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Trump’s foreign policy shakes global relations

26 February 2025

Commentary
Edmund O’Sullivan
Former editor of MEED

Doubts about US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy have been largely dispelled by actions in February 2025 that have remade the foundations of America’s approach to world affairs.

Trump had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and dispatched envoys to Riyadh for meetings about ending the three-year conflict in Ukraine. Tariffs were imposed on imports from Canada, China and Mexico and others announced for March on steel and aluminium. Automobiles, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals are to be targeted in April. Huge cuts in foreign aid have been ordered.

And exceeding even the worst fears, Trump declared that the US will take over Gaza and encourage its people to leave for neighbouring nations when the war there ends.

Everyone is bemused and many are offended. Among the nations most outraged are those that had seen themselves as America’s best friends, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. 

Trump has upturned diplomatic conventions by being almost as tough on America’s allies as China, now identified as Washington’s principal long-term foe.

There is an exception. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first foreign leader Trump greeted at the White House [pictured]. He enthusiastically welcomed the impossible Gaza plan.

Saudi Arabia has denounced the project and restated its commitment to a two-state solution. Hopes engendered mainly by Washington think tanks that Riyadh was poised to normalise relations with Tel Aviv have been exposed as fanciful. The kingdom in February reaffirmed its traditional position as leader of the Arab and Islamic world.

But at least the first six-week phase of the Gaza ceasefire was largely respected. The longer it lasts, the harder it will be to break.

This has given Trump’s administration time to focus on ending the Ukraine war. The negotiations between Moscow and the US in Riyadh is a sign of where power may reside in the next four years, and an indication that it will not be in Europe.

Lasting impact

It is just over 80 years since US President Franklin D Roosevelt met Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Crimea in a seminal summit that defined the parameters for imperfect but lasting peace in Europe. Some say the meetings in Riyadh may be the Yalta conference of our times.

The parallel is probably wrong. But the structure of international relations has been altered in ways that are profound and lasting. That is why the events of February 2025 – as they did in the same month in 1945 – will resonate through our lifetimes and beyond.

Connect with Edmund O’Sullivan on X

More from Edmund O’Sullivan:

> Between the extremes as spring approaches
> A leap into the unknown
> Middle East faces a reckoning
> Biden leaves a mixed legacy
> Desperate days drag on
> The beginning of the end
> The death of political risk
> Italy at centre of new reduced Europe
> US foreign policy approach remains adrift
> Rainmaking in the world economy

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Edmund O’Sullivan

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