Analysis: Jakub Graca; graphic design: Natalia Matiaszczyk; collected data: Dominik Wereszko, Ksawery Stawiński
In the first five weeks of his second term, Donald Trump made no foreign trips but met with eight leaders from allied and partner countries in Washington. He hosted seven of them at the White House, while holding a behind-the-scenes conversation with Andrzej Duda at CPAC. Additionally, he held several phone calls, primarily with allies and partners, but also with his two biggest rivals: Xi Jinping (a call unconfirmed by the Chinese side) and Vladimir Putin.
The sequence of in-person meetings largely reflects the current US administration’s foreign policy priorities. The first leader to visit the White House was Benjamin Netanyahu in early February 2025. Relations between Trump and Netanyahu were exemplary from 2017 to 2021, but they went through a crisis when the Israeli prime minister quickly recognized Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, congratulating him before the outcome of Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the election results was determined. Today, however, relations between the two leaders appear to be very strong once again, and the United States’ support for Israel’s interests remains virtually unconditional, despite the brutal and internationally condemned warfare Tel Aviv has been waging in the Middle East since late 2023, particularly in Gaza.
Trump then met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The meeting with Abdullah II aligns in some ways with the one with Netanyahu and forms part of efforts to end the war in the Middle East. Jordan is a key US ally in the region, and under Trump’s proposal to displace Palestinians from Gaza, Amman would accept part of its population. However, King Abdullah II has rejected this idea. In contrast, the meetings with Ishiba and Modi are pivotal to U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific, the most strategically important region for Washington. Following the meeting with Ishiba, both sides issued a joint statement reaffirming the US’s unwavering commitment to defending Japan. Both countries have traditionally opposed the PRC’s attempts to forcibly alter the regional status quo. Meanwhile, the meeting with Modi reaffirmed both nations’ commitment to extensive defense cooperation, including within the Quad format, but without mutual or unilateral security guarantees.
Later, Donald Trump held a series of meetings with European leaders. The first to visit Washington was Polish President Andrzej Duda. The conversation, which was originally scheduled to last about an hour, was shortened to only a few minutes due to the U.S. president’s lateness. It did not take the form of an official bilateral visit but instead occurred behind the scenes at the CPAC conference in National Harbor, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. Despite the unfavorable circumstances, both sides described the meeting as productive, with Donald Trump expected to reaffirm the alliance with Poland and express appreciation for Warsaw’s increased defense spending.
After Andrzej Duda, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington in turn. In addition to discussing U.S. bilateral relations with each of these countries, the common themes of all three meetings were the Russian war in Ukraine, which Donald Trump aims to negotiate a peace agreement for, and the security of Europe and the transatlantic area. In this context, Trump made a declaration in response to a journalist’s question during a press conference with Starmer, expressing his support for the key Article V of the Washington Treaty, which underpins NATO. He also emphasized the importance of European NATO member states investing in defense, suggesting they should allocate up to 4-5% of their GDP for this purpose.
One notable issue with Trump’s meetings and conversations with foreign leaders is the flawed information policy of the new US administration, which does not publish all statements from key interactions between the leaders on the White House website. Additionally, the conversation with Xi Jinping was never even confirmed by the Chinese side. Trump has also been reluctant to report on his interactions with Vladimir Putin, although the February 12 conversation between the two leaders was confirmed by Moscow, and Trump provided a fairly detailed account of it on social media.
Trump’s international meetings and talks so far suggest that the United States—at least for now—maintains key alliance and partnership relationships in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, while also looking to revive a dormant foreign policy direction with Russia. However, Washington’s approach toward most of its allies has become far more assertive than in the past, with the US demanding, often firmly and even aggressively, that their narrowly defined national interests be acknowledged. The reaction of these allies will largely shape the future of their relations with the US, and significant, sometimes abrupt, changes in Washington’s policy toward its allies are likely.
Comments are closed.