Populism and President Trump’s approach to foreign policy: An analysis of tweets and rally speeches
| Author | Corina Lacatus |
| Published date | 01 February 2021 |
| Date | 01 February 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395720935380 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395720935380
Politics
2021, Vol. 41(1) 31 –47
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395720935380
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Populism and President
Trump’s approach to
foreign policy: An analysis
of tweets and rally speeches
Corina Lacatus
University of Edinburgh, UK
Abstract
Much like his candidacy, Donald Trump’s presidency has been described as populist par excellence
and as fundamentally breaking with the liberal internationalist tradition of American foreign policy.
Despite a growing interest in populism and the role it has played in shaping Donald Trump’s appeal
to the public at election time in 2016, we lack an understanding of how populist rhetoric after his
electoral victory shaped his approach to foreign policy. This article proposes a study of President
Trump’s official campaign communication through rally speeches and Twitter during the 2 months
prior to the mid-term election in November 2018 as well as tweets published in the official
personal account @realDonaldTrump from September to November 2018. The analysis finds that
resurgent Jacksonian populism promoted by the Tea Party shapes President Trump’s approach to
foreign policy. Fundamentally anti-elitist, Trump’s populism opposes migration, multilateralism,
and is deeply sceptical of the United States’ capacity to support a liberal global order that he
perceives as detrimental to the economic interest of the American people. In addition, the analysis
finds inconsistencies between his campaign discourse of non-intervention in military conflicts
abroad and his foreign policy action.
Keywords
Donald Trump, foreign policy, Jacksonianism, populism, rhetoric
Received: 19th September 2019; Revised version received: 29th March 2020; Accepted: 23rd April 2020
Introduction
In the evening of the 2 October 2018, President Donald Trump stood in front of a raucous
crowd of more than 8000 people gathered in the Landers Center of Southaven Mississippi,
for another ‘Make America Great Again’ rally intended to endorse Republican candidate
to the US Senate, Cindy Hyde-Smith. He opened his speech with an acclamation of what
he considers one his government’s most relevant accomplishments yet – a new trade deal
with Canada and Mexico – that is expected to boost further domestic employment rates.
Corresponding author:
Corina Lacatus, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Edinburgh, 15a
George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD, UK.
Email: c.lacatus@ed.ac.uk
935380POL0010.1177/0263395720935380PoliticsLacatus
research-article2020
Special Issue Article
32 Politics 41(1)
According to him, since the start of his presidency, important international accomplish-
ments in the fight against what he calls ‘the globalists’ have had a direct positive impact
on economic growth in the United States and, significantly, generated a newly earned
place of greater recognition and respect for America in the world:
America is winning again, and America is being respected again, maybe respected like never
before, because we are finally putting America first. But exactly five weeks from today, all of
this extraordinary progress is at stake. It is at stake. I’m not on the ballot, but in a certain way,
I’m on the ballot, so please go out and vote. (Donald Trump, 2018)
As the introduction to this Special Issue states, President Trump has moved away from
traditional American commitments to liberal internationalism, such as multilateral rules
and institutions, the maintenance of old trade and military alliances, and the promotion of
liberal democracy (Lacatus and Meibauer, 2021). While he has not abandoned the posi-
tion of the United States as the ‘police of the world’, the first 2 years of his presidency
show him breaking with his Democratic predecessors by choosing to forgo the export of
democracy and abstain from many multilateral trade agreements (Posen, 2018). Some
commentators have signalled that the Trump administration might have the power to
shake the core of institutions that have motivated traditional foreign policymaking in the
United States – trade agreements, alliances, international law, multilateralism, environ-
mental protection, protection from torture, and human rights (Ikenberry, 2017).
Concluding that he is ‘the populist par excellence’ (Oliver and Rahn, 2016), recent
scholarship has shown that for the Trump administration, the ideas of far-right populism
have contributed to shaping both domestic policy agenda-setting (Hawkins and Rovira
Kaltwasser, 2018; Ikenberry, 2017; Plattner, 2019) and foreign policy-making (Boucher
and Thies, 2019; Chryssogelos, 2017, 2020; Lowndes, 2017). The restoration of a long-
gone respect for the United States as a power worthy of admiration and fear by fellow
states in the global order has been the main rhetorical claim motivating the foreign policy
position of President Trump since the days of his presidential candidacy in 2016. As a
presidential candidate, Trump proposed an image of the United States as an international
power taken for granted by other states and in need of strengthening its national security
(Lacatus, 2019). He denounced a global elite that has stripped the United States of wealth
and rigged the economy against the working class (Chokshi, 2016; Fisher, 2017). In his
presidential election campaign of 2015–2016, Trump made use of a virulent anti-immi-
grant rhetoric (Lowndes, 2017) and promised to free the United States from the burden of
serving as the guarantor of the international liberal order (Chryssogelos, 2018). He
pledged to impose stricter controls on immigration and seek to sign ‘good trade deals’ that
favour the United States (Chryssogelos, 2017), rescuing America from the threat that
international liberal elites pose to national sovereignty and domestic economic prosperity
(Boucher and Thies, 2019). To what extent has this populist electoral rhetoric on foreign
policy continued during the first 2 years of the Trump presidency?
A recent study focuses on President Trump’s ability to mobilise public support for steel
and aluminium tariffs in March 2018 through his use of the social network of followers
on the social media platform Twitter (Boucher and Thies, 2019). The study finds that
President Trump succeeded in creating a strong social network of support for his trade
agenda by routinely employing an anti-elite discursive strategy when it comes to trade,
advancing an image of the virtuous people (i.e. workers and farmers) as victims of elites
and foreign countries. Although these recent scholarly works have offered very important
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