How Trump’s foreign policy would differ from Biden’s

Should American allies be worried that if Donald Trump returns to the White House next year, he will tear apart treaties, recast decades-old international arrangements and adopt a go-it-alone approach to global affairs?

Recent comments from Trump disparaging NATO allies have put this question on the front burner in Washington and other world capitals.

Trump is, of course, in the middle of a presidential campaign and is seeking to show he would be a very different president from Joe Biden. Given Biden’s difficulties on foreign policy, it is easy to see why.

Biden’s mixed foreign policy record

Biden’s approval numbers are near historic lows – just under 40% of Americans approve of the job he is doing. In particular, Biden’s foreign policy has been a problem. His plunge in popularity began around the time of the catastrophically mismanaged US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan two and a half years ago.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza – and the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and Iranian proxy attacks against American forces in Iraq and Syria that followed – have only made Biden look weaker. In fact, recent polls show only a third of American voters approve of his foreign policy.

A resurgent Iran reminds older Americans of the more than 50 Americans taken hostage in Tehran in 1979 and then-President Jimmy Carter’s failure to free them – one of the main reasons why Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan. The hostages were freed the day Reagan took office.

Today, Biden faces the same potential election-year problem with the Gaza war. Younger, progressive Americans, as well as Arab Americans, are more likely to be aghast at Biden’s support for Israel’s assault on Hamas in Gaza and the consequent civilian