It is common to hear President-elect Donald Trump described as an isolationist. According to critics, Trump deserves this moniker because he would abandon the long-standing American strategy of deep engagement, which calls for promoting and protecting the liberal global order with U.S. economic and military power.
But this isolationist characterization is off the mark. It overstates the likely influence of those who call for a more restrained U.S. approach to the world within a second Trump administration. Sure, there will be groups calling for a less militarized approach to Europe and the Middle East — including from within the Republican Party — but they face an uphill battle in convincing the administration to adopt such proposals.
Potential nominees for key foreign policy positions in a second Trump administration include hawks who support U.S. military involvement in these regions.
In his first term, Trump was far from an isolationist. While he certainly abandoned some multilateral and liberal elements of previous administrations’ strategies, he did not significantly reduce the U.S. role in security affairs around the world. He embraced competition with China, both in the economic and military spheres. He also pursued a policy of maximum pressure on Iran, abandoning the carefully crafted agreement that had been in place to limit Tehran’s nuclear program. And he increased spending and military activities in Europe through the European Reassurance Initiative to calm nervous allies.
Potential nominees for key foreign policy positions in a second Trump administration include hawks who support U.S. military involvement in these regions, as well. More broadly, many within the Republican Party remain committed to a strategy of deep engagement: They want the United States to remain the dominant security provider in each of the core regions of East Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
Still, Trump faces some countervailing pressures to shift his approach in a second term, including from within his own party. There are some conservatives who support an alternative strategy — restraint — which calls on the United States to be, at most, the security provider of last resort in one or more of those regions. At the core of restraint is the belief that the U.S. cannot realistically sustain deep engagement because, as other great powers in history have experienced, it risks the country’s fiscal health and exposes it to numerous conflicts abroad. These “restrainers” therefore call on the United States to make its foreign policy more sustainable by settling differences with its adversaries, reducing its forward military presence, downgrading some of its alliance commitments, and raising the bar for the use of force.
Trump has sometimes voiced or adopted restrainers’ policy preferences, raising the possibility that such groups would have influence going forward. For example, during his first term, he was more critical of U.S. allies’ burden sharing and negotiated the withdrawal from Afghanistan. More recently, he has echoed restrainers’ skepticism of unconditional aid to Kyiv and calls for the United States to use its influence to bring an end to the war between Ukraine and Russia.
In this context, conservative restrainers are likely to have the greatest influence on policy in Europe and the Middle East, where they would also have support from foreign policy realists as well as some on the left. Restraint, it turns out, is a big tent that crosses the partisan divide. But this is a double-edged sword in terms of its influence on any administration, Trump’s included. On the one hand, there are multiple pathways to restraint, rooted in realist, conservative and progressive principles. In brief, realists argue that deep engagement has been counterproductive as the U.S. overreaches and other states balance against it.
Conservatives oppose deep engagement because they think it cedes American sovereignty or because U.S. militarism threatens civil liberties, raises taxes or makes it too hard to hold the government accountable. Progressives believe that deep engagement perpetuates injustice and uses military tools for problems that require alternative solutions. Seeing the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an extension of deep engagement, realist, conservative and progressive restrainers have all had reasons to advocate for a course correction, starting with less military engagement in the Middle East. Most restrainers also call for gradual U.S. retrenchment from Europe, though some progressives are less committed in the face of recent Russian aggression.
Some restrainers are worried about the growing risk of a great-power war.
On the other hand, exactly because restraint is a big tent, it is animated by competing visions, making it difficult for restrainers to coalesce around common arguments and a shared set of policies on other issues. This has been most evident with U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific. Some restrainers are worried about the growing risk of a great-power war, as well as the way in which increased U.S.-China competition hinders cooperation on global challenges like climate change. But many realists and conservatives who advocate for restraint in other regions do not take this view. They are increasingly wary of the rise of China, which could pose a threat to the balance of power as well as the American way of life if China became a regional hegemon, dominating East Asia like the U.S. dominates the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, even some restrainers support the U.S. strategy of deep engagement in the Indo-Pacific.
Returning to Trump, the president-elect’s grand strategic instincts are mixed. “America First” might mean that Trump will put the United States’ interests ahead of those of others, but that does not also necessarily mean he will consistently embrace restraint.
He will face pressure from deep engagers on both sides of the aisle to get more involved in Israel’s defense, to escalate support to Ukraine so that it can gain an upper hand in negotiations with Russia, and to double down on containing China. Such arguments will likely resonate with Trump’s own instincts toward standing firm and driving a hard bargain. Still, Trump’s countervailing tendencies to demand more from our allies, and his concern about diverting resources away from problems at home, create an opening for those advocating for strategic change. They will likely have the best prospects of influencing U.S. strategy on the Middle East and Europe, where they can speak with a unified voice in favor of restraint.
