Trump already making waves with his foreign policy

President-elect Donald Trump has not been sworn in yet but he is already announcing steps that are reverberating around the globe. He has already threatened a trade war with two allies, one adversary and a powerful Global South group.
Trump last month threatened Mexico and Canada with a 25 percent tariff on imports from the two countries unless they take measures to stem the flow of drugs and migrants across their borders with America. The president-elect also threatened China with an additional 10 percent tariff on its imports to the US. These two threats illustrate how Trump is planning to implement his economic agenda through flexing his muscles at friends and foes alike.
Less than a week after these two announcements — which rattled both Mexico and Canada, prompting two different reactions — Mexico made a reciprocal threat but also reached out to Trump, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Mar-a-Lago in a bid to convince him that such tariffs would hurt both sides.
Before the week was over, Trump took to Truth Social again to threaten a 100 percent tariff on the BRICS grouping of nine nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE — if they tried to move away from the dollar. He warned that the time when America used to “stand by and watch is over.” He wrote: “We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar, or they will face 100 percent tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy.”
The president-elect knows that the BRICS nations are a long way from having an alternative currency to the dollar. He said there was “no chance” BRICS would replace the US dollar in global trade and any country that tried to make that happen “should wave goodbye to America.” The dollar is still the world’s leading reserve currency and is used in 80 percent of global trade. Also, assessments of the dollar as the main global reserve currency indicate that it is “secure in the near and medium term,” according to the Atlantic Council.
The Council on Foreign Relations has doubted, citing experts, that a new BRICS reserve currency “would be stable or reliable enough to be widely trusted for global transactions.” But this is not the issue for Trump. His goal is to draw a line in the sand and dare the world to cross it. He is telling the world, in no uncertain terms, that you are either with us or against us, and that it is time to choose. But he is also putting out his opening bid ahead of negotiations.

He is telling the world, in no uncertain terms, that you are either with us or against us, and that it is time to choose.

Dr. Amal Mudallali

Trump’s tactics are straight from his book, “The Art of the Deal.” He used these negotiating tactics effectively in his first term. And his new threats against his neighbors and adversaries are also meant as a message to America’s European allies, telling them that he means business and they had better shape up. Someone once described Trump’s negotiating style as being like someone who enters a room, throws a bomb and leaves, before coming back to negotiate while the subject of his wrath is stunned and off balance. Tariffs, experts say, are only a negotiating tool for him and are part of his style, which depends on having leverage. This works in both politics and foreign policy.
Trump’s newly chosen national security adviser, Rep. Michael Waltz, calls it “the Trump effect.” He tweeted that “dictators” in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba were panicking at the prospect of Trump’s return, while adding “this is what leadership looks like.” Even the ceasefire that was reached between Hezbollah and Israel was, for Waltz, an outcome of this Trump effect. He said: “Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump.” He added: “His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated. I’m glad to see concrete steps toward de-escalation in the Middle East.”
Although his Jan. 20 inauguration is still more than a month away, Trump is making waves internationally. World leaders began reaching out to him even before he was elected and he is casting a long shadow over events from the Indo-Pacific to Ukraine and the Middle East. The Biden administration is not comfortable with President-elect Trump’s moves, with some accusing him of running his own foreign policy and already changing the calculus of many actors on the world stage while President Joe Biden is still trying to solidify his legacy.
The Biden administration is also taking actions that could lock Trump and his administration into policies that could derail his agenda. For example, Biden has allowed Ukraine to strike Russia with long-range US missiles, leading to an escalation and threatening Trump’s announced plan to end the conflict even before he is inaugurated.
But the transition teams on both sides are painting a rosy picture of cooperation and unity, dismissing any suggestion to the contrary. Waltz said in an interview last month: “Jake Sullivan (the outgoing national security adviser) and I have had discussions. For our adversaries out there that think this is a time of opportunity, that they can play one administration off the other, they’re wrong, and we are hand in glove. We are one team with the United States in this transition.”
Plenty has been written about Trump’s proposed foreign policy team and the possible impact of their hawkish views on policy. But when it comes to foreign policy, there will be only one decider and one policy — the one that President Trump himself will dictate. He does not need to bring out President Harry Truman’s sign, “The buck stops here,” and display this on his desk to send a message about who will be in charge, as the world already knows.

• Dr. Amal Mudallali is a consultant on international affairs and former Lebanese ambassador to the UN.