Populism and Trump’s Foreign Policy
the international and political journal
Abstract
sident Trump made radical shifts in the US’s foreign policy, which in turn led to a profound academic debate about the nature of this policy and its motivations. President Trump is a populist, and it is widely believed that his populism has had the greatest influence on his foreign policy. He entered the White House in 2017 and returned in 2025 due to the rise of the populist sentiment within the United States since 2008. This rise was a consequence of the negative repercussions of globalization and neoliberal economics, a growing concerns of identity among white Americans, and deep resentment towards the decline and corruption of traditional the US elites and institutions. The study concluded that the populist sentiment that brought Trump to the White House contributed to his adoption of a populist foreign policy centered on absolute sovereignty and the preservation of the US’s exceptionalism, but through populist means, most notably reducing engagement in the international system. Trump further deepened this approach by shifting the priority of the US strategic focus from Asia to the Western Hemisphere. The study also concluded that populism in the United States will persist for a long time and will have a profound impact on the US’s foreign policy because its underlying causes remain.
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