Critics from across the political spectrum have disparaged U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America first” brand of statecraft—and for good reason. He has alienated allies, appeased great-power rivals, launched yet another failed war of choice in the Middle East, and blundered into trade wars that have worsened the United States’ affordability crisis.

But as debate heats up about what the next administration’s foreign policy should look like, Democrats and Republicans alike must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Trump is right to recognize that U.S. strategy is in need of an overhaul. Most of his instincts are sound and align with fundamental changes in the international system and in American public opinion. His “America first” foreign policy is a symptom, not a cause, of global disarray and the public’s turn against the establishment; many U.S. voters have been disillusioned by the country’s chronic overreach abroad and the affordability crisis at home. Trump successfully tapped into these grievances by promising to scale back international entanglements and bring back factories and manufacturing jobs.

These are worthy goals, but Trump’s policies have badly missed their mark. He has started new wars and mostly failed to end old ones, and his tariffs have fueled inflation while doing little to resuscitate the manufacturing sector. Trump has implemented his course corrections with marked incompetence, making policy by impulse, gutting the diplomatic corps, relying on an inexperienced inner circle, and prizing loyalty over fact.

The challenge ahead is not to reflexively restore what came before; liberal internationalism long served the United States well, but during an era that no longer exists. Instead of burying “America first,” Trump’s successor should salvage its best elements and implement them more capably. The next version of U.S. foreign policy should marry the realist impulses that shape “America first” with the liberal cause that remains at the heart of the American experience. That composite strategy would see Washington pare back its commitments abroad, reach across ideological dividing lines to work with great-power rivals, operate through nimble coalitions, and repair the United States’ broken social contract and ailing democracy. Foreign policy starts at home: only by redressing the socioeconomic discontent that has cleaved the body politic into hostile camps can the country recoup the bipartisan centrism and democratic vitality needed to anchor a purposeful and steady statecraft.

Two tectonic shifts are leading to a historic turning point. Power is rapidly shifting from West to East and North to South, as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and other large developing countries rise. The United States and its democratic allies, assuming they manage to stay partners, will remain an influential bloc, but no longer a preponderant one. As the diffusion of power fuels geopolitical rivalries, Americans are growing weary of entanglement in a fragmenting world. Meanwhile, technological advances made possible by the digital age have undermined the social contract of the industrial era and hollowed out the middle class. As broadly shared prosperity has given way to economic insecurity and inequality, political cleavages have emerged along socioeconomic, educational, and rural-urban lines. Liberal democracy is in retreat worldwide, including in the United States, where the centrist, bipartisan compact that long anchored U.S. statecraft has collapsed.

Enter Trump. By the time U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, more than 70 percent of Americans deemed the two-decade war a failure. Speaking to an electorate fed up with the never-ending conflicts in the Middle East, Trump pledged “no more wars” as he ran for reelection in 2024. He began his second term by using force sparingly. The single-night air campaign against Iran’s nuclear installations in June 2025 and the in-and-out raid to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January 2026 succeeded in their narrow aims. Perhaps emboldened by these low-cost wins, Trump then proceeded to launch a full-scale war against Iran in February 2026. By planning for a short conflict and getting stuck in a long one, he fell into the very trap that he swore to avoid.

Given that the United States keeps getting mired in errant conflicts, Congress urgently needs to reassert its constitutional obligation to approve acts of war and oversee retrenchment. The bar for engaging in major conflicts outside the core strategic areas of Europe and East Asia should be quite high. It is past time for Washington to return to its traditional geopolitical vocation: playing the role of great-power balancer in order to preserve stability in the strategic heartland. American strategy toward Europe and East Asia has been a steady and cost-effective success, facilitating great-power peace since 1945. The roughly 150,000 U.S. troops still stationed in these core theaters are a wise investment in extending that track record.

Power is rapidly shifting from West to East and North........

© Foreign Affairs