Trump's Foreign Policy Doesn’t Have to Be America’s New Normal
Michael McFaul's Substack essay argues that Trumpism is not America's new normal in foreign policy: Trump, not structural forces, is driving the chaos, and a post-Trump president can probably reverse it. Trump's 281 second-term executive orders include 70 touching foreign policy, though he never campaigned on war with Iran, annexing Greenland, or tariffs on nearly every country but Russia. McFaul says polls show most of these initiatives — the stalled Iran war, fights with allies, tariffs, slashed aid to Ukraine and USAID — are unpopular at home, and he urges 2028 candidates to break radically with Trumpism.
