When Donald Trump promised to put “America First” in his 2016 campaign, and again in 2024, it resonated with Americans tired of costly military interventions and asymmetric alliances.
The slogan suggested a foreign policy rooted in realism—one that would prioritize concrete national interests over abstract ideological commitments, that would demand burden-sharing from allies, and that would avoid the expensive nation-building exercises that characterized the Bush and Obama years.
Now, well into his second term, it’s worth asking: Is President Trump actually delivering on this promise? Or has “America First” become little more than branding for a foreign policy that’s simultaneously more aggressive and less coherent than advertised?
The transactional turnThere’s no question that Trump has revolutionized the style of American diplomacy. Gone is the pretense of promoting democracy and human rights as central pillars of US foreign policy.
In its place, we have what I’ve previously called “transactional diplomacy”—a businesslike approach where every relationship is evaluated through a cost-benefit lens, where alliances are treated as service contracts, and where outcomes are measured in dollars and cents rather than shared values.
This isn’t entirely unprecedented in American history. FDR extracted Britain’s gold reserves through lend-lease. Nixon and Kissinger practiced “linkage” diplomacy with Moscow and Beijing during détente. What distinguishes Trump’s version is its raw, unvarnished presentation and its application to traditional allies as much as adversaries.
The problem is that transactional diplomacy sounds pragmatic in theory but often proves utopian in practice. Trump’s confidence that he can make deals with anyone—whether it’s Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, or Xi Jinping—reflects the same American optimism that animated Bush’s Freedom Agenda and Obama’s diplomatic engagement.
It’s just dressed in different rhetoric.
“America First” or “America Aggressive?”The most glaring contradiction in Trump’s foreign policy is this: For a president who promised to end “forever wars” and bring troops home, he’s proven remarkably willing to use American military power.
The “peace president” who campaigned against interventionism has overseen expanded defense budgets approaching US$1 trillion, maintained troops across the globe, and in some cases, escalated military operations.
Consider the Middle East. Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in his first term, promising a better agreement. Yet his administration has oscillated wildly between threatening military action and making diplomatic overtures.
The reported strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in mid-2025—whatever their actual impact—represent exactly the kind of military engagement that “America First” was supposed to avoid. These aren’t defensive actions protecting American soil; they’re preventive strikes pursuing regional dominance.
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The administration’s approach to Ukraine presents another puzzle. Trump initially floated peace plans that would have required Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia—hardly surprising from someone skeptical of NATO expansion and eager to deal with Putin.
But European allies, prodded by American pressure on defense spending, have actually increased their support for Ukraine under Trump’s watch. Whether this represents strategic success or strategic confusion depends largely on which Trump advisor you ask on any given day.
The tariff trapPerhaps nowhere is the gap between “America First” rhetoric and reality more evident than in Trump’s trade policy. The president has launched what amounts to a global trade war, imposing tariffs not just on rivals like China but on allies like Canada, Mexico and the European Union.
The logic is straightforward enough: America has been taken advantage of through unfair trade deals, and tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs home while forcing better terms from trading partners.
The reality is more complicated. Tariffs raise costs for American consumers and businesses, disrupt supply chains that American companies depend on, and invite retaliation that hurts US exporters. They may protect certain industries but undermine overall economic efficiency.
More fundamentally, Trump’s trade war undercuts his own security strategy. You cannot simultaneously demand that allies like Germany, Japan, and South Korea spend more on defense while imposing tariffs that damage their economies and reduce their capacity to do so.
You cannot build a coalition to counter China while punishing your coalition partners economically.
The coherence problemWhat we’re witnessing isn’t so much a doctrine as an improvization—foreign policy driven by Trump’s instincts, personal relationships, and domestic political calculations rather than a consistent strategic framework. This produces bizarre contradictions:
- Threatening NATO allies while increasing US troop deployments in Europe
- Pursuing “peace through strength” while alienating the allies that amplify American power
- Demanding burden-sharing while undermining the economic foundations that make burden-sharing possible
- Promising to avoid foreign entanglements while maintaining a massive global military footprint
- Withdrawing from multilateral institutions that constrain American action while complaining about America bearing unfair burdens
The administration’s defenders argue that Trump’s unpredictability is itself a strategic asset—that keeping adversaries off-balance serves American interests. But unpredictability that confuses allies as much as adversaries isn’t strategy; it’s just unpredictability.
What “America First” Should MeanGenuine realism in American foreign policy would start from clear premises about national interests.
First, maintain the economic prosperity and physical security of the American homeland. This requires defending against actual threats, not inflating every regional conflict into an existential challenge.
Second, preserve access to critical global commons—sea lanes, trade routes, and markets that American prosperity depends on. This doesn’t require dominating every region or resolving every conflict.
Third, prevent the emergence of a peer competitor that could threaten American interests across multiple domains. This suggests focusing resources on the most serious challenge—China—rather than dissipating them everywhere.
Fourth, maintain a network of capable allies who share interests in stability and open commerce. This means treating alliances as strategic investments, not protection rackets.
A true “America First” policy would prioritize these core interests, husband resources for genuine challenges, and avoid unnecessary conflicts. It would distinguish between vital and peripheral interests. It would recognize that American power, while substantial, is not unlimited and that overextension is a greater danger than retreat.
The missing strategyWhat Trump offers instead is a foreign policy that’s simultaneously more activist and less strategic than advertised. He hasn’t brought troops home from the Middle East; he’s redeployed them based on current circumstances.
He hasn’t reduced America’s global military commitments; he’s just complained more loudly about their costs while maintaining them. He hasn’t crafted a coherent strategy for dealing with China; he’s imposed tariffs while sending mixed signals on everything else.
The president clearly enjoys the exercise of American power—the ability to impose sanctions, threaten tariffs, broker deals, and command attention. What’s less clear is whether he understands where that power comes from: not just from military budgets and GDP figures, but from the network of alliances, the credibility of American commitments, the strength of American institutions and the appeal of American leadership.
You cannot maintain power by wielding it recklessly. You cannot strengthen alliances by treating them as transactional arrangements. You cannot make America great by tearing down the international system America built—at least not without something better to replace it with.
Conclusion: branding vs realitySo is Trump pursuing an “America First” foreign policy? The honest answer is: sometimes, partially and inconsistently.
When he questions the value of defending distant territories of marginal strategic importance, he’s asking legitimate questions that foreign policy establishments have avoided.
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When he demands that wealthy allies contribute more to their own defense, he’s addressing real imbalances. When he prioritizes economic competition over ideological crusades, he’s adapting to a multipolar world where values-based foreign policy has limited traction.
But when he mistakes bluster for strategy, when he confuses friends with enemies, when he pursues contradictory policies simultaneously, and when he destroys relationships and institutions without building better alternatives, he’s not putting America first—he’s winging it.
“America First” has become a brand name applied to whatever Trump decides to do on any given day. The slogan’s appeal lies in its suggestion of clear priorities and strategic discipline. The reality is something quite different: a foreign policy driven more by personal instinct and domestic political considerations than by coherent strategy.
Americans who voted for Trump hoping he would extract the United States from unnecessary foreign entanglements while focusing on domestic renewal may find themselves disappointed.
What they’re getting instead is a president who loves exercising American power abroad—he just wants to do it his way, on his terms, for his reasons, without the traditional constraints of diplomatic protocol or strategic consistency.
That may be many things, but “America First” probably isn’t one of them.
This article was originally published on Leon Hadar’s Global Zeitgeist and is republished with kind permission. Become a subscriber here.
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