Trump’s foreign policy: Erratic individualism versus national identity change

Abstract

Trump’s foreign policy decisions have been perceived as erratic and unhinged. They seem to be the result of an actor-driven foreign policy, unconstrained by bureaucratic structures and independent of the bipartisan consensus that has been guiding US foreign policy since World War II. In this chapter we inquire if this notion of “chaotic foreign policy” is justified or if there is a larger base for Trump’s foreign policy, founded on a shift of the bipartisan consensus. Interpreting the bipartisan consensus as discursive hegemony, three cases are analyzed in order to answer the research question. We focus on the withdrawal of US troops from Syria linked with the issue of the fight against ISIS, Trump’s Israel politics, and US-Russian relations.