Evaluating President Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Leadership

The paper will begin with a brief general discussion of structure and agency issues in foreign policy leadership evaluation, noting the extent to which systemic pressures (both domestic and international) are held to constrain the ability of US presidents to switch foreign policy direction. The peculiar status of the ‘insurgent’ Trump presidency will be seen to offer almost a textbook test of the interaction between presidential aspiration and systemic constraint. Structure and agency issues will also be considered in the context of questions of continuity and discontinuity between Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Has the latter clearly propelled the United States in a new foreign policy direction? The paper will offer a brief review of the academic literature concerning how to judge presidential leadership of foreign policy, arguing that successful foreign policy leadership is best evaluated under the following headings: avoiding obvious calamity; making landmark achievements; building consensus; adjusting to shifting international conditions; relative procedural efficiency (including the development of an appropriate and functioning advisory system); the achievement of a judicious balance between intellectual coherence and fire-fighting; and the rational pursuit of clearly stated objectives, within the confines of domestic and international law. The propriety of applying these categories to the ‘insurgent’ Trump administration will be discussed. The paper will conclude with a comparative section. How does Trump’s record compare with the early months of other presidencies? Has Trump effectively broken with the liberal internationalism of previous administrations? To what extent is Trump’s foreign policy sui generis?