Will Trump solidify his foreign policy in 2026?

 POSSIBLE CHANGES COMING IN THE ADMINISTRATION

30 AMBASSADORS COMING HOME

Only a few days and it will be 2026, is Trump going to make major changes at his 1 year mark? While some direction is becoming more obvious there still seems to be an intentional vagueness in much of his foreign policy. Some believe it is just that his administration does not know what to do, this could be true, or that there is fear of challenging the entrenched powers both at home and aboard. 

It does seem Trump has made his decisions about Ukraine, he is out, or at least moving out. There is not any up side to continuing to throw good money after bad on a no win situation. That coupled with the fact that he may believe he can restore some reasonable relations with Russia that can help in solving issues in other areas. This may be true since Putin has showed himself to be very pragmatic in addressing mutually beneficial policies. I would expect that that trust will only be counted on with a case by case condition. 

Then there is the trade disputes still all over the place. A stable trading system needs to materialize to accomplish positive trading improvements. Trump's experiments with trade punishment has had little effect and may be causing more damage to the U.S. than to China or Russia or others.

Then there is Israel and Iran, yesterday it seemed Trump was saying yes to Bibi, but Bibi better be careful, when it come to going to war, it may still be NO. Trump and the U.S. cannot afford war with Iran, it will have massive repercussion both economically and politically. While Trump is often called unpredictable he has no history of gambling on long shots. There needs to be some solid and transparent decisions  made on this subject, Bibi cannot go to war without Trump's support.

Then there is Venezuela which seems more about the involvement of China into South America. Refineries in the Bahamas, a oil transfer station in Venezuela and then there is the $3 billion port in Peru with proposed rail links across the continent. This is going to bypass the Panama canal and provide access to most of South America. Brazil is a founding member of BRICS and China is now the major trading partner of most of the South American countries. This situation is going to be a difficult problem for any U.S. administration and military force is unlikely to be effective. The reality is that trade with China has become a very mutually profitable endeavor for those who are trading partners of the manufacturing giant of the 21st century.

Trump has had 1 year to experiment with different approaches to complex problems, it is now time to make transparent and difficult decisions as to what can be expected in the next 3 years.