It's only been 100 days since US President Donald Trump took office, but much is already clear. Trump 2.0 is a completely different man: more confident than ever and surrounded by a team determined to carry out far more ambitious plans. The people who have entered his administration have been preparing for this moment for the past four years - they are not dampening his impulses, but amplifying them; they are not limiting him, but helping him.
At home and abroad, Trump 2.0 operates as an imperial activist president. He seems to be everywhere - dominating both public space and private conversation almost everywhere in the world. The contrast with his predecessor, President Joe Biden, is striking.
The main political goal of his administration - for now - is to fulfill a campaign promise: securing the southern border of the US. However, the key initiative of his mandate has become tariffs on imports - a general base rate of 10%, with additional tariffs for individual countries (in the case of China, they reach 145%).
Foreign policy has also changed significantly. America has abandoned its unwavering support for Ukraine and has clearly sided with Russia. This shift, it seems, was motivated by an open antipathy towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin - although the reasons for this are unknown.
During the election campaign, Trump boasted that he needed only one day to end this war, for which he regularly blamed Biden and Zelensky. ...The campaign promise has proven difficult to achieve, and one of the key reasons for this is that Trump's pro-Russian policy does not provide Putin with any incentive to compromise, nor Zelensky with any certainty to accept it. The agreement on the establishment of the US-Ukrainian "Reconstruction Investment Fund" (RIF) is useful, but much more active support for Ukraine is needed to stop the fighting.
Europe and other traditional US allies have also been left without strong relations with the US. Just look at the tariffs: it is indicative that they were not imposed on Russia, but they have seriously affected Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. In February, at a security conference in Munich, Vice President J.D. Vance provoked a culture clash with Europeans, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth openly questioned America’s commitment to Europe at NATO headquarters. All this has encouraged Europeans to prepare to provide assistance to Ukraine in the event that American assistance is absent, as well as to strive for strategic self-sufficiency in general.
In the Middle East, the administration has begun negotiations with Iran, which could yield promising results. The circumstances for this have been created by Israeli military actions against Iran and its proxies, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the deterioration of the Iranian economy. In this context, giving up the nuclear program in order to avoid a military attack and achieve the lifting of sanctions seems attractive. If the Trump administration is willing to allow Iran to carry out limited uranium enrichment (which could be necessary to reach an agreement), it will likely face some criticism in the United States and Israel. However, Trump is strong enough to withstand such opposition, if it arises.
Overall, the Trump administration is effectively allowing the Israeli government to do whatever it wants in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The administration appears to have lost interest in extending the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, as it could lead to conflict with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who appears to prioritize the survival of his coalition through continued military operations in Gaza, rather than the release of the remaining hostages.
The pressure on Israel to limit military operations or at least allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, which has been under a complete blockade for two months, has disappeared. Trump’s own proposals for Gaza (to remove two million Palestinian residents and turn the area into a new “Riviera”) have led nowhere, but they clearly encourage the Israeli government to depopulate, occupy, and possibly settle a significant part of the enclave.
In the West Bank, the Trump administration has lifted sanctions imposed by Biden against settlers who commit violence against Palestinians and/or their property. Israel is no longer called upon to refrain from settlement expansion, nor is it threatened with penalties if it fails to do so.
Moreover, this is the first US administration in modern history that has not attempted to bridge the gap between Israelis and Palestinians. Any interest in reconciliation has been almost exclusively focused on diplomatic normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, but even those prospects have been weakened by the continued Israeli military presence in Gaza and the rejection of political solutions that would satisfy the aspirations of the Palestinian people.
The most unexpected aspect of US foreign policy, which was not present during Trump's first term but emerged during the election campaign, is the focus on the Western Hemisphere. Canada and Mexico were singled out, with tariffs immediately imposed against them, allegedly for their inability to control their borders.
In addition, there have been strong demands to assert US sovereignty over the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada. These demands, like nothing else, have provoked opposition and a strong anti-American response, even influencing the outcome of the recent federal election in Canada.
A direction that could be called amoral has also emerged in US foreign policy. The Trump administration has completely ignored the weakening of democracy in countries such as Turkey and Israel, and has reduced support for global efforts to promote democracy.
The biggest foreign policy uncertainty concerns China. On the one hand, Trump granted the social network TikTok a temporary license, allowing it to remain installed on Americans’ phones (although there are doubts that he had the authority to do so in the first place). He continues to speak positively about Chinese President Xi Jinping, expressing confidence that the US and China will reach a deal.
But the massive tariffs Trump has imposed on China mean that the ties between the US and Chinese economies will gradually fray - or even be severed altogether. The question is: are such high tariffs an attempt to gain a negotiating advantage, or are they an end in themselves? This is probably the most important issue in Sino-US relations right now.
Overall, Trump 2.0's foreign policy is more unilateral than isolationist. And it's likely to remain so. It's less clear how far Trump is willing to go when it comes to reducing tariffs, reconsidering his pro-Russian stance on Ukraine, and pressuring Israel to change its approach to Gaza and the West Bank.
Such moves could revive economic growth in the US and the rest of the world, as well as bring peace to two regions that have all but forgotten what peace looks like. Much will depend on the decisions of a man who - for better or worse - has already become one of the most important US presidents.
The author is President Emeritus of the US Council on Foreign Relations
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025. (translation: NR)
Bonus video:
