Is He Speaking Our Language? Donald Trump's Leadership Traits in Comparison with Previous Presidents

SPECULATION THAT DONALD TRUMP WILL RUN to be the Republican candidate in the 2024 U.S. presidential election makes this the ideal time to reflect on his one-term presidency. In 2016, Trump ran for president as an outsider—a businessman unsullied by the politics of Washington. Many of his supporters continue to tout Trump's brand as a break from politics as usual. With a clear focus on his campaign promise to put “America First,” headlines during the Trump presidency were loaded with descriptions of his efforts to reverse the policies of his predecessor, especially in the realm of foreign policy. From day one in office, Trump signaled that the United States would leave the Paris Climate Accords, abandon the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (known more colloquially as the Iran nuclear deal), rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and disengage from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and he took the unprecedented step of ordering the U.S. embassy in Israel to move to Jerusalem. Toward the end of his term, Trump pulled the United States out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement and the Open Skies Treaty, and he took steps to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These actions represent only a fraction of the departures from the established policy positions of previous administrations and do not begin to scratch the surface of the critiques that Trump leveled at traditional allies and alliances, including NATO, which has been the cornerstone of U.S. security policy since the end of World War II.