In the early going, Trump 2.0 approach on foreign policy is to talk loudly and carry a big stick

[January 28, 2025]  By AAMER MADHANI and ZEKE MILLER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump in his first week back in the White House has offered an early preview to his second-term foreign policy approach: Talk loudly and wield a big stick.

Over the weekend, Trump threatened to levy massive tariffs on Colombia after the country’s leftist president refused to allow a U.S. military plane returning deported migrants from the South American nation to land in the country.

He’s needled the Ukrainian president for “talking so brave” instead of negotiating with Russia. He’s flummoxed even Republican allies with his calls on Mideast nations to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza, potentially moving out enough of the population to “just clean out” the war-torn area to create a virtual clean slate.

Through economic coercion and sharp rhetoric, Trump is signaling that he intends to be a bull in the China shop in hopes of extracting what he wants from allies and adversaries alike.

In the Colombia episode, President Gustavo Petro quickly relented in the face of Trump's threatened tariffs — 25% on all Colombian goods coming into the country and doubling to 50% in a week. The moment may be just a taste of what is to come.

“As you saw yesterday, we’ve made it clear to every country that they will be taking back ... people that we’re sending out,” Trump said in a Monday speech before House Republicans at their annual policy retreat. “The criminals and illegal aliens coming from their countries we’re (sending) them back, and they’re going to take them back fast. And if they don’t, they’ll pay a very high economic price.”

The hard-nosed approach from Trump in the showdown with Colombia was hardly unexpected. He vowed to quickly reverse the approach of his Democratic predecessor, President Joe Biden, whom he frequently criticized as demonstrating weakness on the international stage when the world was looking for stronger leadership from the world's foremost power.

White House counselor Alina Habba said Petro miscalculated and “flexed with the wrong president.”

“You mess with the bull, you get the horns,” Habba told Newsmax.

Big stick diplomacy

During planning for their return to power, Trump’s team decided on an aggressive course of action to respond to any nation that moved to block his agenda, hoping to make an example of them right out of the gate, according to a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

And with the heavy reliance on sticks rather than carrots in the opening days of Trump 2.0, the administration has sought to send a clear message that U.S. foreign policy will be driven by an unrelenting commitment to the “America First” worldview.

Soon after the Colombia matter was resolved, Trump posted on social media a photo of himself in a pinstripe suit and Trilby fedora favored by American gangsters in the 1920s as well as a crass acronym that warns not to test him. The posting was a decidedly modern, and Trumpian, turn on President Theodore Roosevelt's use of the West African aphorism to “speak softly and carry a big stick."

“It seems to me that from the Trump administration’s perspective, they’ve met their goal, right?” said Kevin Whitaker, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Colombia from 2014 to 2019. “It’s not just that they got what they wanted. The approval for the flights was secured. But they sent a message about their commitment to use all of the tools in their toolkit in order to achieve them.”

It's not just on immigration where Trump is trying to rattle his international counterparts to get in line with blunt talk.

The president said that he used a phone call last week with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to press for OPEC+ to slash oil prices, a move that he believes is the most effective way to force Russia to negotiate an end to its war against Ukraine. The kingdom is the most prominent member of OPEC+, a group of major oil exporting nations.

Trump, a critic of the Biden administration's spending to back Ukraine's war effort, pledged during the campaign to bring a quick end to the nearly three-year war.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One as he travels from Las Vegas to Miami on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

“One way to stop it quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money,” Trump told reporters, in what could be interpreted as a blunt critique of the Saudis, a key ally. “So, OPEC ought to get on the ball and drop the price of oil. And that war will stop right away.”

On Saturday evening, Trump also grabbed the attention of Middle East partners, Egypt and Jordan, when he said that the two countries should take hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from war-ravaged Gaza. Officials from both countries flatly rejected the idea, and even a prominent Republican Trump backer, Sen. Lindsey Graham of North Carolina, said he was puzzled by Trump's comments.
 
 “The idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don’t see that to be overly practical,” Graham said in a Sunday morning appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union."
 
 Rubio heads to Central America
 
 The dispute with Colombia's Petro comes as Trump is dispatching Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week to Central America for his first international travel as America's top diplomat. The trip will take him to Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
 
 The decision to put an early focus on Central America — including nations that are central to the success of Trump's mass deportation effort and his bid to clamp down on illegal immigration — speaks to how big a priority immigration is for Trump out of the gate.
 
 Rubio's stop in Panama also comes as Trump in recent weeks has said he wants the Panama Canal back under U.S. control, claiming that “American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form," and that “China is operating the Panama Canal.”
 
 Some Panamanians have interpreted Trump’s remarks as a way of applying pressure on Panama for something else he wants: better control of migration through the Darien Gap. Others have recalled the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama with concern. 

 To be certain, China’s growing commercial interest in the Western Hemisphere, including its operation of a port at the canal, have long fueled U.S. concerns about Beijing’s broader role in global shipping and port operations. The Biden administration shared similar worries, but sought to counter China by rallying wealthy economies to band together against China’s trillion-dollar “Belt and Road Initiative,” which has launched a network of infrastructure projects and maritime lanes that snake around large portions of the world. 

 Colombia ‘firestorm’ a preview of what's to come?
 
 The Biden administration also sought to make the case to developing nations that the U.S. offered a better partner than Beijing, which it accused of exploiting poorer nations with “coercive and unsustainable lending” to build infrastructure.
 
 But Trump in his approach to Panama has taken a wholly different approach, jostling and threatening an ally to get in line.
 
 Colombia, which was at the center of Sunday's diplomatic hullabaloo, has a strategic partnership with China, but thus far has resisted joining the belt and road project as many of its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors have.
 
 Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council, said that he expects Petro to aggressively pursue infrastructure deals with China moving forward.
 
 “I think that’s going to be a source of tensions with Washington,” Ramsey said. “For better or for worse, Sunday’s firestorm may be just a preview of what’s to come.”

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