How Trump might actually build on Obama’s US foreign policy legacy

Niv Horesh says despite anxiety about Donald Trump’s judgment and the degree to which his decisions will depart from Obama’s, the new president’s policies will also be shaped by global forces

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Demonstrators gather in Los Angeles to protest against the election of Donald Trump as US president. Many Americans are anxious about the future and Trump’s fitness for office. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:22pm, 15 Nov 2016Updated: 7:21pm, 15 Nov 2016

Donald Trump’s stunning upset victory in the 2016 US presidential election is historic in several ways, and his tenure in the White House will no doubt spring on his country and the rest of the world many more surprises over the next four years. To say that the man is unpredictable and polarising is already a cliché. Rarely has an outgoing president mobilised against one of his potential successors to the degree Barack Obama has. For that reason, it is easy to portray Trump as Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s anti-establishment nemesis.

The personality factor here has been compelling because, as the saying goes, when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.

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However, amid the anxiety that many share about the future and the judgment of the flamboyant individual who will soon be holding the highest office on earth, it is important to recall where Trump simply fed off geopolitical currents that had long preceded his tilt at the White House.

For all the rabbits Trump may yet pull out of his hat, these are a few of the same currents that Obama defined his presidency around. Upon assuming office, Obama was involuntarily tasked with sorting out the mess president George W. Bush had left behind in the Middle East. His counter to Bush’s pre-emptive strike was to “lead from behind”. That can be perceived as the precise opposite of what a Trump presidency would aim to do.

Hundreds of families pour out of the city of Mosul, Iraq, last week, amid fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants. Following president George W. Bush’s costly war in Iraq, neocon adventures in the name of spreading democracy leave many Americans cold. Photo: Los Angeles Times/TNS

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But, in fact, Obama’s foreign policy was a response to the isolationist mood gripping both sides of Congress and the US public at large following the Iraq war.