Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, a fact is obvious: US foreign policy seems to be active on almost all fronts. Iran, the Middle East, Ukraine: the administration gives the impression of wanting to take the initiative again, to set the tone and make other people respond. For a long time, Donald Trump was described as a mainly ‘spectacular’ leader, unpredictable, sometimes reduced to his provocations. Yet, as his action repeats and structures itself, many observers see it less as a series of isolated blows than a recognizable style. This is what is often called, for convenience, ‘Trumpian diplomacy.’ To what extent can one speak of a coherent, identifiable diplomacy specific to Trump—and not of a mere succession of impulses? And what immediate gains does it offer, at the cost of what strategic risks for the alliances, stability, and credibility of the United States?

To answer, it is first necessary to isolate the pillars of this diplomacy and then observe its implementation in major crises before measuring their strengths and limits.

I) The pillars of an identifiable diplomacy: America First, transaction, pressure, personalization

The first pillar is the America First logic. Trump conceives the international relationship as a space of competition where national interest must be visible, measurable, and immediate. Alliances are not primarily a ‘community of values’: they resemble arrangements where everyone must prove their contribution. In this context, the central question is not ‘What does international law say? ‘, but ‘who pays? Who wins? Who depends?’. This vision is not entirely new in American history, but Trump makes it more brutal, more frontal, and less dressed in the traditional vocabulary of alliances.

The second pillar is the transaction. Diplomacy is treated as a permanent negotiation: we put on the table levers (sanctions, tariffs, military aid,........

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