The world Trump will inherit

Michael Froman is president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The world president that Donald Trump will inherit in ten days is much less serene in many respects than the one he inherited eight years ago.

Around the world, a coalition of aggressors led by China and Russia is determined to undermine U.S. leadership and the international system it has built. Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine will soon mark its third anniversary. Unprecedented competition with China is taking place in the political, military, economic and technological fields. Conflict rages between Israel and Iran's proxies, and Iran is closer than ever to obtaining nuclear weapons. The humanitarian crisis in Sudan has displaced more people than the wars in Ukraine and Gaza combined.

And here at home, we face serious weaknesses in our defense industrial base and in our ability to integrate cutting-edge innovations into our warfighting capabilities.

But in another way, the world that Trump will inherit is in a better place than it was when he was last inaugurated. This is a world where the level of operational cooperation in the Middle East between the United States, Israel, Europe and Arab partners is closer than ever. This is a world where the Indo-Pacific security architecture is more impressive than ever, with the construction of the Quad, the launch of AUKUS, the strengthening of trilateral cooperation between the United States, Japan and South Korea, and the tightening alliance between the United States and the Philippines. And it's a world where NATO is bigger, more unified and better resourced than ever before.

Despite domestic challenges, it is also a world in which the American economy is the strongest and most dynamic in the world, the envy of other industrialized countries. America's unique innovation ecosystem remains a magnet for entrepreneurs around the world who want to start something new.

Trump campaigned on a policy of peace through strength. It remains to be seen how he will build on these strengths to meet the challenges we face.

What should its priorities be? This week, the CFR Center for Preventive Action released its annual Preventive Priorities Survey, in which hundreds of foreign policy experts make predictions about what new conflicts could erupt and existing ones could intensify . The survey is sobering, especially as never before in the seventeen years since the survey began have respondents rated so many hazards as being both high-impact and high-impact. high probability. (Interestingly, neither Greenland, Panama, nor Canada are on the list.)

What worried those surveyed most this year was the possibility that the conflicts Israel is currently engaged in in Gaza, the West Bank and with Iran could intensify. All were rated as having high probability and high impact.

Beyond the Middle East, experts were concerned about Russian military advances in Ukraine, potential conflict on our southern border over migration and other issues, and Chinese aggression in Taiwan and the sea. from southern China.

What is striking about the Middle East risks that top the preventive priorities survey is that so far they have remained largely such risks. At several points during 2024, serious concerns have been expressed that one or more specific conflicts will evolve into a regional conflagration. But today, as Israel has destroyed Hamas and significantly degraded Hezbollah as a military threat, as the Assad regime in Syria has disintegrated more quickly than expected, and as Iran's ability to strike Israel is significantly constrained, conventional escalation scenarios seem unlikely.

But that’s no reason to rest on your laurels. Every day, U.S. forces in the region shoot down several anti-ship ballistic missiles fired at them and other countries' ships by the Houthis. The attacks have become almost commonplace and not newsworthy, in part because the U.S. military managed to intercept them, but we must remember that for the first time since World War II, the U.S. Navy is suffering daily shootings.

Then there remains the nuclear question. Iran has lost its second-strike capability against Israel because of Hezbollah's degradation, its missiles have proven relatively impotent against Israeli air defenses (backed by the United States and others), and most of its own air defenses were destroyed by Israeli strikes. As a result, Iranian factions may well feel that their country has no choice but to cross the nuclear threshold.

Israel and the United States have said this would be unacceptable. The question is what both are willing to do about it. Trump vowed to reinstate his maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking forward to working with a US president who he believes will unconditionally support Israeli plans.

On Wednesday at CFR, I had the privilege of interviewing General HR McMaster, who served as Trump's National Security Advisor for thirteen months. He predicted that Trump would further limit the Iranian regime's cash flow and more aggressively ban its material support for its network of proxies in the region, particularly advanced components of anti-ship missiles used by the Houthis.

McMaster also believed it was almost certain that Israel would carry out a strike against Iran's nuclear program in the coming years. This would raise a crucial question for Trump: to join the attack or not to participate? And if he chose to join the attack, it would present the risk of all-out war between the United States and Iran.

The last three administrations have attempted to distance themselves from the Middle East. Those around Trump are debating whether he should do it again, either to focus on China or as part of a broader retrenchment strategy. President Barack Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq and pursued a rebalance toward Asia, Trump ordered a partial troop withdrawal from Syria and negotiated a deal with the Taliban for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, and President Joe Biden made this withdrawal. But to paraphrase Michael Corleone in The godfatherthe Middle East has a way of bringing the United States back, just when it thought it was out.

Trump will return to office in ten days with significant assets at his disposal, at home and abroad. He has majorities in both houses of Congress and he appoints a team determined to faithfully implement his vision. Leaders around the world are all asking the same question: What should I do to make a deal with him?

It is now up to him to manage the agenda. How he uses the strengths America has to address the risks it faces will have a lasting impact on the country's standing in the world and on its own legacy.