When Donald Trump was elected to his second term in November 2024, I told my students that all we had to go by was what he did during his first term. That was a louder version of a fairly common model in which an outsider wins the White House, and he and his closest advisors personally run the parts of foreign policy that mean the most to them, while leaving the rest, such as Africa and South America, to the professional diplomats at the State Department. So that seemed a pretty good predictor of how the second term would go.
Boy, was I wrong!
The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 led to a second term that is interested in everything, all around the globe. It’s been said that candidates campaign for the White House on domestic and spending issues, with maybe one or two big foreign policy issues that the voters care about. But once they take office, they find that domestic issues are difficult, and some quick wins can be scored on foreign policy. That was the experience with Trump One on 2017, but Trump 2025 was a different approach altogether.
Let’s review the major changes.
First, war and peace. On the one hand, the Administration has managed to keep the U.S. out of any major conflicts. This is consistent with their first term. One theory is that while Trump likes a little chaos in the financial markets, because he can often find a way through the chaos to his desired goal, he doesn’t like all-out war, because it’s difficult to predict the outcome and all the ramifications.
However, there has been a lot of saber-rattling and smaller interventions, such as in Venezuela, Iran, Syria and elsewhere. By one count, 17 different such actions. Fortunately, U.S. casualties have been very low, and the attacks have often been successful in achieving their aims. But how long can that luck hold out? Addicted to “surgical strikes,” will the Administration eventually be drawn into putting boots on the ground and taking significant casualties.
Second, peace talks. Trump is clearly desperate to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The good news is that this has led to some peace initiatives that seem to be doing ok, such as in Gaza and the Congo. The bad news is that the policy in Ukraine is unpredictable, and usually appears to be leaning towards Russia.
Next, tariffs and trade. Whoever taught Trump the word “tariffs” should be questioning the wisdom of that at this point. While it’s true that some of our major trading partners had been getting an advantage over the U.S., selling us much more than they buy, the cure has been worse that the disease. The tariffs on Canada alone have send the cost of building materials in the U.S. soaring, right at the time that we need more affordable housing
Personnel is policy. In one year, the Administration and DOGE have abolished USAID (which worked very closely with our military to avoid conflict and to help heal countries coming out of war), laid off hundreds of trained diplomats, recalled dozens of career Ambassadors (including many assigned to non-strategic small countries, for some reason), and chased off many State Department civil servants. The result is that U.S. diplomacy in many areas is being run by the B team. Political appointees, many of them new to diplomacy, now don’t have the experts to advise them or carry out their policy decisions.
Budget is policy as well. The State Department’s budget has been slashed, and USAID’s eliminated. The result of this, combined with pressuring career diplomats out, is that even if the Administration had the best of policies, we now are at a disadvantage, compared to out competitors, in carrying them out.
Friends are critically important in diplomacy and in governing. With the tariffs, serious negative actions were taken against good friends, such as Canada and Europe. The negative rhetoric has threated friends and allies such as Mexico, Canada, Brazil, the UK, the European Union, India – the list goes on. Many of them are seeking out new trading partners, and some are crafting their own policies together, such as European support for Ukraine’s military.
The result of all this is that while many more countries and their citizens now fear the United States, many have now come to intensely dislike us and our policies. In the short term America may score some economic and political victories this way, but in the long run it will take years or decades to rebuild our alliances. We are now seen as unpredictable and unreliable.
How will this affect us here on the North Shore? The trade and tariff ups and downs will continue to create a lot of unpredictability – and businesses hate unpredictability. They will continue to add to inflation. There will be more military actions, with resultant loss of life. There is a chance that a major setback overseas will negatively affect the psychology of the stock market, with impact on everyone’s 401Ks. If there is a major crisis, the U.S. may find itself without the kind of friends that join with us to find a peaceful solution, or fight alongside us when needed. And military actions cost money, which means either higher taxes or higher deficits for all of us.
And then there’s the psychological wear and tear. For all of us here and across American, and governments around the world, it’s going to be a bumpy next three years.
Fasten your seatbelts!
Don Heflin is a retired career U.S. diplomat and currently the executive director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. He lives in Ipswich with his wife, a North Shore native.
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