What 2024 Meant for U.S. Foreign Policy

In a year dominated by headlines about the U.S. election and the seemingly stark choice presented to voters, what stands out in this collection of big reads on foreign policy is how much continuity there is between Democratic and Republican administrations in recent years.

Take, for instance, FP columnist Michael Hirsh’s essay on the consensus in Washington about a forthcoming Cold War with China. If there’s one thing politicians on both sides of the aisle agree on these days, he writes, it’s that Beijing is a belligerent force that needs to be dealt with forcefully, even aggressively.

In a year dominated by headlines about the U.S. election and the seemingly stark choice presented to voters, what stands out in this collection of big reads on foreign policy is how much continuity there is between Democratic and Republican administrations in recent years.

Take, for instance, FP columnist Michael Hirsh’s essay on the consensus in Washington about a forthcoming Cold War with China. If there’s one thing politicians on both sides of the aisle agree on these days, he writes, it’s that Beijing is a belligerent force that needs to be dealt with forcefully, even aggressively.

In Catherine Osborne’s reporting, the FP columnist finds a surprising synchronicity across the Western Hemisphere in managing migration. Although this consensus emerged via negotiations between the Biden administration and Latin America, Osborne points out that even during the previous Trump administration, countries across the region found ways to work together on the issue.

And FP columnist Stephen Walt takes an even longer view, discovering that over his years of thinking about U.S. foreign policy, he’s become much more sympathetic to the stance taken by figures on the left such as Noam Chomsky on the true intentions and negative consequences of U.S. intervention around the world across various administrations.

As we look ahead to a second presidential term for Donald Trump—and as conflict continues in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa—FP staff writers make educated guesses about what the administration’s foreign policy might look like. That’s before David Milne suggests that based on the personality-driven, transactionalist approach of Trump’s first stint in office, there’s no way of knowing for sure.

Here are five of our top reads on what 2024 meant for U.S. foreign policy.

1. No, This Is Not A Cold War—Yet

By Michael Hirsh, May 7

As U.S.-China competition heats up, Cold War comparisons keep coming in Washington. But Hirsh argues that the differences between the two eras are so profound that the bilateral relationship is much closer to a “cold peace.”

Why has the era of engagement with China come to an end, and why is there so little debate over it? China is doing little to displace the international system that the United States and other Western powers created, Hirsh concludes, and Beijing has no other choice if it wants to sustain its economy. The deepening ideological tensions between the two countries are real, but that doesn’t mean anyone has to or should act on them.

2. How Migration Became a U.S. Foreign-Policy Priority

By Catherine Osborne, Oct. 9

Immigration was a top concern for voters in the recent U.S. presidential election, following a record influx of migrants at the southern border in recent years; encounters soared to more than 2 million in both 2022 and 2023. But as Osborne reports, the chaotic discourse surrounding immigration in the United States obscures a broader story: that of Washington and Latin American countries forming a coherent strategy that goes beyond enforcement and includes new legal pathways for labor migration.

While a Trump administration could deal a blow to the current approach—not least if it follows through on his promise of mass deportations—a lot also depends on other countries in the Western Hemisphere, Osborne writes.

3. Noam Chomsky Has Been Proven Right

By Stephen Walt, Nov. 15

Noam Chomsky speaks in Karlsruhe, Germany, on May 30, 2014. Uli Deck/Picture Alliance via Getty Images

Reader engagement was high on Walt’s review of a new book that Chomsky cowrote with Nathan J. Robinson, The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World. As the title suggests, the book’s central target is the claim that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and human rights—and while Walt finds the record of hypocrisy enumerated by the authors convincing, he is less persuaded by the book’s explanation for why U.S. leaders have acted with such base recklessness.

Still, he concludes he’d rather read Chomsky and Robinson than many of the essays by former officials published elsewhere. “I wouldn’t have written that last sentence when I began my career 40 years ago,” Walt writes, but “my thinking has evolved as the evidence has piled up.” The robust debate in the article’s comments section suggests readers have done a lot of thinking on the topic, too.

4. What Trump’s Win Means for U.S. Foreign Policy

By FP Staff, Nov. 6

After reading about the bigger picture of the last half-century of presidential administrations, why not take some time during this transition period to bone up on the nuts-and-bolts of Trump’s promised policies for each region of the world? FP staff writers have already done the work for you, wading through his track record, as well as his statements and those of his advisors, to glean clues on what the future of U.S. foreign policy holds—in China, the Middle East, Russia-Ukraine and NATO, Africa, and India, as well as on the topics of immigration and technology.

5. Trump Is His Own Secretary of State

By David Milne, Nov. 21

Now that we’ve read the tea leaves, prepare to throw them out the window; Trump is his own secretary of state, national security advisor, and secretary of defense. That’s according to Milne, a professor of modern history at the University of East Anglia, who argues there will be no one to restrain Trump’s worst instincts this time.

The situation of a one-man presidential band, though, is hardly unique. Milne points to the precedent of other U.S. leaders dominating their cabinets. Besides, “for all his bluster, Trump appears to understand that war … is bad for the U.S. economy.” Whatever the next year holds for U.S. foreign policy, we at FP will be there to guide you through it. Thanks for reading along in 2024.