and pressure have forced other countries to contribute more to their own defense and take American demands more seriously.
There are measurable results on both sides of that argument. NATO members agreed in 2025 to a new target of 5% of GDP for defense and defense-related spending by 2035. At the same time, international surveys found low confidence in President Trump on world affairs in many allied countries.
The central question is therefore larger than whether individual Trump policies succeed or fail. It is whether the United States benefits more from predictability, alliances and long-term cooperation, or from maximum flexibility, pressure and transactional bargaining.
America First — or America Alone?
For most of the period since World War II, American foreign policy rested on a fairly simple idea: the United States was powerful enough to advance its interests by building a system in which other countries also had reasons to cooperate with it.
That system included NATO, international trade agreements, foreign aid, diplomacy, security guarantees and institutions created largely under American leadership.
Presidents disagreed profoundly about how that system should operate. But Democratic and Republican administrations generally treated alliances and American reliability as strategic assets.
The second Trump administration has deliberately challenged that assumption.
On his first day back in office, President Trump ordered the State Department to bring its policies, programs and personnel into alignment with an “America First foreign policy.” The administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy later formalized that approach.
That is an important point: the disruption is not accidental. It is policy.
A different idea of American power
Traditional American foreign policy has often attempted to turn overwhelming American power into durable influence. The United States accepts some costs and constraints in return for military cooperation, intelligence sharing, diplomatic support, trade and the expectation that allies will stand with it in a crisis.
The Trump administration takes a more transactional view.
An alliance, trade relationship or foreign-aid program must demonstrate a more immediate benefit to the United States. Countries that depend heavily on America can be pressured to contribute more or make concessions.
That approach has produced results.
The clearest example is NATO. At the June 2025 Hague summit, NATO governments committed themselves to spending 5% of GDP annually by 2035 on defense and defense-related expenditures—far above NATO’s previous 2% benchmark. The Trump administration presents this as evidence that sustained American pressure forced allies to shoulder more of the cost of their own defense.
That is a substantial accomplishment, regardless of one’s opinion of Trump.
But coercive diplomacy has costs as well as benefits.
When allies cannot predict America
President Trump has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to pressure countries that traditionally have been among America’s closest partners.
Before taking office, he declined to rule out military force to obtain Greenland, an autonomous territory within Denmark, a NATO ally. He separately spoke of using “economic force” toward Canada and repeatedly suggested that Canada should become part of the United States.
His administration also used tariffs aggressively against allies as well as competitors.
Supporters regard such threats as bargaining tools. From that perspective, predictability can actually weaken America’s negotiating position: another government makes concessions precisely because it does not know how far Washington might go.
Critics see the opposite danger. If allies cannot predict American policy, they have an incentive to become less dependent on America.
A Council on Foreign Relations analysis found that the administration’s tariffs and rapid changes were already complicating relations with Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Its analysts argued that unpredictability makes long-term alliance management and investment decisions more difficult.
This gets to the heart of the dispute.
Is unpredictability leverage—or a liability?
It can be both.
Ukraine provides a revealing example
On March 3, 2025, President Trump ordered a pause in American military assistance to Ukraine. Assistance resumed on March 11.
A Defense Department Inspector General report subsequently found that the consequences extended beyond those eight days. U.S. European Command reported that Ukraine may have rationed important munitions because it feared the pause might continue. It warned that uncertainty about future interruptions could affect Ukraine’s use of American weapons and its ability to exploit battlefield opportunities.
That episode illustrates something easily overlooked in discussions of foreign policy.
Uncertainty itself can have strategic consequences.
A threat does not have to be carried out to affect another government’s behavior. That is precisely why unpredictability can be useful in negotiations.
But the same uncertainty affects allies planning military operations, governments deciding whether to depend upon American guarantees, and businesses making investments that may last decades.
Dismantling foreign aid
The administration also moved rapidly against the foreign-aid establishment.
President Trump ordered a 90-day pause and review of foreign assistance shortly after taking office. By February 26, 2025, the administration had canceled nearly 5,800 USAID-managed foreign-assistance awards, according to the Congressional Research Service. The changes generated court challenges and disputes over executive and congressional authority.
There is a legitimate policy debate here.
Foreign aid costs taxpayers money. Programs can be ineffective, poorly administered or unrelated to vital American interests. An administration has every reason to review them.
But foreign aid is not simply charity.
It is also an instrument of foreign policy. Food assistance, health programs, development projects and disaster relief can create relationships and influence in places where the United States otherwise has little presence.
The Congressional Research Service noted both sides: reducing aid can shift costs to other countries, but it can also reduce American influence and create openings for countries such as China.
The issue therefore is not simply “Should America give money away?”
It is “What influence was America purchasing with that money, and what happens when it stops?”
Has America’s reputation changed?
There is evidence that perceptions of the United States and its president deteriorated in many countries early in Trump’s second term.
A 2025 Pew Research Center survey covering 24 countries found a median of 34% expressing confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs, while 62% expressed little or no confidence.
The results varied enormously. Confidence was relatively high in Nigeria, Israel, Kenya, Hungary and India, while it was particularly low in Mexico, Sweden, Germany, Spain and Turkey. Views also differed substantially according to political ideology.
Those numbers should not be exaggerated. Popularity abroad is not the purpose of American foreign policy, and an unpopular policy can still advance American interests.
But trust is different from popularity.
A country making a 20-year defense commitment, sharing intelligence or aligning itself against a powerful neighbor must estimate whether American commitments will survive changes in circumstance—or changes in presidents.
Reliability therefore has tangible strategic value.
Disruptive? Certainly.
Calling current American foreign policy disruptive is not particularly controversial. The administration itself celebrates its willingness to overturn established policies, and independent foreign-policy analysts have described the scale and speed of the changes as extraordinary.
Arbitrary is harder to establish.
What sometimes appears arbitrary from outside the administration may reflect a deliberate negotiating strategy: make large demands, create uncertainty, apply economic or military pressure and bargain from the resulting position.
There is a coherent philosophy behind much of it.
And amateur is an even more subjective description. It cannot be established merely by pointing to unconventional policies. A policy can violate diplomatic convention and still be calculated; conversely, experienced officials can make disastrous decisions.
The more useful question is whether decisions are carefully prepared, internally consistent, coordinated with American allies and evaluated for their long-term consequences.
That can be examined with evidence.
What does America gain—and what does it give up?
The Trump administration’s case deserves to be stated clearly.
It argues that the old system allowed allies to depend too heavily on American taxpayers, international organizations constrained American freedom of action, foreign assistance supported programs unrelated to core U.S. interests, and previous presidents too often confused international approval with American national interest. Its preferred alternative is “peace through strength”: military superiority, economic leverage, national sovereignty and alliances in which other countries contribute substantially more.
The competing argument is not that the old foreign-policy establishment was always right. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other episodes provide ample evidence to the contrary.
The argument is that America’s extraordinary international influence was built partly on something military and economic statistics do not measure:
other countries believed they knew what the United States would do.
That expectation made an American promise valuable.
The experiment now underway is testing whether the United States can discard some of that predictability while retaining the influence that predictability helped create.
Pressure can produce concessions. Trump’s NATO spending demands demonstrate that.
But alliances are relationships, not merely transactions. If America’s partners conclude that today’s agreement may be tomorrow’s bargaining chip, they will eventually plan accordingly.
The fundamental foreign-policy question is therefore not whether America should put its own interests first. Every government does that.
It is how the United States can best advance those interests in a world where even the most powerful nation cannot achieve everything by itself.
Printable References
The White House. “America First Policy Directive to the Secretary of State.” January 20, 2025. Presidential action establishing the administration’s America First foreign-policy directive.
The White House. National Security Strategy of the United States. November 2025. Official statement of the administration’s national-security strategy and America First framework.
NATO. “The Hague Summit Declaration.” June 25, 2025. Official declaration establishing the commitment by NATO members to devote 5% of GDP to defense and defense-related expenditures by 2035.
U.S. Department of Defense, Office of Inspector General. Operation Atlantic Resolve: Quarterly Report to Congress, January 1–March 31, 2025. Discusses the March 2025 pause in U.S. military assistance to Ukraine and the operational consequences identified by U.S. European Command.
Congressional Research Service. U.S. Agency for International Development: An Overview. Updated March 14, 2025. Describes the foreign-assistance pause, cancellation of approximately 5,800 USAID-managed awards, litigation and questions concerning executive and congressional authority.
Pew Research Center. Richard Wike, Jacob Poushter, Laura Silver and Janell Fetterolf. “Confidence in Trump.” June 11, 2025. Cross-national survey of attitudes toward President Trump’s handling of world affairs.
Council on Foreign Relations. James M. Lindsay. “First 100 Days: Trump’s Foreign Policy Disruption Is Just Beginning.” April 2025. Analysis of the scope and speed of changes during the opening months of the second Trump administration.
Council on Foreign Relations. “Geopolitics of Trump Tariffs: How U.S. Trade Policy Has Shaken Allies.” 2025. Analysis of effects of U.S. tariff policy on relations with Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Associated Press. “Trump Refuses to Rule Out Use of Military Force to Take Control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.” January 7, 2025. Contemporary reporting on Trump’s statements concerning Greenland, Panama and Canada.
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