By John J. Metzler, January 21, 2025A series of widening wars, growing humanitarian crises and simmering foreign conflicts are among the list of foreign policy/security woes confronting President Donald Trump.
From day one of his administration the president must assess and prioritize U.S. policy interests in key regions both on the geostrategic and political fronts.
The previous Biden Administration was noted for a plethora of foreign foibles from day one; Scrapping the U.S./Canada petroleum Keystone XL Pipeline literally during its first hours to the shameful military debacle in Afghanistan later in 2021, to a series of questionable polices from Ukraine to Venezuela.
The Biden team excelled in compassion charades, high profile policies in which the stylized drama often appeared good through a TV lens but in reality, was only shadows mixed with risky outcomes.
Biden’s blundering coupled with mainstream media complicity has deepened risk for American interests globally and compromises President Trump’s foreign policy inheritance.
Here are some key regions and challenges facing the new President.
Middle East
The horrors of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 triggered a wider war in Gaza which later spilled into Lebanon. Despite a tenuous and long-awaited cease-fire, the region could easily reignite.
The positive outcome has been that Israel had bloodied and decimated the Iranian-backed Hamas as well as Hizbullah. Equally, but for different reasons, the Russia- and Iran-supported regime in Syria has collapsed.
The Islamic Republic of Iran remains vulnerable after a series of setbacks through the loss of its terrorist proxies and its Syrian ally. Iran is the place to watch as well as the evolving Islamic regime in Damascus. So too are the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen who threaten the Red Sea maritime lanes of communication south of Suez.
In addition, Libya’s civil war has festered.
As to the hostages held by Hamas, 33 will be released including 3 Americans in the cease-fire deal. But Hamas understood the dire consequences of not releasing hostages (some of them) given Donald Trump’s clear warning of “Hell to pay,” should they not do so. This recalled the Iranian regime’s quick capitulation to the incoming Reagan Administration, when the Ayatollah’s surrendered over 50 U.S. hostages from the American Embassy. <em>Deja vu</em> January 1981!
Ukraine
The full-scale war and Russian invasion was unleashed in Biden’s second year, the largest war in Europe since WWII.
In Ukraine, the Biden efforts supported risky military escalatory measures against the aggressor Russia through its sending over $185 billion in military and economic aid supporting the Kyiv government.
The NATO Alliance remains vital, but its 32 member states must carry larger military burdens as Trump pressed for already in his first Administration, especially the agreed to 2 percent GDP defense spending minimum.
Latin America
Rocky relations continue with Venezuela as the U.S. has rightly shunned the Cuban-backed Maduro regime but at the same time not played political hardball against that regime exporting tens of thousands of migrants, often with gang and criminal connections, across America’s southern border.
Open borders have encouraged human trafficking into the USA. Significantly, Mexican people-smuggling cartels pose a direct danger to the United States. The U.S. borders must be secured.
China Policy
The growth of China’s military poses a clear and present danger to the U.S.
In Senate confirmation hearings, as Secretary of State, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) stated clearly in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
Without swift and substantive policy shifts, China will remain the “biggest threat to American prosperity in the 21st Century… If we don’t change course, we are going to live in the world where much of what matters to us on a daily basis from our security to our health will be dependent on whether the Chinese allow us to have it or not.
Beijing’s threats to democratically ruled and self- governing Taiwan looms. Though the small New Hampshire-sized island off the China mainland no longer has a formal U.S. defense treaty as does Japan and South Korea, Beijing’s military intimidation has grown exponentially.China has never renounced the use of military force against what it deems a “renegade province.”
Marco Rubio vowed to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses and deterrence to prevent a “cataclysmic military intervention.”
Moreover, we still face North Korea’s growing [and China-enabled] missile proliferation and nuclear capacity which endangers South Korea, Japan, American bases and Hawaii.
Elsewhere, Sudan, the sub-Saharan African SAHEL states, Somalia and Congo remain massive humanitarian crises where millions languish in starvation. So does Caribbean Haiti.
In a world mired in conflict and humanitarian chaos only a strong, focused and pro-active America can reset and recalibrate the equilibrium.
The challenge now begins.
John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014). [See pre-2011 Archives]
