By now, you’ve probably read several takes on U.S. President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, including in this magazine. On the latest episode of FP Live, I thought it would be useful to spotlight a realist point of view. Realism, which can broadly be defined as the school of international relations in which countries prioritize their interests rather than values, has some areas of overlap with Trump’s “America First” instincts—in concept if not in implementation. What are they, and why do they matter?

My guest this week was Emma Ashford, an FP columnist and senior fellow at the Stimson Center. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box above, or follow FP Live wherever you get your podcasts. What follows here is a lightly edited transcript.

By now, you’ve probably read several takes on U.S. President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, including in this magazine. On the latest episode of FP Live, I thought it would be useful to spotlight a realist point of view. Realism, which can broadly be defined as the school of international relations in which countries prioritize their interests rather than values, has some areas of overlap with Trump’s “America First” instincts—in concept if not in implementation. What are they, and why do they matter?

My guest this week was Emma Ashford, an FP columnist and senior fellow at the Stimson Center. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box above, or follow FP Live wherever you get your podcasts. What follows here is a lightly edited transcript.

Ravi Agrawal: What has stood out for you the most about the Trump administration’s foreign policy in the first 100 days?

Emma Ashford: Well, it has certainly been an active period. We’ve had new peace talks—many of them headed by Steve Witkoff, who appears to be Trump’s new negotiator—on Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, and, potentially, on North Korea. We’ve had the on-and-off-again tariffs. On the domestic side, we’ve had DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] impact foreign-policy bureaucracy and how the U.S. conducts foreign policy around the world. There have been meetings and interactions between the new administration and various U.S. allies. Some of those have been friendly, like when Vice President J.D. Vance visited India last week, but most were contentious, like with the Europeans in particular. So, if nothing else, they are hitting the ground running on foreign policy.

RA: We knew he was going to focus on things like illegal immigration, tariffs, and ending the war in Ukraine. What has surprised you?

EA: Even on the domestic side, DOGE’s bureaucracy-cutting approach was surprising. Like many folks in D.C., I woke up one day to discover that there was no longer a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). And that was shocking. In any other administration, the administration would have proposed a plan to fold USAID into [the State Department], gone on a messaging campaign highlighting its problems, and then moved toward closing it. Instead, they just did it. The speed with which they’ve moved, and their willingness to cut away at the foundations of how the U.S. conducts its foreign policy, surprised me a lot.

RA: Is it possible to discern Trump’s ultimate objective from these first 100 days?

EA: The one constant is that Donald Trump believes “America first.” It’s not just a slogan for him. He is fundamentally a nationalist. That’s the through line that I see in everything he’s doing. Now, the problem with that is that looking for American interests in every area without prioritizing or considering trade-offs—for example, by fighting with Europe over defense and also tariffs at the same time—can be counterproductive. I don’t think this means his approach is coherent, but he is very consistent in always pushing for the most that America can get from whatever he’s doing.

RA: So you published a terrific piece in FP that explored four models that might explain what you call the White House’s “‘move fast and break things’ approach to foreign policy.” The first model was, as you put it, the return of realpolitik. Where do the Trump administration’s actions fit that model, and where do they fall short?

EA: I would be thrilled if this were an accurate description of the Trump foreign policy. We’re seeing this argument from quite a few segments of the Republican Party, comparing Trump to Nixon for trying to take big steps to fix America’s strategic oversteps. Trump is trying to effectuate a pivot to China, to end U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine, to force European allies to pick up their own role, to pull back from the Middle East, to rebalance trade. One could paint a picture that suggests that this is about strategic recalibration, that this is realpolitik.

But Israel remains one of the exceptions. Donald Trump remains extremely supportive of Israel. He has been willing to lean on the government in Israel, but........

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