Donald Trump's foreign policy: a gift to China?

A Chinese newspaper's front page story about the meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in 2018

A Chinese newspaper's coverage of the meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in 2018

(Image credit: Greg Baker / AFP / Getty Images)

published 2 March 2025

It's hard to overstate how wildly Donald Trump's foreign policy is deviating from that of his predecessor – and even "from his own campaign pitch of America First restraint", said Dave Lawler on Axios. Before taking office, Trump caused alarm by threatening to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland. Since then he has "stunned" even his own advisers with his plan for the US to take over the Gaza Strip. He says he wants Canada to become the 51st US state; he has taken an axe to America's main foreign aid agency, USAID.

And now, to the horror of European partners, he is abandoning Ukraine. Although not the first Western leader to rail against the "dictator" that started the war, he is the first to have been referring to President Zelenskyy, not Putin. His projection of raw, unfocused power is fuelling the sense that Trump's America is to be feared, even by its allies.

Well, sometimes a tougher approach – more vinegar than honey – is needed, said Rich Lowry in the New York Post. In 2011, the then defence secretary, Robert Gates, gave a speech in which he warned Europe's leaders that there would eventually be "a dwindling appetite and patience" in the "American body politic" to expend funds on behalf of nations that weren't prepared to be serious partners in their own defence. Europe ignored that warning. Trump is "abrasive", but his message is hard to ignore. Even so, he should moderate his tone, said Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. "The future will be a hard place", and we'll need old friends at our side. It is not wise to estrange them.

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Trump says he is disengaging from Europe to focus on the threat from China, but if he pushes the US's allies away, Beijing will reap the benefits, said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post. EU officials are now talking of expanding trade with China. Dismantling USAID will only make developing nations even more reliant on Chinese money, said Michael Schuman in The Atlantic. Indeed, there is evidence that Beijing is already moving to fill some of the gaps created by the US aid freeze. And by pulling the US out of the World Health Organisation and other bodies, Trump is clearing the way for China to use them as "instruments" of its power. His handling of Ukraine presents another opportunity for President Xi, who may in the future be able to make the case that only he can rein in Putin's territorial ambitions – and in this way, expand China's influence in Europe. How is any of this in America's best interests?

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