How bright is the Trump 2.0 foreign policy?

The foreign policy scholar Dan Drezner publishes in thorough respectable foreign policy journals. He is also negatively impressed by the incompetent diplomacy of the Trump 2.0 Administration, which, as he notes, is even worse than the Trump 1.0 version, which was also pathetic.

The title he chose for his latest Substack column is, “American Foreign Policy Is Being Run by the Dumbest Motherfuckers Alive.” (1) His main point in the column is that even though Trump came into his second Presidency with a more coherent team of MAGAists and the whole Project 2025 blueprint for vandalizing democratic government, his approach to diplomacy is still remarkably incompetent.

On the one hand, that incompetence could have the side benefit of limiting the damage Trump 2.0 can do in some ways. But the idea of having democratic governance that works well means that the everyday functioning of public institutions needs to be competent and effective. Including foreign policy, which is a field whose implementation does require a great deal of professionalism to be done right. But as Drezner puts it:

In two short months, the second Trump administration’s abject incompetence has managed to make his bumbling first-term crew look like a paragon of professionalism. Trump’s needless, groundless hostility towards Canada — egged on by advisor Peter Navarro and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick — has managed to turn one of the friendliest neighbors in international relations history into a prickly porcupine of a neighbor, complete with consumer boycotts and everything.

Drezner points out that in the international arena, China is potentially the biggest beneficiary from even the DOGE cuts Co-President Elon Musk is making. Foreign policy wonks tend to think in terms of various kinds of power-balancing, and China is the current “rising hegemon” in the world in foreign-policy-wonk terms. So “China will benefit” is kind of a default argument that can be used against any policy you don’t like on Trump’s part.

But Trump operates in a world in which being able to claim the publicity of having made a good “deal” is the primary goal in international negotiations. And not the substantive practical and strategic benefit for the country that it will produce. Drezner quotes from a column he did back in early June 2017, after only a few months of Trump 1.0:

It’s hard to overstate just how badly Trump has navigated the global stage. The Chinese and Saudis have figured out how to buy him off with a couple billion dollars and some flattery. There is zero evidence of any appreciable policy gains. U.S. leadership is being constantly questioned. Whatever soft power resided in the United States has dissipated. Outside of the Persian Gulf, Trump’s approach has done nothing but alienate allies and bolster potential rivals. [my emphasis]

Drezner stresses the particular idiocy in purely practical terms of Trump’s lunatic threats to annex Canada:

In two short months, the second Trump administration’s abject incompetence has managed to make his bumbling first-term crew look like a paragon of professionalism. Trump’s needless, groundless hostility towards Canada — egged on by advisor Peter Navarro and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick — has managed to turn one of the friendliest neighbors in international relations history into a prickly porcupine of a neighbor, complete with consumer boycotts and everything. [my emphasis]

It's always important to keep in mind that there are economic and geopolitical trends that shape the international environment in which countries operate. But it’s also worth keeping in mind this observation of John Kenneth Galbraith’s from 1977 with reference to the beginning of the First World War – which also was driven by larger trends – on what he called the Stupidity Problem:

There was a final consideration, one that it is always thought a trifle pretentious to stress. Rulers in Germany and Eastern Europe, generals in all countries, held their jobs by right of family and tradition. If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement. Nor is its absence likely to be a disqualification. On the contrary, intelligence is a threat to those who do not possess it, and there is a strong case, therefore, for excluding those who do possess it. This was the tendency in 1914. In consequence, both the rulers and the generals in World War I were singularly brainless men.

None was capable of thought on what war would mean for his class - for the social order that was so greatly in his favor. There had always been wars. Rulers had been obliterated. The ruling classes had always survived. To the extent that there was thought on the social consequences of war, this was what was believed. (2)

The book was based on a documentary series, and this is the episode that corresponds to the cited portion: (3)

Notes:

(1) American Foreign Policy Is Being Run by the Dumbest Motherfuckers Alive. Drezner’s World 03/24/2025. (Accessed: 2025-27-03).

(2) Galbraith, John Kenneth (1977): The Age of Uncertainty, 137-8. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

(3) The Age of Uncertainty Episode 5 (16:45ff in the video). sveinbjornt YouTube channel 10/17/2011. <https://youtu.be/sxAoymq_SEA?si=kj8j9mAhLbfh1iZD> (Accessed: 2023-22-12).