Emerging Global Threats: Putting America’s National Security First

Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, along with Meaghan Mobbs, Brent Sadler, and Jacob Olidort, testified on Tuesday, February 25, 2025 to the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs. The focus of the hearing was “Emerging Global Threats: Putting America’s National Security First.” 

Dr. Kupchan noted that there is merit in President Donald Trump’s effort to realign U.S. grand strategy; a changing international system as well as the shattering of the internationalist consensus in the United States necessitate adjustments to U.S. foreign policy. Trump’s more transactional and pragmatic brand of statecraft makes sense; he is right to try to broker a diplomatic end to Russia’s war against Ukraine. Trump also understands that globalization has left many workers behind and that open trade has benefited far too few Americans; he is appropriately looking to level the commercial playing field. He is heading in the right direction by seeking a solution to illegal immigration, responding to the clamor of an electorate that recognizes the country lacks a functioning immigration system. And Trump will be doing the nation a service if he can downsize the federal government, make it more efficient, and help reduce the national debt.

Yet even if Trump’s America First foreign policy has considerable promise, it is also fraught with risk. His transactional approach to diplomacy is morphing into a stiff-necked unilateralism that undermines collective efforts where they are needed. His effort to limit U.S. entanglements abroad is leading to U.S. underreach, leaving Ukraine in the lurch and playing into the hands of adversaries. His reluctance to promote democracy overseas is being accompanied by disregard for democratic norms at home, potentially resulting in irreversible damage to the nation’s representative institutions. And in his determination to shake up the political establishment, Trump could break the U.S. government rather than reform it. A broken federal government will be in no shape to fix a broken America or a broken world.

Charles A. Kupchan is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University in the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Department of Government.