US President-elect Donald Trump.
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump will take oath of office as the 47th President of the United States. There are glimpses of how a second Trump foreign policy and defence agenda will look like.
There is no doubt the foreign policy and defence challenges facing President Trump are numerous. There is the steady rise in global conflicts from the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Gaza war, the retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran and the likelihood of a greater Middle East conflict, and other civil wars in Africa such as in Sudan.
There is the grave matter of the geo-politics of the Great Power Competition (GPC) between the United States and Russia and the United States and China. President Trump affirmed the GPC in the National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2017 as “a geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order”.
In the Indo-Pacific region, China and India have had several border clashes since May 2020. There is tension between China and Taiwan with potential for full blown military conflict. The South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula are volatile.
Another challenge is the petulant launches and tests of ballistic missiles and averred threat by North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un to use nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbours and the United States. The history and events of the first term of President Donald Trump show markers of the second Trump foreign policy and defence agenda.
President Trump formalised the doctrine of “America First” in the 2017 NSS. He postulated four vital American national interests, namely: Protecting the American people, the homeland, and the American way of life; promoting American prosperity; preserving peace through strength; and advancing American influence around the globe.
The NSS argued “China’s infrastructure investments and trade strategies reinforce its geopolitical aspirations. Its efforts to build and militarise outposts in the South China Sea endanger the free flow of trade, threaten the sovereignty of other nations, and undermine regional stability. China has mounted a rapid military modernisation campaign designed to limit US access to the region and provide China a freer hand there.”
There is no doubt the “America First Doctrine” will return, but perhaps with some modifications based on lessons learned from his first term of office. President Trump will issue the State of the Union Address on February 15, and this address will provide some clear direction of his foreign policy and defence agenda.
By the end of 2025, President Trump will have probably issued a new National Security Strategy as required under Section 104a of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Defence Reauthorisation Act.
The Act requires not later than 150 days upon oath of office, a new President must issue the NSS and transmit to Congress each year a comprehensive NSS report on the date on which the President submits to Congress the budget for the next fiscal year. The US fiscal cycle begins October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026, making it more likely that a new NSS will be in place.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, President Trump without offering any specific proposals, declared he would end the Russian-Ukraine War and bring peace. President Trump has vowed to ensure Israel defeats Hamas and others.
The US security assurance for the State of Israel is codified in law under Public Law 112-150 as an Act of Congress that requires the President to preserve Israeli’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME).
While Trump has vowed to prevent and stop new wars and other global conflicts, he has continuously promised to restore American power and prestige and rebuild the US military as the cornerstone of the strategy of “peace through strength.”
During the first term, President Trump increased nominal defence spending from $610 Billion under Obama in FY 2017 to above $730 billion in FY2020 and $740 billion in FY2021.
The March 2024 US Department of Defence FY2025 budget request topped $849 billion. Given, the increasing demands for a robust military, it is likely President Trump will continuously increase the defence budget. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated an upward of a 10 per cent increase while other reports project $954 billion by FY2029.
American foreign policy has oscillated between isolationism/unilateralism versus internationalism (multilateralism). This dualism in the Grand Strategic realm has been contentious.
Recently, the journal Foreign Policy stated “neither pure isolationism nor unchecked internationalism has served the United States well. It’s time for a third option – being a “middle path” between the two opposite poles.
The fear throughout the First Trump administration was that “America First” signalled unilateralism and isolationism. His public statements on Nato were an ear pain to European leaders. Whether America under a second Trump will be champion unilateralism or multilateralism is a matter to be revealed by time.
As the world continues to grapple with extreme weather events instigated by climate change, several media and policy statements by President Trump have in the past shown him to perhaps doubt the climate change science.
At home, Trump has vowed to continuously expand domestic fossil fuel production, cut back on environmental regulation, and renege on internationally agreed environmental principles and agreements such as the 2015 Paris Agreement. In June 2017, Trump announced his intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and on November 4, 2020 the United States formally withdrew.
On January 20, 2021 President Biden rescinded the withdrawal. It is possible another Trump withdrawal might arise. But more importantly, the forthcoming discussions at COP29 must grapple with the likelihood of a new direction in US international climate change policy.
The United States remains the largest funder of global health programs and spends about 30 per cent of its international development assistance on global health with the Continent of Africa receiving a bulk of this funding.
Given the spill over effects of American domestic abortion politics on international health, one key area of change from Biden to Trump is the revision in US international reproductive health policy.
History records on January 23, 2017 President Trump issued Presidential Memorandum Regarding the Mexico City Policy. This policy commonly referred to as the “Global Gag Rule” was imposed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Every Republican administration from Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump has imposed it; while every Democratic Party administration from Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joseph Biden outlawed it.
The rule bans international NGOs from receiving and using US global health assistance to provide abortion related services and campaigns to legalize abortion abroad. On assuming office on January 20, 2021 President Biden rescinded the Trump Executive Order issued on January 20, 2017.
Predictably, and as history has shown, on January 20, 2025 President Trump will issue an Executive Order (Presidential Memorandum Regarding the Mexico City Policy) to rescind the 2021 Biden Executive Order. Trump will likely impose newer more restrictive measures in line with domestic conservative abortion politics.
Increasingly, conventional wisdom has argued that U.S. Democratic Party presidents have tended to show more interest in Africa; however, an empirical research paper: US Aid to Africa after the Midterm Elections? A ‘Surprise Party,’ by Dr Todd Moss shows “highest absolute aid flows” to Africa under a Republican President with a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress.
The 2003 $15 billion PEPFAR (Public Law 108-25) program occurred under the Republican Party administration of George W. Bush. In the 2017 NSS, Trump provided insights on his African agenda.
He stated, “Africa remains a continent of promise and enduring challenges. Africa contains many of the world’s fastest growing economies, which represent potential new markets for US goods and services.”
But he also posits “people across the continent are demanding government accountability and less corruption, and are opposing autocratic trends.”
The 2017 NSS also cautions against the unchecked Chinese economic, trade, military, and infrastructure led expansion that he finds as injurious to US national interests.
Trump promised to counter China by offering “alternative to China’s often extractive economic footprint on the continent”. While emphasizing the need for the rule of law, Trump vowed to “to sanction government officials and institutions that prey on their citizens and commit atrocities” and, where no alterative exists, to “suspend aid rather than see it exploited by corrupt elites.”
Bringing back this approach will resonate with Africa’s Gen-Z and civil society, but it will make the corrupt African governments uncomfortable, and indeed they should be.
On trade and investments, the NSS echoed support for economic integration through support to AfCFTA. In 2020, Trump initiated an FTA with Kenya. Trump also signed AGOA and MCA Modernization Act (HR 3445) into law on April 23, 2018, thus reforming the George W. Bush initiated Millennium Challenge Corporation with “authority to make regional investments.”
On September 19, 2023, Kenya and the United States signed the $60 million MCC Grant Agreement, which entered into force on May 24, 2024. Some have argued that Trump is a businessman before a politician, and therefore, his push to promote American economic prosperity might bring trade and investments into Africa.
All will not be rosy as realpolitik reminds us. Indeed, Africa will have to remain strategic. The Trump suspension of Rwanda from AGOA after it imposed a ban on imported second hand clothes is a constant reminder of the clash of national interests.
In the NSS, Trump emphasized the American national interest to “counter terrorism, human trafficking, and the illegal trade in arms and natural resources” in Africa. It is possible, the US will intensify security and defence cooperation with strategic countries.
Although George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden singled out anchor states like Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa in the NSS, Trump did not list any African country. On X (formerly Twitter), @AmbMKimani has opined “the sweeping victory of @realDonaldTrump signals the end of an era in US Foreign Policy” and thus “it is time for Africa’s strategists to step up.” We hope the strategists show up.
Dr Kemoli Sagala is a national security and foreign policy scholar
