The global security implications of Donald Trump’s inauguration speech can be best summed up by two quotes that bookended his 30-minute remarks.
The first was an emphasis on his familiar ‘America First’ philosophy. Literally three sentences beyond the requisite acknowledgements, Trump said: ‘We will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first.’
Then in the final minute of the speech, Trump said: ‘We will be a nation like no other, full of compassion, courage and exceptionalism. Our power will stop all wars, bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable.’
If the first could imply a retreat from US global engagement to concentrate on meeting its own priorities, the second indicates a continuation of an outsized role as guarantor of international security and stability. This apparent contrast could be written off as Trump saying anything and everything under the sun, but it should also be taken as a reminder that there is room in which the rest of the world can work, notably allies such as Australia.
An inaugural address is not a catalogue of policies, so we couldn’t expect it to tell us everything. But as a carefully prepared, teleprompter-read speech, it’s worth dissecting what Trump said and didn’t say.
Based on what we know of Trump’s wider views, the difference between a less engaged and a more engaged US will involve greater burden-sharing for allies. Those that take their security as seriously as the US does, and don’t assume the Americans will ride to the rescue, will get a better hearing. Persuading Trump that you are not taking advantage of US idealism is the number one reference point for other governments. That might happen through defence investment, as with wealthy countries such as Australia or NATO members, or showing mettle in the face of bullying, as with middle income friends such as the Philippines.
As expected, the most immediate challenge Australia and others face is trade and tariffs. The most detailed example of America First that Trump outlined was on revenue-raising through tariffs, including the creation of an ‘External Revenue Service’, mirroring the Internal Revenue Service or US tax office. Tariffs will therefore be used not just to level the playing field against China’s unfair trade practices but also as a tool to raise US government revenue.
The key security focus was the southern border—the only specific security challenge he covered in any significant detail. He declared a ‘national emergency on our southern border’ and designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organisations.
There was no mention of allies or alliances. There was no mention of Ukraine and Russia. The only mention of the Middle East was an observation that, just before his inauguration, Hamas released some Israeli hostages.
It was notable that Trump did not say much about China, given he has sent other signals that he plans to get tough on the economic and security risks that Beijing poses, whether through high tariffs or his appointment of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.
The single reference to China was in relation to the thorny issue of the Panama Canal, which the US built but then handed over to Panamanian ownership under a 1977 treaty signed by Jimmy Carter. This fell very much into the category of the US’s being taken advantage of and representing an economic security threat, involving the unfair charging of US ships and, above all, China’s having operational control of the canal—a reference to Chinese-funded infrastructure and contracts held by a Hong Kong-based company to run the ports at either ends of the canal. These raise security concerns just as Beijing’s interest in the Pacific, or the lease of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese firm, have raised concerns in Australia.
Trump’s vow to take the canal back, along with his interest in Greenland because of its strategic value, may explain his eyebrow-raising reference to a US that ‘expands our territory’—though so could the reference to planting the flag on Mars.
Beyond the sometimes provocative rhetoric, Trump’s interest in the Panama Canal and elsewhere can be explained more as a desire to avoid the likes of China and Russia gaining control over US strategic interests, whether geographic or technological. During other inauguration events, Trump described his preferred approach to the future of TikTok as one of joint ownership that would enable the US to exert control to protect itself.
And his answer during a press conference in the Oval Office that Gaza must ‘be rebuilt in a different way’ and that the US may be willing to help suggests he recognises that while ‘not our war’, the US has an interest in ongoing involvement in the stability of the Middle East—which will also likely include countering terrorism and resuming normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
It’s his discussion of defence from which we can glean a bit more about how Trump might use American power in the world. He outlined a broad vision of a ‘peace through strength’ doctrine but with his own signature characteristics.
He vowed to build the ‘strongest military the world has ever seen’ (which the US has actually had now for at least 80 years but perhaps for the first time is being tested by a near-peer in China). Then, most tellingly, he said his administration would measure success ‘not just through the battles we win but also by the wars that we end and perhaps most importantly the wars we never get into’.
That could indicate Trump will refuse to be drawn into foreign conflicts that his predecessors might have seen as a US duty in which to intervene for the good of the world. But it could also promise a form of deterrence so effective that no one will dare risk starting a war in the first place if it might invite any kind of US involvement. That would be consistent with his—admittedly unprovable—claim that Russia would never have dared invade Ukraine on his watch.
How will China read that with respect to its ambitions towards Taiwan? Beijing’s own unprecedented peacetime military build-up is for expansionist purposes so a US choosing military superiority for deterrence is in all our interests. That said, Trump’s failure to mention Ukraine wouldn’t have gone unnoticed in Beijing.
From what we’ve known about Trump for some years now, including from his first administration, the US will look more fondly on countries that help themselves and pitch in to a shared effort. Again, not taking advantage of the US is the key reference point.
And this needs to be the number one takeaway for countries such as Australia.