BEIRUT — Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been characterized by confrontation, escalation, and a growing reliance on military force. 

This trajectory stands in clear contrast to the rhetoric that dominated his electoral campaign, during which he presented himself as an anti-war leader determined to reverse the damage caused by previous administrations. Rather than ushering in an era of restraint, Trump’s presidency has instead revealed a pattern in which external aggression appears increasingly tied to unresolved economic pressures at home.

To begin with, Trump has preserved—and in some cases intensified—U.S. involvement in existing conflicts. Despite repeated promises to disengage from global wars, his administration has continued extensive military and political backing for Israeli operations in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.

At the same time, Washington has sustained arms deliveries to Ukraine, prolonging a conflict Trump had vowed to resolve almost immediately upon assuming office. These policies reflect continuity with interventionist strategies rather than the rupture Trump once advertised.
Beyond indirect involvement, Trump has taken a further step by authorizing direct U.S. military actions abroad. 

In June 2025, American forces conducted strikes against Iran, followed months later by a military operation against Venezuela that resulted in the seizure of its elected president, Nicolás Maduro. 

In parallel, Trump issued threats to forcibly annex Greenland—an autonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a U.S. ally—marking a dramatic breach of diplomatic convention. Collectively, these actions indicate a shift toward overt coercion as a primary foreign policy tool.

However, these moves cannot be fully understood without reference to domestic economic realities; the United States is currently facing mounting structural challenges, including declining industrial competitiveness, rising public debt, and intensified global rivalry with China. 

These vulnerabilities were aggravated by recent crises, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic, whose economic consequences played a significant role in Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020. Upon returning to power, Trump framed economic revival as his central mission, promising rapid growth and renewed prosperity.

In practice, the results have fallen short: economic indicators during Trump’s first year showed instability rather than recovery. 

Gross domestic product contracted sharply in early 2025 before registering only modest improvement later in the year. 

Crucially, inflation remained stubbornly high, exceeding 2.7 percent by December 2025—well above the Federal Reserve’s stated target.
As a result, real wages stagnated and purchasing power continued to decline, contradicting official narratives of economic strength.

As a consequence, tensions between the White House and the Federal Reserve escalated. The central bank refused Trump’s calls to lower interest rates, citing inflationary risks and labor-market concerns.

Trump personalized the dispute, accusing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell of sabotage and corruption. 

Meanwhile, employment growth slowed significantly. In 2025, the U.S. economy generated only around 600,000 new jobs, a sharp contrast to the multi-million job gains recorded annually during the early years of the Biden administration. Trump responded by dismissing senior labor officials, alleging data manipulation.

Facing these setbacks, Trump increasingly turned to economic nationalism and external confrontation; he expanded tariffs on imports in an effort to compensate for weak competitiveness, but these measures raised consumer prices and disrupted supply chains.

His aggressive campaign against both legal and undocumented immigration further constrained labor availability, worsening shortages in key sectors and dampening growth.

At the same time, inequality widened, with high-income groups benefiting disproportionately from economic policies, intensifying public dissatisfaction and social unrest.

In this context, Trump’s foreign policy initiatives appear less as expressions of confidence and more as attempts to offset domestic weakness.

His intervention in Venezuela aligns with a strategic interest in securing access to the world’s largest proven oil reserves. His hostility toward Iran reflects broader efforts to dominate global energy markets, given Iran’s role as a major oil and gas producer.

Similarly, Trump’s fixation on Greenland is rooted in Arctic geopolitics, where control over shipping routes and natural resources is becoming increasingly central.

In addition, the domestic economic pressures within the United States that help explain Trump’s aggressive foreign adventurism also intersect with how the U.S. engages rhetorically with unrest in other countries, such as Iran.

In late 2025 and early 2026, Iran witnessed protests sparked by a severe economic crisis.

Yet despite this internal context, voices within the U.S. political sphere—including President Trump himself—have at times framed the unrest in Iran as evidence of regime illegitimacy or even hinted at support for external pressure or intervention, while simultaneously ignoring or minimizing the role of long-standing international sanctions that have targeted Iran.  

This contrast highlights a broader hypocrisy in which Washington’s professed concern for “poor Iranians” and democratic protest can serve geopolitical aims rather than reflect a consistent policy of non-interference or genuine economic solidarity, reinforcing the argument that U.S. foreign policy—especially under Trump—is driven not by principled support for human welfare, but by strategic calculation tied to broader economic and geopolitical interests.

Hence, Trump’s reliance on militarized foreign policy is best understood as a response to internal economic fragility rather than a coherent long-term strategy. 

As domestic performance falters, external aggression becomes a substitute for economic achievement, reinforcing a cycle in which global instability is used to mask internal decline. This pattern underscores the growing link between economic stress and geopolitical risk in contemporary U.S. policy.