The Return to Power of President Donald Trump: The Global Ramifications of Trump’s Second Term in The White House.
“How has Donald Trump’s second-term foreign policy marked a shift from traditional American soft power diplomacy to a more aggressive hard power strategy, and what are the implications for the rules-based international order?”
Donald Trump’s second term has ushered in a radical foreign policy, shifting from America’s traditional reliance upon ‘soft power’ to a liberal use of ‘hard power’ to maintain its status as waning global hegemon. The result has been an upending of the rules-based world-order that has redefined relations with both ally and foe. In implementing his ‘America-First Doctrine’—a worldview that entails a ‘judicious use’ of military and economic muscle to place ‘the American people first.’1—the belligerent and open flexing of military and economic might has become the primary tool of accomplishing an agenda that seeks to ‘restore victory and clarity as an endstate.’
This confrontational shift has had immense ramifications on how America and the global order itself operates. Unlike the ‘balance of power’ politics that defined the 19th and 20th century or the Cold War, America has sanctified its hegemony in the 21st century by imbedding its ‘power within rules, norms and institutions that constrain it from acting arbitrarily … [and] by binding its use to a shared moral purpose.’2 This structure, often described as the ‘rules-based international order’, has historically prevented the United States from alienating allies while legitimising its global leadership.
The crux of this legitimacy lay in America’s use of ‘soft power’, defined by political scientist Joseph Nye as ‘the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies.’3It is the export of American culture and media that render it the perceived arbiter of liberal democracies, and thus enable America to create a global order in which it can thrive. Nissen’s ‘currency metaphor’ of ‘diplomatic capital’—a reserve that increases with positive ‘social competences, reputation and authority’ and can be spent when coercive or controversial actions are taken—is how America wields its more traditional ‘hard power’: ‘the ability to coerce through military and economic might.’4 The 2003 Invasion of Iraq, for example, drew heavily on its international credibility and perceived moral authority to justify a war that many allies were at best skeptical of.
1 America First Policy Institute. “Establish an America First Foreign Policy | the America First Agenda | America’s Future Is America First!” Americafirstpolicy.com, 2017.
https://agenda.americafirstpolicy.com/strengthen-leadership/establish-an-america-first-foreign-policy.2 Rowe, David. “The Meaning of ‘America First’ – Kenyon Alumni Magazine.” bulletin.kenyon.edu, 2018. https://bulletin.kenyon.edu/article/the-meaning-of-america-first/.
3 Nye, Joseph S. “Soft Power.” Foreign Policy 80, no. 80 (1990): 153–71. https://doi.org/10.2307/1148580. 4 Nissen and Joseph Nye Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. “The Diplomacy of Opting Out: A Bourdieudian Approach to National Integration Strategies.” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 46, no. 3 (June 2008): 663–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2008.00799.x.
What differs in Trump’s second term, is that a ‘judicious use’ of America’s influence appears to entail highly visible acts of diplomacy that disregard accrued diplomatic capital—with a mixed record of success. For example, Trump and President Zelenskyy’s infamous February exchange exhibited Trump’s penchant for a hard power approach, asserting that Zelenskyy did not ‘have the cards’ and the war would have ‘been over in 2 weeks’ without America support.5 As opposed to the Biden Administration’s $182 billion of aid, the Trump administration froze $16.7 billion of humanitarian aid, refused to approve further aid and has demanded ‘pay-back’ for America’s support through a rare-earths deal.6
Instead of leading liberal democracies in a moral consensus to defend state sovereignty and accepting diplomatic capital as currency, Trump has demanded tangible concessions that are domestically popular, but undermine America’s foreign interests. While this approach has produced short-term gains—such as the rare-earths deal—it simultaneously drew international ire that disenfranchised many Allies who opted to immediately voice support for Ukraine as opposed to America.
In a similar vein, Trump’s April ‘Liberation Day Tarif s’ sought to end a period where perceived ‘foreign cheaters…scavengers’ have ripped ‘of our country and taxpayers.’7 Where America once imposed its global economic preeminence by building a system of free-trade centered on the USD that granted Washington immense economic soft power, Trump’s new sleuth of tariffs seeks to replicate the economic successes of Cold-War era America by coercing trade relations. Vietnam, under the threat of tariffs as high as 46%, fast tracked approval for a $1.5 billion Trump Organisation backed golf-resort development as a tangible concession that favoured American investment as a way to avoid tariffs.
While this belligerent approach has appeared successful in some cases, Trump’s antagonism towards allies has further alienated America, putting into question America’s leadership of the democratic bloc of powers, especially when Trump feels it fitting to lecture the UN General Assembly for fifty-seven minutes on the ‘Green Scam’, a perspective that is unaligned with the moral consensus underpinning the liberal order it previously championed.8 America’s traditional allies: Australia, Canada and other democracies are increasingly willing to condemn and work to counter Trump’s vision. A particularly striking break came when a coalition of traditionally U.S.-aligned states jointly recognized Palestinian statehood following Israel’s invasion of Gaza.9 Even Israel, long one of Washington’s closest partners,
5 The Telegraph. “Full Argument: Trump-Zelensky White House Meeting Descends into Shouting Match.” YouTube, February 28, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_kTNIYsFnQ.
6 Masters, Jonathan, and Will Merrow. “How Much U.S. Aid Is Going to Ukraine?” Council on Foreign Relations, March 11, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine.
7 The White House. “‘My Fellow Americans, This Is Liberation Day. April 2, 2025…’ –President Donald J. Trump.” YouTube, April 3, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GVnXh4QG1k. &
McManus, Allison, Ryan Mulholland, Andrew Miller, Dan Herman, Robert Benson, and Courtney Federico. “100 Days of the Trump Administration’s Foreign Policy: Global Chaos, American Weakness, and Human Suffering.” Center for American Progress, April 24, 2025.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/100-days-of-the-trump-administrations-foreign-policy-global-chaos-ameri can-weakness-and-human-suffering/.
8 Lindsay, James M. “Trump Addresses the UN General Assembly.” Council on Foreign Relations, September 23, 2025. https://www.cfr.org/blog/trump-addresses-un-general-assembly.
9 Albanese, Anthony, and Penny Wong. “Australia to Recognise Palestinian State.” Prime Minister of Australia, August 11, 2025. https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australia-recognise-palestinian-state.
now requires what commentators have described as ‘babysitting’ to ensure Prime Minister Netanyahu adheres to Trump’s ‘Gaza Peace Plan.’10
Collectively, these fractures underscore the very real risk that Trump’s shift towards hard power in his second term has paradoxically weakened America’s influence. By forgoing the international goodwill and soft power that has sustained one of history’s most formidable superpowers, America now finds itself expending its limited power micro-managing its own Allies. Once irreconcilably delegitimised, a quick glance at history yields a less than favourable prospectus for superpowers such as America—from the British Empire that clung to colonial oversight, to the USSR that relied upon coercive management of the Warsaw Pact, both ultimately found their dominance was unsustainable.
What is often overlooked however, is this ‘judicious use’ of hard power in Trump’s second term may not be entirely ideological, but symptomatic of a deeper cultural and geopolitical shift that has made accruing diplomatic capital more difficult. Since the Iraqi invasion of 2003, global favourability ratings have steadily fallen from 71% to 40%.11 Examining more recent data reveals since Trump’s 2nd inauguration, 15 ‘Allied’ nations have had favourability decreases of between 32% in Mexico, 28% in Sweden and 11% in Australia.12 Bereft of credibility due to decades of interventionism and political instability, traditional hard power may be the only language that still allowed America to marshal the authority it once had.
While Trump’s erratic foreign policy has rendered predictability a bygone, his actions have showcased an increasing willingness to exercise America’s military and economic might to ‘restore…victory as an end state.’ Whether these are symptoms of a waning global hegemon desperately exercising its last bits of influence to remain relevant or symptomatic of a growing global trend in anti-establishment sociopolitics, America will need to consider an inevitable future without Trump. In lieu of the less than tasteful results—America’s international isolation, economic strife and the delegitimising of America’s global leadership—future administrations will need to consider tangible solutions to these prescient issues. To repair broken ties or continue this shift, that is the question.
10 Cordall, Simon Speakman. “Analysis: America’s 51st State? US Pressure Comes to Bear on Israel.” Al Jazeera, October 23, 2025.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/23/analysis-americas-51st-state-us-pressure-comes-to-bear-on-israel.11 Gallup Inc. “U.S. Position in the World.” Gallup.com, March 4, 2008.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/116350/position-world.aspx.
12 Beshay. “1. Views of the United States.” Pew Research Center, June 11, 2025.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/06/11/views-of-the-united-states/.
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