Trump's attack on Zelensky signals new world order taking shape

From alienating allies to praising adversaries, Trump appears set to abandon decades of American foreign policy

- Alexander Ward

President Trump has dramatically shifted the direction of U.S. foreign policy in four short weeks, making the U.S. a less reliable ally and retreating from global commitments in ways that stand to fundamentally reshape America's relationship with the world.

His top envoys have floated concessions to Russia in peace talks that stunned European allies, followed by Trump calling Ukraine's leader a dictator, and he kept Europeans at arms length as the negotiations began.

He has dismantled the leading U.S. aid agency providing assistance to the developing world where China aims to establish a foothold.

Trump's plan to own Gaza and remove Palestinians from the enclave erased decades of Washington's efforts to broker a two-state solution.

Economic incentives to stay in America's good graces. Trump's is a far more transactional, win-lose vision of foreign policy.

"It's not that President Trump is abandoning the post-World War II order," said Victoria Coates, vice president for national security and foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"It's that we are no longer in the post-World War II era and we have to accept that the geopolitical landscape has shifted."

The same approach drove Trump's first-term foreign policy but in his second term he has injected a new element, proposing to expand U.S. borders and take territory overseas unilaterally.

Even before returning to the White House, Trump mused about reclaiming the Panama Canal, seizing Greenland from Denmark and making Canada the 51st state.

When he repeated the notions after taking office, it turned what had been far-fetched ideas into possible U.S. policy and a signal of intentions to countries worldwide.