• Leaders from across the world congratulated Donald J. Trump, the 47th President of the United States, and expressed their desire to work together for mutual interests. However, the reality of geopolitics lies beyond the rhetoric. Trump’s return to the White House will keep America’s allies, partners, and adversaries on their toes, as they brace up to learn from his first term and prepare for the next four years of US foreign policy.
• Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated Trump, urging the two countries to find the right way to get along in the new era, to strengthen dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, and expand mutually beneficial cooperation. When quizzed about Trump’s tariff threats, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson refused to answer the “hypothetical question.” Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump as well, calling the US president “courageous” in reference to the first assassination attempt against him during an election rally in Pennsylvania. Saying that he was ready for dialogue with Trump, Putin commented, “What was said about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to bring about the end of the Ukrainian crisis in my opinion this deserves attention at least.”
• Irrespective of the leadership change in the White House, China’s comprehensive power will remain the most prominent challenge to US primacy in the international system. Adding to this threat is the growing anti-American alliance between China and Russia. In fact, some see Washington confronting a new two-front Cold War with Beijing and Moscow. In a bilateral summit earlier this year,  Xi and Putin jointly called out “the negative impact on regional peace and stability of the US “Indo-Pacific” strategy.”
• Therefore, even as Beijing and Moscow were quick to congratulate Trump’s return to power, the strategic contest with China and the growing animosity with Russia are here to stay in the near future. As the Republican Party also won a majority in the US Senate, and inches closer to controlling the House of Representatives, Beijing and Moscow will keenly watch Trump’s first policy calls on the Ukraine war, trade, Taiwan, and technology.
• However, is the China-Russia alliance ironclad in its defiance against the US? In the older Cold War with the Soviet Union, a geopolitical split between the USSR and China led to the US-China rapprochement in the early 1970s altering the Asian power balance for decades to come. Will history repeat itself? During his campaign speeches, Trump alluded to his desire to create a rift between Russia and China. Will Trump and his team have enough geostrategic foresight and bargaining chips to end the war in Ukraine, set new terms of engagement with Russia, and end the Xi-Putin bromance? It is a long shot, but if Trump manages this transaction, it will dramatically shift European and Asian geopolitics.

The Western Allies

• The mixed reactions of European leaders came out quite starkly during the European Political Community summit in Budapest. There was a near-unanimous call for a stronger European defence and security preparedness, with lesser expectations from Washington. While insisting that Trump “will defend the American interests,” French President Emmanuel Macron asked whether Europeans were “willing to defend the European interest.” There is also a creeping fear among European leaders that Trump’s campaign promise to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours might lead to concessions favourable to Russia, and that Trump’s radical tariff measures might hurt the EU economy.
• European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, while calling for the EU to maintain unity, said that she was looking forward to working with President Trump “in a good manner” for strengthening the “transatlantic bond.” One of the sharpest responses to Trump’s victory came from the French Minister Delegate for European Affairs, Benjamin Haddad. “We need to ask ourselves if we want to rely on the voters of Montana, Wisconsin and Michigan to keep Europe safe. Basically, Europe’s security would be flipping a coin every four years,” he said.
• Trump 2.0 is clearly an inflection point in the Western alliance at a time of great churn in global power dynamics. Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO left a bad taste in the trans-Atlantic relationship during his first term and continues to haunt European partners. The security from the NATO alliance can no longer be taken for granted.
• The threats perceived from Russia in Europe have upended the regional security order, pulling the latter toward a new defence posture. Moreover, most of Europe is more concerned about dealing with Chinese aggression in the economic domain, and not as a security threat. Therefore, as the new Trump presidency gets down to re-engage with Beijing and Moscow, EU and NATO partners in Europe will have to brace for a heavy concoction of long-term strategic trends affecting the transatlantic alliances and the more immediate impact of Trump’s transactional presidency. Ukraine stands at the precipice of uncertainties even as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated Trump and hoped that his “commitment to peace through strength” could bring “just peace in Ukraine closer.”

Friends and foes in West Asia

• The Israel-Hamas war that started more than a year ago has now clearly morphed into a regional crisis in West Asia, taking a more consequential turn with Israel and Iran facing off against each other.
• During his first term, Trump had unilaterally pulled the US out of an Obama-era multilateral deal with Iran, involving American allies to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  Since then, the US-Iran relationship has gone further south, and will probably become bitter in Trump’s second term. Trump calls Israel a “cherished ally” and during his campaign, claimed, that whatever is happening in the region “would have never happened” under his watch. “I will get that settled and fast,” he said.
• Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said while congratulating Trump that they had “agreed to work together for Israel’s security” and discussed “the Iranian threat.” On the other hand, a spokesperson of the Iranian government, commenting that the US presidential election “was not relevant” to Iran, said that the US and Iran’s policies were “fixed and do not change with the change of individuals.”
• One of the high points of Trump’s first term in West Asia was negotiating the Abraham Accords, which attempted to redraw the map of inter-state relations in the region. But, the past year has yet again unravelled the quagmire that West Asia is, raising questions about the limits of US strategic intervention and a broken regional balance that Trump will inherit from his predecessor, and to what extent he can fix the mess without upsetting his steadfast support for Israel.

Indo-Pacific partners

• For America’s Indo-Pacific partners, particularly the Quad countries, maintaining and nurturing their partnership with Washington remains germane to managing China’s assertive rise in the region. Trump has a positive track record in this case, as the Quad was revived during his first presidential stint in 2017, and the US Pacific Command was rechristened as the Indo-Pacific Command. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quick to congratulate Trump and said: “Looking forward to working closely together once again to further strengthen India-US relations across technology, defence, energy, space and several other sectors.” Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said, “I truly look forward to working closely with you to further bolster the Japan-US Alliance & cooperate to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific.” Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke of broader US-Australia security ties and the AUKUS grouping with the United Kingdom and the US while speaking to Trump.
• While two of the Quad partners, Japan and Australia are treaty allies of the US and are locked together in extremely tight security commitments, India remains an outlier with its penchant for maintaining strategic autonomy, despite growing defence ties with the US. Moreover, India’s own foreign policy playbook to handle ties with US adversaries including China, Russia and Iran will create limits of traction in New Delhi and Washington. Moreover, Trump’s extreme positions on the reciprocity of trade tariffs irrespective of allies and adversaries, his disdain for multilateralism and radical demands for quid pro quos in security commitments are trends that all stakeholders will have to navigate for the next four years.
• On matters of bilateral trade and security ties plus multilateral engagements on issues of global concern, the strategic trends that America’s friends and foes will have to deal with are outcomes of a changing balance of power in the international system, and how Washington responds to such changes. Therefore, they exist with or without Trump.
• The world has already experienced the four disruptive years of Trump’s transactional presidency in the not-too-distant past. It will have to be prepared to navigate the blend of the old and the new US president.