PNN – In an article, “Foreign Policy” magazine, pointing out that the second administration of “Donald Trump” will be completely different from the first four years of his presidency, examined some basic foreign policy challenges facing the elected American president in 2025.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network from Foreign Policy magazine, Trump is entering the White House for the second time in a situation where his second administration is completely different from the first four years of his administration.
According to this American publication, although one of the honors of Trump is that he was the first president of the United States in recent decades that did not start any war, but upon entering the White House again, he must consider at least two major wars.
Trump has repeatedly announced that he will force Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to come to the negotiating table and end the war in Ukraine within “24 hours”.
Read more:
But in the case of the ongoing second war in the Middle East, where the dynamics of the region underwent more changes with the sudden fall of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in early December, the situation is much more complicated than what Trump thinks. The president-elect of the United States recently admitted in an interview with Time magazine that the war between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah is “more complicated” than the war between Russia and Ukraine. However, at the same time, he considered the solution to be simpler.
By listing these two examples, Foreign Policy continues to address the biggest foreign policy challenges that Trump may face in his second administration;
The end of the Ukraine game?
One of Trump’s first priorities in foreign policy is dealing with Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine; A war that will be over three years after just one month of the new Trump administration. The US president-elect has promised to end this battle before his inauguration on January 20, 2025. But from the point of view of the author of this article, the presence of North Korean forces in the front line of Russia and receiving Ukraine’s permission from Joe Biden to use long-range missiles in order to attack the depths of Russian soil, it will be difficult to fulfill this promise.
Trump has threatened to increase or cut US military aid to Kiev if Putin or Zelensky refuse to come to the negotiating table, respectively. It will stop it completely.
The shaky Middle East
Further, Foreign Policy considers Trump’s re-entry into the White House to coincide with one of the most variable periods in the history of the Middle East and, referring to his promise to establish peace in this region, has evaluated its implementation with many challenges.
From the author’s point of view, the Middle East has been the scene of a bloody war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza for more than a year, and although there are signs of a ceasefire, even maintaining it requires a lot of effort. Especially since Israel has announced its readiness for a temporary military presence in Gaza as part of the ceasefire agreement. Therefore, in a situation where Trump considers peace in this region to be one of the preconditions for normalizing Israel-Saudi relations and preventing Iran’s nuclear program, he must make an indescribable effort to achieve it.
This article then, referring to the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has evaluated it as a challenge and at the same time an opportunity for Trump; In this way, the president-elect of America has to decide how to face Tahrir al-Sham and its leader, Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani, who is trying to legitimize his image on the world stage.
At the same time, Trump has to learn how to cope with Israel and Türkiye with post-Assad Syria; Because on the one hand, Israel has used the ousting of Assad as an opportunity to launch a campaign of airstrikes aimed at destroying the remaining military assets, and is also sending troops to the buffer zone inside Syria near the Golan Heights.
Türkiye, as a member of NATO, can be a problem for Trump. This country considers the Syrian Kurdish forces supported by Washington to be terrorists. Therefore, in case of a possible attack on the positions of this group, it may put Trump in an unfavorable position. Therefore, we have to wait and see how Trump, who pointed out the great role of Ankara in these developments after the fall of Assad, reacts to the current situation in this country.
China’s ongoing challenge
As the last challenge, Foreign Policy has stated that China and the United States as two great powers can solve all the world’s problems, and Trump even mentioned this in his first press conference after winning the presidential election in November. However, at the same time, he threatened Beijing with heavy tariffs.
According to observers, how much tariffs Trump will ultimately impose on goods imported from China can determine the level of tensions and even declare a trade war against this great Asian power.
Foreign Policy has noted that although tariffs are Trump’s favorite tool, they alone will not solve all of his economic problems with China; because he is on the side of a country that is rapidly surpassing America in various fields of technology. According to the results of a new research, China is ahead of America in 7 out of 10 advanced industries.
From the author’s point of view, at the same time as the trade war between Beijing and Washington, there is also the risk of a military confrontation between the two sides both in the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea.
Therefore, to what extent Trump can deal with the challenges raised, depends on the influence of the power of his cabinet. In particular, he has proven that he is not going to face this challenge through dialogue and friendship by introducing bellicose figures, including a figure like Senator Marco Rubio for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who has anti-Chinese positions.