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Donald Trump’s foreign policy is just Biden plus

  • Robert Inlakesh Robert Inlakesh
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 31 Jul 2025 13:22
  • 1 Shares
5 Min Read

In his scathing piece, Robert Inlakesh argues that Donald Trump’s foreign policy is simply an intensified version of Joe Biden’s: cloaked in populist bluster but rooted in the same imperialist goals.

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  • At the end of the day, both Democrats and Republicans are operating within a joint ecosystem. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)
    At the end of the day, both Democrats and Republicans are operating within a joint ecosystem. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

US President Donald Trump sold his base on the idea that he was an anti-intervention, would strike new deals to restore America’s image in the world and reshape alliances. Despite his claims to the contrary, all he has done is escalate Joe Biden’s mistakes.

Everyone remembers Trump’s repeated claims that the Ukraine war “would never have happened if I were President” and that he would reach a deal between Kiev and Moscow within twenty-four hours of taking office. Yet, here we are, half way through the first year of the new administration’s term in office, and the fighting in Ukraine steadily escalates.

Even pledges to stop American taxpayer dollars going towards the Ukrainian war effort have been betrayed by continued weapons packages. This, as the US President has already sent billions of dollars in taxpayer funded weapons, tossed away billions in air defence spending, and billions more on attacking Yemen, in order to support the Zionist regime.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party President continues to chase the top foreign policy achievement that Joe Biden sought after: a normalisation agreement between Tel Aviv and Riyadh.

Despite posing as a strongman against extremism in Syria and across the surrounding region, just like his predecessor, Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind the new government in Damascus as its allied militias and even much of the security forces themselves embody fundamentalism. 

While the US population has grown tired of foreign wars, especially following their military debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq, American politicians disagree. With Donald Trump, it should have been obvious from those who financed his campaign and his track record during his first term in office that he was only going to be more of the same. Yet, as is often the case in partisan politics, blind faith in Party and ideology overrides reason.

Although the Democratic Party President’s administration was more so led by Washington-based think-tanks like the Atlantic Council, while the Trump administration takes its advice from the Heritage Foundation, both advocated a nearly identical approach to dealing with Iran. 

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All the major think-tanks are set up to influence politicians and the media landscape. Essentially, what happens is the think-tanks do the thinking for the political leaders, the Lobbyists pay the politicians and promote them, then the corporate media - owned by the same corporations financing the latter two - work to package everything neatly. 

At the end of the day, both Democrats and Republicans are operating within a joint ecosystem. Thus, it’s easy to understand why on foreign policy the goals of either side are going to be somewhat similar, at least when it comes to power projection and opportunities for the Military Industrial Complex.

So when we look at a politician like Donald Trump, who claims he is so different from Joe Biden, this is what explains the policy similarities when it comes to Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, or even attitudes towards Russia or China.

Nothing really separates Trump and Biden when it comes to their stances on nations like Cuba or Venezuela, nor in dealing with the situation in Haiti.

Donald Trump claimed he was going to bring a ceasefire in Gaza, but he allowed the Zionist regime to violate the ceasefire and then went even further than Biden, giving Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand to completely shut off aid to the Gaza Strip.

Some would try to point to Joe Biden as somewhat more moderate on Gaza, yet this isn’t really true. Yes, Trump’s rhetoric is more hardline and the famine in Gaza is more severe now, but the Biden administration never forced the Israelis into agreeing upon a ceasefire and allowed for the Zionists to impose a starvation policy. 

Although people have short memories, the Biden administration used ceasefire negotiations as cover to allow further offensive moves throughout the region, while also setting up the failed Gaza floating dock. Trump has done the exact same thing, using negotiations as a deceptive tactic to not telegraph new military blows, as he now throws his weight behind the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” as cover to claim that his government is working on providing humanitarian aid.

The tariff strategy may be an extreme tactic that the Biden White House would never have implemented, yet apart from this and the overt bullying of its relatively useless lackeys in Western Europe, the overarching goals of the Trump administration are identical to those of his predecessor. Instead, now, there is a loudmouth who is the face of it instead of someone who was obviously senile. 

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • Syria
  • Ukraine
  • Donald Trump
  • Joe Biden
  • war on Gaza
  • Gaza
  • Gaza genocide
Robert Inlakesh

Robert Inlakesh

Political Analyst, Journalist, and Documentary Filmmaker.

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