When Donald Trump was president, he constantly found new ways to boost global tension.
He fast-tracked bombs to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) as they massacred civilians in Yemen, repeatedly risked nuclear war with North Korea, escalated U.S. conflict with Iran, inched toward regime change in Venezuela, appointed officials who heightened tensions in the Balkans and Israel-Palestine, and turbo-charged U.S. military spending.
Since he left office, Trump has encouraged violence abroad: He celebrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s gruesome invasion of Ukraine and urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ramp up his deadly offensives in Gaza and Lebanon.
Now the Republican presidential nominee wants voters to believe that if they give him a second term in office, he will deliver global harmony. “We want to have peace on earth,” Trump declared on Friday.
Trump’s most consistent message on foreign policy is that his opponents are warmongers. The pitch taps both hope and fear: Trump wants to seem like a “change” candidate who would end current conflicts, and he claims a victory by his rival Kamala Harris on Tuesday would cause even more killing. “She would get us into a World War III guaranteed because she is too grossly incompetent to do the job,” Trump said last week.
It’s jarring to hear the mantle of a peace icon claimed by a man who regularly fantasizes about brutality and threatens foreigners (as well as many of his fellow Americans).
Still, Trump and some outside observers are promoting the idea of Trump as peacemaker, as his campaign woos voters frustrated with current U.S. foreign policy choices like President Joe Biden’s near-total backing for Netanyahu’s wars, which is deeply unpopular among many Arab, Muslim and younger Americans, and slams neoconservatives who once dominated the GOP.
As a self-identified dealmaker, Trump has spoken of negotiating with U.S. foes and complained about the cost of foreign military campaigns. Meanwhile, his backers suggest, a fixation on appearances could make him try to stem horrors abroad: He has bemoaned how footage of Israel’s attacks in Gaza has hurt its reputation, and he has expressed a desire to be seen as shaping history that might lead him to pursue recognition like a Nobel Peace Prize.
He and deputies like his vice presidential pick Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) noted Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party has weakened the influence of national security hawks who once dominated it.
Finally, advocates of the idea Trump wants a calmer world also say that would serve the economic interests of him and those he is close to. In the Middle East, for instance, the former president has boosted his business ties, particularly in Saudi Arabia, as have companies linked to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump associate Steve Mnuchin.
Separately, Trump argues his blustering style would project strength but also uncertainty, making global players more cautious about war lest they face an overwhelming or unpredictable U.S. response.
But on the other side of the ledger, there’s a strong case for seeing Trump himself as a warmonger, and a second Trump presidency as extremely likely to fuel carnage globally.
Between 2017 and 2021, Trump’s saber-rattling and volatility meant the U.S. narrowly avoided major wars largely due to luck and other nations’ restraint, most experts believe. In the years since, the deadly consequences of Trump-era choices became clear, as his deal for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan formed the basis for a drawdown that doomed thousands of pro-U.S. Afghans, and as his breaks with U.S. policy on Israel fueled Palestinian outrage that helped drive the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which in turn led to Israeli retaliation and the current war in Gaza.
Rather than reflect and propose a different path for a second term, the former president and allies are doubling down on his past approach, envisioning bigger confrontations with nations from China to Iran, and little tolerance for dissent against his policies from national security professionals or the public.
“Trump likes to claim that he’s the ‘candidate of peace,’ which is just plainly absurd,” Sara Haghdoosti, the executive director of the advocacy group Win Without War, told HuffPost this week.
With mass deportations and a trade war with Beijing on the Republican nominee’s agenda for a second term, and the complex diplomatic needs on conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza, many pro-peace voices are extremely skeptical a second Trump administration will usher in global stability.
“When Trump was president, he brought us to the brink of a ruinous war with Iran by tearing up the successful Iran nuclear deal and then recklessly assassinating [Iranian general] Qasem Soleimani,” Haghdoosti said. “He tore apart families at the border, and tried to tear apart mine and thousands of others with his Muslim ban. He’s said repeatedly that he’d do all that again and more, and we have no reason to expect anything less.”
Fanning The Flames
For most of the globe’s hot spots, a second Trump presidency portends more suffering.
To those pushing dubious military plans to manage global affairs ― from Iraq invasion cheerleader Netanyahu to some of his peers ― it’s a feature, not a bug, to have a U.S. president who believes “real rough, nasty” moves solve complex problems. Another Trump presidency would likely spell more anguish in situations like the civil war in Sudan, as analysts say governments fueling violence like the U.A.E. would anticipate less resistance to their approach from Washington.
Still, the Biden administration’s failure to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, to free Israeli hostages and bring desperately needed relief to Palestinians, has fueled hope a different administration can deliver a deal.
Trump’s exhortations to Netanyahu to wind down his campaign there have, to some, suggested he might pressure the Israeli leader to strike a deal in a way Biden has not, and Harris has not indicated she would.
Yet it’s easy to envision a compromise that creates only the appearance of easing tensions while permitting ongoing killing, more alleged war crimes and further damage to prospects of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Trump’s policy in the region has long been aligned with hardline Israel supporters, from mega-donor Miriam Adelson to his former lawyer David Friedman, and Netanyahu appears to be planning to prolong fighting. When it comes to key questions on Gaza’s fate over which the U.S. has unique influence, like whether Israeli settlers seize part of the territory or how to care for its displaced, traumatized population, a Trump administration is extremely unlikely to push Netanyahu toward concessions to Palestinians.
“Trump and his associates have never expressed any interest in Palestinian lives, freedom, or self-determination,” Haghdoosti noted.
The prospective administration could foment further Israeli-Palestinian violence by revoking even the limited steps to deter attacks against civilians in the occupied West Bank that the Biden administration has introduced, as well as by further encouraging far-right Israelis seeking to capture Palestinian land. And domestically, Trump and Republican lawmakers are near-certain to crack down on pro-Palestinian and anti-war activism for a more restrained U.S. policy.
“Trump likes to claim that he’s the ‘candidate of peace,’ which is just plainly absurd.”
- Sara Haghdoosti, executive director at Win Without War
In deferring to hard-right Israelis, Trump could also worsen violence along Israel’s so-called “northern front”: its recently launched bombing and ground invasion of Lebanon to weaken the Hezbollah militia, which is based in the country and which has a long animosity with Israel.
A settlement between Israel and Hezbollah would involve complex diplomacy, probably through the United Nations, to address Israel’s demand for Hezbollah’s forces to pull back from its border.
Yet Trump has long discounted the U.N., pulling the U.S. out of parts of the organization when he was president and calling it inherently ineffective. Officials in his last administration and Trump’s allies in Congress have long sought to undermine the U.N. mission in Lebanon and the Lebanese military ― the two forces that are widely seen as able to limit Hezbollah’s influence along the Israel-Lebanon border and help peace take hold there.
If neither of those organizations do the job, the main possibility is an Israeli occupation of the area, which could fuel years of further turmoil.
A through-line in America’s Middle East entanglements is the U.S.’ decades-old feud with Iran, which Israel sees as its chief enemy, and which backs Hamas and Hezbollah.
Washington and Tehran attempted rare diplomacy under President Barack Obama, signing an agreement that gave Iran relief from international sanctions on its economy in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. Yet when Trump took power, he torpedoed the deal.
Biden has failed to restore the agreement, and Iran is now closer than ever to being able to build a nuclear weapon ― a possibility Israel and the U.S. say they could not abide, raising fears of a military confrontation if a peaceful solution is not reached soon.
Meanwhile, Israel’s post-Oct. 7 military campaign has repeatedly hit Iranian targets, and in recent months, Israel and Iran have launched their biggest ever attacks on each other, boosting fears of a full-scale conflict.
Trump has suggested he would negotiate with Iran, an idea the country’s new president may be open to. But he would have to square that effort with Israel’s eagerness to deal Iran lasting damage.
He would face additional complexities, noted Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy think tank.
Even as Israel has weakened some Iran-linked groups, “Iran and its allies have kept the Bab el-Mandib pressure valve open,” Toossi told HuffPost, referring to a strait in the Red Sea that has been repeatedly targeted by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, which is based in Yemen. The corridor is vital to global trade and, by extension, worldwide inflation. The Houthis’ continued ability to launch attacks there ― presented as a gesture of solidarity with Palestinians ― give pro-Iran forces a way to pressure the U.S.
Toossi also noted that one of the key remaining elements of the previous Iran nuclear deal, the “snapback” mechanism for U.N. sanctions, is set to expire in October 2025, putting a ticking clock on efforts to resolve concerns about Iranian nuclear activity diplomatically.
Altogether, the situation demands a level of diplomatic savvy that’s hard to anticipate in a second Trump administration, and involves a significant risk of spiraling into warfare, even if unintentionally.
Some Trump watchers believe the conflict he is most motivated to address lies beyond the Middle East: in Ukraine. Since Russia’s vicious full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, Trump and a growing number of Republicans have questioned Biden’s policy of arming the Ukrainians.
A ceasefire there could let him claim a break from Biden’s policy, which he has cast as needlessly prolonging slaughter and too costly for the U.S. It could also boost Trump’s relationship with Putin, whom he has long admired, and win him credit from anti-interventionist voices on the right and in his electoral coalition, like former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who have made U.S. Ukraine policy their chief bugbear.
The idea of a negotiated settlement between Kyiv and Moscow has gained traction among some Ukrainians and in Europe, and it’s possible a Trump administration could build on existing proposals for a deal.
But actual peace hinges on a lasting bargain, and terms both sides can live with. It’s questionable how long either side will abide by an agreement if core issues like Ukraine’s autonomy and Russia’s occupation of its territory remain unresolved.
Meanwhile, foreign officials and experts worry the general tenor of a second Trump presidency would encourage Putin to try to aggressively expand his influence in Europe, particularly if Trump remains deeply skeptical of the U.S. alliance with nations there, NATO, and if his policy choices are shaped by his desire to challenge European countries on trade.
“They are going to have to pay a big price,” Trump said of the European Union earlier this week.
Unfettered
A reelected Trump is expected to have far fewer guardrails against dramatic, ill-considered moves on foreign policy than were present in his first term.
In conservatives’ Project 2025 plan, which Trump has disavowed but to which he remains strongly connected, his allies are clear they intend to gut the State Department, calling most of its national security experts “left-wing.” In terms of the armed forces, Trump has been clear he expects personal loyalty, and his circle likely has a better sense of how to enforce that after battling in their first tenure with generals like former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley who resisted Trump suggestions, like deploying troops to shoot and beat protesters in American cities.
And Trump has shown he will refuse attempts by co-equal branches of government to exercise authority over international relations. Fears about his decision-making when he was president led Congress to twice use the extremely rare move of passing so-called war powers resolutions to limit Trump’s ability to single-handedly dial up global crises, with even some Republicans signing on. Each time, Trump vetoed the bill.
The upshot: It’s hard to envision a Commander-in-Chief Trump having the impetus or skill to make good on his “anti-war” credo.
It’s harder still to see peace having a chance if he is elected.