During Donald Trump’s first term as president, he installed a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office and visited the seventh president’s tomb at the Hermitage. While pundits speculated about the extent to which Trump truly identified with a populist Democrat, they largely ignored Jackson’s legacy as one of the few statesmen who shaped a distinctive school of American foreign policy.

　　In Walter Russel Meade’s seminal work, Special Providence, he analyzes four archetypal “schools” of American foreign policy: Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, Wilsonian, and Jacksonian. The openly nationalist Hamiltonian school focuses on enhancing commerce and free markets as the locus of policy and as a means of promoting international cooperation and stability. The Jeffersonian approach, by contrast, is indifferent to nationalist impulses and, also, indifferent to the point of hostility to any form of internationalism. The Jeffersonian school centers, instead, on the promotion of democracy and the virtues of individuals at a remove from the corrupting influences of foreign engagement. Arguably the most pervasive American foreign policy approach in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is centered in Wilsonian Idealism. The Wilsonian school advocates the spread of democracy not only in the interests of the United States, but as an enlightened and even morally superior form of governance that embraces universal democratic ideals.

　　Mead describes the Jacksonian school, named after President Andrew Jackson, not as idealist, but as deeply nationalistic. Jacksonian approaches are usually insular and seek to preserve options for unilateralism and independence of action in foreign affairs. Adherents of this approach are, at heart, imbued with protectionism. Moreover, Jacksonians are wary of international institutions, and of making multi-lateral agreements and overseas alliances central elements of foreign policy. Critical of elitists, Jacksonians are populists committed first and foremost to a grass-roots democracy that promotes the national interest at home and abroad. When those interests are threatened, Jacksonians are fiercely determined to act with overwhelming force to defend the nation. In the days leading to Trump’s second inauguration and the onset of his administration’s new foreign policy initiatives, observers would do well to revisit the underpinnings of Jacksonian foreign policy.

　　That’s because Trump’s political instincts—as exhibited in his first presidency and on the campaign trail for his second—are reflexively Jacksonian, deeply rooted in an “America First” branded nationalism. This brand is positioned inside a populist platform antagonistic to the post-WWII global order and alliances viewed by Trump as unequal burdens borne by American blood and treasure expended in “forever wars.” It is marked by an aversion to trade regimes that expose Americans to unfair competition and weaken the American economy. And it is characterized by a deep suspicion of liberal internationalist and values-driven approaches to world affairs.

　　These are pivotal factors that will shape Trump’s foreign policy during the next four years, especially his administration’s China policy. Trump’s foreign affairs team will face an increasingly aggressive China—with territorial ambitions bolstered by an unprecedented conventional and nuclear military build-up—that is now a geo-economic world power.

　　Indo-Pacific Engagement

　　Trump will enter his second term in office at a time when Beijing seeks hegemonic status in the Indo-Pacific. China is relentless in pressing its claims to territories and territorial waters stretching from the South China Sea to Taiwan to the Senkakus in the East China Sea. In addition, Chinese president for life Xi Jinping has made no secret of his desire to displace the US and liberal democracies in Asia with a new order aligned to Chinese Communist Party authoritarianism.

　　Against this backdrop, Trump has already signaled he intends to take a more assertive foreign policy posture toward China. Trump selected two of Capitol Hill’s most vocal critics of China to head his foreign affairs team­: Representative Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor and Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. Their policy positions, and the legislation they have introduced, square with the 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy released during Trump’s first term. Echoing former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s 2016 call for a “free and open Indo-Pacific” region, this remains the standing US strategy. The plan is rooted in rules-driven, lawful, and prevailing international conventions (e.g., freedom of navigation, maritime law enforcement), economic growth, and regional stability underpinned by strategic geopolitical and economic partnerships.

　　Trump’s foreign policy team will inherit improved US ties with Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines—all existing partnerships further developed during the Biden administration. Biden adopted the whole of the Trump Indo-Pacific Strategy and pursued an active regional engagement policy. He also reinvigorated the Quadrilateral (Quad) Dialogue among the United States, Australia, India, and Japan. Today, widespread concerns among Asian nations about Beijing’s growing malign influence and China’s unprecedented military build-up will foster a readiness to develop more regional partnering, as evidenced by the recent trilateral engagement among the United States, the Philippines, and Japan.

　　It would be a mistake, however, to view these tariffs as empty campaign promises.

　　That said, the Trump administration will likely be open to continued Indo-Pacific engagement and pursue new initiatives promoted by Rubio and Waltz. Waltz has previously voiced support for greater ties to India and this signals the administration’s willingness to pursue other balanced, bilateral approaches in the region. These approaches would build on established multinational efforts and include more expansive roles with regional organizations including the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. This will also likely generate greater military-to-military cooperation with allies Japan, South Korea, Australia, and future partners, including India. A prototype for the level of partnership needed for effective regional defense and deterrence already exists in the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty (1951) and the more recent 2023 Bilateral Defense Guidelines agreed by the two countries.

　　To successfully craft an effective theater-wide plan of engagement for the Indo-Pacific, the Trump administration will also need to avoid missteps that can be exploited by Beijing. During his first term, for example, Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim nations. China responded to that move by joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership among 15 nations that account for 30 percent of global GDP. Now Asia-Pacific countries are better positioned to link trade and their supply chains with China than with the United States.

　　Trade issues in the Indo-Pacific, then, will loom large in any strategy for the region, especially as policymakers attempt to derisk sectors of the US economy from dependence on Chinese manufacturing and expand trade with Asian nations that include more than a third of the world’s population.

　　Trade, Tariffs, and Transactions

　　Trump has repeatedly denounced the unfairness of US trade with China. In particular, he blames China’s subsidized industries, dumping (goods sold below the cost of production), and cheap (often slave) labor for killing American manufacturing and industrial jobs. Trump’s populist arguments are deeply rooted in a prickly and defensive Jacksonian nationalism and, as such, take no stock of other more complex realities that have led to the decline of American manufacturing and domestic industries. Moreover, Trump regards trade deficits—with China or any other nation—as prima facie evidence of inequitable dealings that redound to America’s economic disadvantage.

　　During his campaign, Trump threatened to respond by imposing tariffs as high as 60 to 100 percent on Chinese trade goods entering the US market (and 10 to 20 percent on other nations’ exports). There is probably more rhetoric than reality in this threat. High tariffs on goods imported from China (and other nations) would be hugely inflationary; the increased costs would simply be passed on to the consumer. In the absence of broader domestic policies to encourage and even underwrite reshored manufacturing, there are few readily available “Made in the USA” alternatives for many of the disposable or durable goods made in China that fill the stores on Main Street America.

　　It would be a mistake, however, to view these tariffs as empty campaign promises. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, has suggested Trump’s “maximalist” positions on trade would be subject to negotiations that include other issues with trading partners. For example, Trump has threatened tariffs on Chinese goods failing Beijing’s demonstrable commitment to stop pushing the killer drug fentanyl into the United States from processors in China. This is additional evidence of Trump’s intent to take a transactional approach to foreign policy and secure deals to bolster the US economy and security.

　　Realistically, Trump is probably prepared to strike a true fair-trade deal with China and tie tariffs to other concessions, even as he pushes the United States away from dependence on Chinese manufacturing. This is not a partisan issue, either. The Biden administration opted to maintain Trump’s first-term tariffs on $380 billion of Chinese goods and hiked the tariffs on other categories totaling $18 billion more. The European Union has also joined the US in adopting anti-dumping measures that target China.

　　Trump’s foreign policy for China will hinge then, in part, on undoing decades of unbalanced trade and on new initiatives to redress unfair trade practices that include reverse engineering of US patented products, the outright theft of intellectual and proprietary property (estimated in an FBI study and a report from the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property at upwards of $600 billion annually), and industrial espionage. Even though the trade deficit with China shows signs of continued decline (to $386 billion in 2023 from an all-time high of $557 billion in 2022) in 2024, the China hawks in the new administration will see economic competition as one facet of the larger peer competitor challenge emanating from Beijing. This is a competition the new national security team in Washington and the country itself can ill afford to lose.

　　Taiwan: The Return of Ambiguity

　　In addition to trade and regional security issues, Trump’s China policy will include a reset on the Taiwan issue. For decades, Washington’s “One China policy” approach to Taipei avowed recognition of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of the sovereign nation of China. Washington’s relationship with Taipei has long been couched in “strategic ambiguity” that straddles the fence as it prefers a political solution, rather than an outright declaration of Taiwanese independence, or reunification of Taiwan with China by force. Even so, the United States maintains de facto diplomatic relations with Taiwan and is required by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to make arms available “to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” on the island.

　　Trump’s second term foreign policy for China will be driven by first term lessons learned to create a more realist approach to world affairs, often transactional in nature and, only as needed, multilateral.

　　Moreover, Taiwan is bound to the United States in significant trade relations. Largely on the strength of its information technology exports, Taiwan is among the top 10 US trading partners. In 2023, the United States had a bilateral deficit of $48 billion on trade of more than $160 billion with Taiwan. US tech manufacturers are also critically dependent on Taiwanese semiconductors; nearly 45 percent of logic chips are imported from the island.

　　Despite the stridency of the new administration’s China hawks, the Trump White House appears unlikely to endorse a policy to defend Taiwan. While it is impossible to walk back Biden’s declarations the United States would come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack—he said it on four very public occasions—Trump can simply ignore those pronouncements. This is a decidedly Jacksonian posture; it avoids a commitment to foreign wars of no immediate threat to the US and reserves the nation’s right for a fierce defense of American interests. Unless China targets US naval forces or military bases in the Pacific, Trump is unlikely to defend Taiwan. Instead, the incoming administration will likely renew Trump’s previous calls for Taiwan to unilaterally increase defense spending and eschew outright military aid to Taipei, like the $900 billion advanced by the Biden administration.

　　Trump’s previous calls for Taiwan to spend 10 percent of its GDP on defense could be moderated as Taipei has nearly doubled its defense spending in the past decade, to 2.5 percent of GDP. And continued purchases of US arms (like the recent $2 billion sale which included advanced surface-to-air missiles) will offset the current trade imbalance. That, and Taiwan’s demonstrated willingness to do more to bolster its own defenses, would be welcome news to Trump and his foreign policy team. A more robust Taiwanese defense—especially one that seeks to build an asymmetrical advantage against a much more powerful adversary—changes Beijing’s calculus on the odds of mounting a successful military takeover of Taiwan.

　　Jackson, Not Wilson

　　Trump’s first administration was roiled by turnover in his cabinet and his White House staff. Many pundits argued these advisors fell out of favor because they were not sufficiently loyal to the president. But a more nuanced view may be more enlightening. Most of Trump’s senior first-term advisors were schooled in Wilsonian Idealism—approaches to foreign policy driven by shared ideological values and imbued with a liberal internationalism. That approach to spreading democracy and capitalism too often relied on American interventionism and lop-sided alliances that are anathema to Trump.

　　Trump’s second-term foreign policy for China will be driven by first-term lessons learned to create a more realist approach to world affairs, often transactional in nature and, only as needed, multilateral. In his new term he will have the support of experienced staff and advisors prepared to enact and enable policies for fair trade, the rule of law, supportive partnerships, and strong and balanced alliances to build a freer and more open Indo-Pacific.

　　To that end, there will be more of Jackson than Wilson in Trump’s approach to world affairs in his second term. It’s the pay-off of his populist promise—not to make the world safe for democracy—but to put the security and economic interests of America first.