Conclusions: US Foreign Policy Under Trump, Years of Upheaval

The election of Donald Trump has paved the way for a period of uncertainty regarding the US commitment to uphold and strengthen the current international rule-based order. This chapter states that the rise of populism that favoured the ascent of Trump has several fundamental consequences. Firstly, liberal internationalism and Wilsonianism, who constituted the basic ideational founda- tions for the US foreign policy narrative, appear to be rejected as the intellectual product of a distant cosmopolitan elite. Secondly, the Trump administration seems to rely on Jacksonianism to look for alternative ideas to reinterpret the US role in the current international order. Finally, this led to the rise of a “ A-moral transac- tionalism ” , an approach that is likely to lead to put into doubt several key pillars of the US international engagement to obtain short-term economic gains.