If Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in 2024, he will most likely appoint his own people to key positions in the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA, which will allow him to pursue an isolationist policy. This is reported by the agency Reuters on Monday, December 18, based on interviews with nearly 20 former and current aides and diplomats.
As the agency writes, this will allow Trump to radically change the US position on various issues, including trade with China and Russia's war against Ukraine.
Reuters notes that during his presidency, Trump often expressed displeasure with top officials who talked him out of some of his ideas. In particular, former Defense Minister Mark Esper said in his memoirs that he twice opposed Trump's proposal to launch missile strikes against drug cartels in Mexico, which is the largest trading partner of the United States.
Reuters interviewees said having more loyalists in key positions would allow Trump to "advance his foreign policy priorities faster and more effectively" than during his previous presidency. According to one of the interlocutors, after he left the White House, Trump's assistants said that they were not ready [to manage the White House], the next time everything should be different."
“When they took the Oval Office in 2017, they had no idea what to do with it. But it won't happen again." said an unnamed Northern European diplomat.
One of Trump's top foreign policy advisers, Robert O'Brien, said he would likely impose trade tariffs on NATO countries if they don't meet a commitment to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense.
According to Reuters, most of Trump's trusted advisers and with whom he communicates regularly "expressed concern that the United States is paying too high a price for supporting NATO and Ukraine."
Eight European diplomats interviewed by reporters expressed doubts that Trump would honor US commitments to protect NATO allies and expressed "grave concerns" that he would end aid to Ukraine in a war waged by Russia.
"There are rumors that he wants to withdraw the United States from NATO or leave Europe, of course, this sounds alarming, but ... we are not panicking," said a diplomat from a Baltic country.
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