In his second term, Donald Trump would likely appoint loyalists to key positions in the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA who will primarily be loyal to him, which will allow him greater freedom than in his first term to implement isolationist policies and whims, nearly 20 current officials told Reuters and former associates and diplomats.
Such an outcome would allow Trump to change the American position on a range of topics, from the war in Ukraine to trade with China, as well as in federal institutions that implement, and occasionally limit, foreign policy, associates and diplomats said.
During his 2017-2021 term, Trump struggled to impose his sometimes impulsive and unpredictable vision on the US national security establishment.
He often expressed his displeasure with high officials who delayed or held him accountable for some of his plans. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper stated in his memoirs that he twice objected to Trump's proposal to attack drug cartels in Mexico, America's largest trading partner, with missiles.

"President Trump has realized that politics is really about people," Robert O'Brien, Trump's fourth and final national security adviser, told Reuters. "At the end of his administration, there were a lot of people who wanted to implement their own policies, not the president's."
With more loyalists in key positions, Trump could implement his foreign policy priorities more quickly and efficiently, current and former associates said.
Among the proposals he put forward during the campaign this year, Trump said he would send US special forces against Mexican cartels - which the Mexican government would certainly not like.
If he returns to power, Trump would waste no time in reducing defense aid to Europe and further worsening economic ties with China, associates said.
O'Brien, who remains one of Trump's leading foreign policy allies and speaks regularly with him, said that imposing trade tariffs on NATO members if they fail to meet their commitment to dedicate at least two percent of their GDP to defense would likely be among the policies that would be considered in the second term of Trump.
Unlike the period leading up to the 2016 election, Trump has now built a stable group of people with whom he speaks regularly and who have significant foreign policy experience and enjoy his personal trust, four people who speak with him told the British agency.
Those advisers include John Ratcliffe, Trump's last director of National Intelligence, former US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell and Cash Patel, a former Trump cabinet member who held several positions in the intelligence and defense community.
While the specific policies of these informal advisers vary to some extent, many have been vocal defenders of Trump since he left office and have expressed concerns that America is paying too much to support both NATO and Ukraine.
"Doomsday Option"
Trump has a convincing lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. If he becomes the Republican nominee and then defeats Democratic President Joe Biden next November, the world is likely to see a much bolder Trump, with greater knowledge of how to wield power both at home and abroad, current and former aides said.
Because of this possibility, foreign capitals are looking for information about what Trump's second term could look like. Trump himself has not offered much indication of what kind of foreign policy he would pursue in a second term, other than claims such as ending the war in Ukraine within 24 hours.
Eight European diplomats interviewed by Reuters said there were doubts that Trump would honor Washington's commitment to defend NATO members and acute fears that he would end aid to Ukraine in the midst of a war with Russia.
A diplomat from Northern Europe residing in Washington, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the topic, said that he and his colleagues spoke with Trump's associates even after the former president left the White House in 2021.
Trump hasn't offered much indication of what kind of foreign policy he would pursue in a second term, other than claims that he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours.
"Their story is: we were not prepared to rule, and next time it will be different," said the diplomat. "When they entered the Oval Office in 2017, they had no idea what to do. But it will not happen again".
That diplomat, whose homeland is a member of NATO, and other diplomats in Washington said that their missions presented a possible "doomsday option" in diplomatic cables to their capitals.
Under that hypothetical scenario, one of several post-election assumptions these diplomats claim are described in the cables, Trump makes good on promises to dismantle certain bureaucratic elements and persecute political opponents to the point of weakening America's system of mutual control.
“You must explain the situation to your capital. Things can go quite well: the US will continue rehabilitation (if Biden is re-elected), the diplomat said, describing his mission's attitude towards US politics. “Then you have Trump, the mild version: a repeat of the first term with certain aggressive elements. And then there is the doomsday option."
Retreat from globalism
Michael Mulroy, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East during the Trump administration, said the former president is likely to appoint individuals who subscribe to his isolationist brand of foreign policy and who will not oppose him.
All US presidents have the power to make political appointments to top positions in the federal bureaucracy, including the State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA.
"I think it will be primarily based on loyalty to President Trump, a firm belief in the kind of foreign policy he believes in, which is much more focused on the United States and less on a kind of globalist policy," Mulroy said.
Trump's decision to withdraw the US from NATO would shake the ground for European states that have depended on a collective security guarantee for almost 75 years.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly clashed with the people he appointed in the Pentagon on a number of topics, starting from the ban on transgender people in the army to the withdrawal of American soldiers from Syria.
When his first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, resigned in 2018, the former four-star general said he had significant policy disagreements with Trump. Although Mattis did not explicitly state them, he emphasized in his resignation the need for a strong relationship with NATO and other allies, while enemies, such as Russia, should be kept at a distance.

Ed McCullen, Trump's former ambassador to Switzerland and now an active campaign fundraiser who remains in contact with the former president, emphasized that most of the foreign policy staff he knew served the president faithfully.
However, he added that Trump is aware of the need to avoid selecting disloyal and disobedient officials for leading foreign policy positions in a second term.
"The president is very aware that competence and loyalty are key to the success of the next administration," he told Reuters.
Outside the circle of top advisers, a potential Trump administration plans to purge actors at the lower levels of the national security community that it perceives as "outlaws," according to Agenda47, the official website of his election campaign. Such a move would have little precedent in the United States, which has a nonpartisan bureaucracy that serves whichever administration is in power.
Trump said he plans to reinstate an executive order he issued in the final months of his first term, which was never fully implemented, that would allow him to more easily fire public employees.
In a document published on the Agenda47 website earlier this year, which was not widely reported, Trump stated that he would establish a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", which would, among other functions, publish documents related to abuses of the power of the "deep state". . It would also create a separate "audit" body designed to monitor intelligence gathering in real time.
"The Secretary of State, the Pentagon and the National Security apparatus will be very different by the end of my term," Trump said in a video earlier this year.
Withdrawal from NATO? A new trade war
During his second term, Trump promised to end China's preferential trade status, a status that usually lowers trade barriers between countries, and to pressure Europeans to increase defense investment.
Whether Trump will continue key US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia is of particular concern to European diplomats in Washington, along with his questionable commitment to NATO.
"There are rumors that he wants to pull the USA out of NATO and away from Europe, of course that sounds worrying, but we are not panicking," a diplomat from a Baltic country told the British agency.
Despite fears about NATO's future, several diplomats who spoke to Reuters said Trump's push during his first term did lead to an increase in defense spending.
John Bolton, Trump's third national security adviser who has since become a vocal critic of the former president, told Reuters that he believes Trump will withdraw the US from NATO.

Such a decision would shake the ground for European states that have depended on a collective security guarantee for almost 75 years.
The other three officials in the Trump administration, two of whom are still in contact with him, played down that option, and one of them said that it probably wouldn't be worth the reaction that would follow on the domestic political scene.
At least one diplomat in Washington, Finnish Ambassador Miko Hautala, spoke with Trump more than once, said two people familiar with their meetings, which were reported by the New York Times.
The focus of those talks was Finland's accession process to NATO. Hautala wanted to make sure that Trump had precise information about what Finland brings to the Alliance and how Finland's entry is in favor of the US, one of the sources told Reuters.
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