Won’t make 'the same mistake' again: World preps for Trump 2.0

The world was caught off guard by Donald Trump's "America First" approach and skepticism towards traditional alliances like NATO when he took office in 2016.

In 2016, no one in the world was ready for President Trump. America’s NATO allies aren’t making the same mistake this time.

During his presidency, Trump frequently criticized NATO allies for not spending enough on defense and threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance if members didn't increase their military budgets.

This time around, as Trump eyes a potential return to the White House in 2024, a new article from Politico suggests that NATO allies and other nations are scrambling to position themselves for a second Trump term. Based on his previous tenure, they anticipate a Trump administration would be defined by isolationism, confrontation with allies, and a laser focus on countering China rather than Russia.

According to the article, countries are taking three main steps to prepare:

First, there is extensive personal outreach to Trump and his advisers, in the hope of building relationships that will help minimize conflict.

Second, there are policy shifts aimed at pleasing Trump and his political coalition, chiefly by soothing Trump’s complaints about inadequate European defense spending.

Third, there are creative diplomatic and legal measures in the works to armor NATO priorities against tampering by a Trump administration.There are also bipartisan efforts underway in Congress to make it harder for a president to withdraw from NATO without Congressional approval.

The preparations highlight how Trump's past criticism of NATO as "obsolete" and his transactional view of alliances has fundamentally reshaped international relations.

Allies that once hoped Trump's tenure was a mere blip now view "Trumpism" as an entrenched ideology they must contend with.

However, some analysts warn that personal outreach and policy concessions may prove futile given Trump's unpredictable nature.

One adviser is quoted saying, "We don't know - and I think nobody knows, exactly - what he will do."

There are concerns Trump could be even more disruptive in a second term without constraints from advisers like Jim Mattis and H.R. McMaster, who acted as a check on his "America First" instincts during his first presidency.

While panic about a complete U.S. withdrawal from NATO has subsided, the alliance remains anxious about Trump's ambivalence towards collective defense, given his past threats to abandon allies that don't pay their fair share. Some former officials have indicated limits on how far the U.S. would go to defend NATO members like the Baltic states against Russian aggression.

Ultimately, the extraordinary preparations underway globally represent a plausible strategy for stability under a Trump presidency, the article argues. But it concludes that much still depends on the whims of Trump himself, who one European diplomat described as an "loose cannon" whose policies "don't really work" by traditional standards.