The contemporary situation in the U.S. regarding its foreign policy is still unknown. By and large, the latter’s foundations for the next four years will be defined by the President through his behavior on the international arena and the relevant orders. However, the stable to some extent foreign policy of the United States can be different from the previous years. In fact, the worries have been expressed throughout the presidential campaign, as two adverse points of view were supported. One of them was to remain the supporter of NATO, alien for all the friendly states of Europe, East Asia, and Middle East, whereas the other position represented by the President of the U.S. Donald Trump is for the closer relationships with the states which de-facto violate the world peace and order, namely with Russia.
1. The President’s Approach
In fact, the analysis of the current foreign policy shall be started with the view on the Trump’s approach regarding this matter. The military capabilities of the Europeans are in correlation with the strength of NATO, and Mr. Donald Trump under the circumstances of the European crisis and fear of the military expansion from the East promised to cut the costs spent on the combat power of the European militaries (Bandow 2017). During a number of interview, the President has made a number of controversial statements which threaten the order established prior. In fact, the European Union is considered by Mr. Trump as a weak organization which will, no doubt, disappear. Moreover, Mr. Trump fully supported the Brexit highlighting that these are people willing to see the borders, whereas using this support to be given the same degree thereof, while implementing his plans on the wall with Mexico. In this respect, it should be noted that the President is likely worsen the relations with the latter forcing it to pay for the wall on the Mexico-U.S. border, not being even engaged in prior consultations with the Mexican leaders. Whereas the relations with Mexico hit new low (Borger 2017), there will be tough tensions with a number of countries due to Mr. Trump’s introduction of new visa control measures which prevent people from 7 mostly Muslim populated countries to enter the U.S. (inter alia, Iran, Syria). The President obtain much support in terms of the measures taken from the population and the Republicans (BBC 2017), even though the latter do not correspond with the requirements of the law and it is likely that they will be successfully challenged in courts.
2. The Congress’ Approach and Political Procedures
In terms of the Congress, it shall be noted that the latter has the wide powers as to the foreign policy. Basically, this relates to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee responsible for a number of key foreign policy matters. All the treaties and nominations for the key diplomatic position are the responsibility of the relevant committee the approach of which is required therefor. Also, the legislation touching the foreign policy matters requires the approval of the Senate’s Committee. Simultaneously, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs is limited in its supervisory powers, but is empowered to control the foreign affairs budget and the way how the latter is spent. All the war powers, though the President remain the commander-in-chief, belong to the Congress, as it is the role of the latter to declare the war and to send the military troops. This is foreseen in the U.S. Constitution. Even though the well-established practice of the Presidents to (contrary to these powers) involve the U.S. military in foreign military operations exists, the Congress, in fact, has enough powers to prevent that. However, the contemporary status quo of fully Republic executive and legislative branches does not seem to produce any controversies. It is likely that the common ground will be achieved, and the majority of the President’s actions will be supported.
3. National Security Council
The nowadays National Security Council has been just reorganized by the President. The closest advisor of Mr. Trump, Mr. Bannon will be the regular attendee of all the sessions of the body, whereas the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence will be allowed to attend the sessions only when the topics relations to their positions are discussed (Bertrand 2017). It is highly possible that the position of Mr. Trump will be completely supported by the National Security Council that is, de facto, under his total control (Terkel 2017)
4. Intelligence and Military Establishment
The analytics demonstrated that the intelligence officials preferred Ms. Clinton to Mr. Trump fully supporting the previous liberal course of the U.S. and the policy of sanctions against Russia, the materials regarding the illegal actions of which had been collected for the previous years. Being, no doubt, concerned about the national security issues and the need for certain actions to be taken in response thereto, the intelligence service is completely against the entrance restrictions measures, populist rhetoric and other immanent features of the President’s policy. The Presidential approach towards groups is clear: Mr. Trump does not care about the point of view of those, who have not supported him, highlighting that they are isolated from the reality and future, whereas it is necessary to take sever measures to protect the national security. Moreover, the President removed the top intelligence and military officials from attending the National Security Council, even though the latter is fully responsible for the national security issues (Bertrand 2017). In this respect, it is obvious that, even though these bodies often affected a number of presidential decisions as highlighted the threat existing from certain states, their influence will be limited, and the President will be the one, by and large, defining the perspective foreign policy of the United States.
Works Cited
Bertrand, Natasha. “Trump Just Made an Unprecedented, ‘Radical’ Change to the National S Security Council”. Business Insider, January 2017
Bandow, Doug. “Trump and U.S. Alliances: From Burden-Sharing to Burden-Shedding”. Foreign Affairs, 25 January 2017
“Donald Trump’s Mexico Wall: Who is Going to Pay for It?” BBC, January 2017
Borger, Julian. “Trump-Mexico Relations Hit New Low after 20 % Border Wall Tax Mooted”. The Guardian, 26 January 2017
Terkel, Amanda. “Top Foreign Officials Go After Trump For National Security Council Changes”. The Huffington Post, 25 January 2017
