►The US approach to global governance in the post-Cold War era has faced challenges at home and abroad.

►A second Trump administration is expected to bring shifts to the US role in global governance, deviating from established practices.

►Asian allies and partners navigate opportunities and risks in their engagement with the US.

How should America’s foreign policy partners in Asia allocate their limited diplomatic resources during Donald Trump’s second presidency? One approach is to examine how Trump and his advisors view global governance ¾ a key framework that has traditionally shaped the diplomacy of globalist American leaderships ¾ and develop policies informed by these views. During Trump’s first term, the United States focused on preserving its great power status while refraining from an active role in global governance.

This article proposes two policy implications for regional countries, grounded in the challenges of predicting the effectiveness and sustainability of policies under Trump’s approach to global governance. First, regional countries would prioritize establishing a bilateral diplomatic agenda, tailored to their national interests and developed independently, in addition to engaging in existing multilateral frameworks and multilevel global governance structures. Second, in the case of South Korea, a formal military ally of the US and a geographic neighbor to China, ensuring democratic resilience and strengthening its drive for middle-power practices in diplomacy will matter. These two implications are essential for securing stability within the current global system and preparing regional countries for the Trump administration’s established Make America Great Again-oriented path, as well as the possibility that the Trump government could selectively pursue aspects of a liberal or globalist agenda, potentially diverging from the predominant course.

This article explores three topics: First, Trump’s view of global governance¾basically, what he means by global governance; second, the expected policy spectrum in his second term; and last, policy implications for the US diplomatic partners to engage effectively with the upcoming administration.

The Trump administration’s use of the global governance concept during its first term reflects the priorities of Trump’s diplomatic agenda. One document that encapsulates Trump’s view on global governance clearly is his address to the United Nations General Assembly in 2018. In this speech, he characterized global governance as a practice that undermines the independence and sovereignty of individual nations. This speech marked a symbolic moment in which Trump openly rejected globalism at the UN, declaring, ‘America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination’ [emphasis added].

Criticizing institutions and regimes such as the International Criminal Court, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the Global Compact for Migration, Trump stated, ‘We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.’ His stance went beyond signaling a withdrawal from global governance structures, while framing global governance as a threat to national sovereignty. He emphasized that ‘responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance’ but also from other sources, such as ‘coercion and domination.’ Global governance is often criticized for undermining national sovereignty while promoting transnational agendas, causing some countries to hesitate to participate. However, Trump’s view of global governance as a threat to sovereignty further polarizes the discourse. 

His speech at the UN is useful for understanding what he means by the term global governance. Trump uses the term to refer broadly to intergovernmental organizations and systems in which national governments participate as key players. Comparing Trump’s perspective with academic definitions of global governance indicates differences in context. For example, James Rosenau defined that governance, operating in world politics, ‘embraces governmental institutions’ while subsuming ‘informal, non-governmental mechanisms whereby those persons and organizations within its purview move ahead, satisfy their needs, and fulfill their wants.’ This article does not intend to catalog various definitions of global governance. Instead, it seeks to determine the specific aspects of global governance that Trump rejects by contrasting his views with established academic discourses. Understanding this distinction can help regional decision-makers identify the value framework the Trump administration prioritizes¾or dismisses¾when formulating global governance policies, thereby enabling more effective negotiation with the US.  

The spectrum of potential global governance practices for a second Trump administration can be inferred from the 2024 GOP Platform and the statements and writings of Trump’s former and prospective officials. Notably, the GOP Platform does not mention the term governance or any references to global governance. Instead, the Platform states that ‘our politicians sold our jobs [...] [with] a blind faith in the siren song of globalism.’ Trump’s second-term cabinet is expected to consist of Trump loyalists, making the words and writings of first-term officials useful indicators of his future policy. Robert O'Brien, the former national security adviser to Trump, highlights this spectrum’s fragmented and selective nature. For instance, O'Brien notes, ‘A second Trump term would see stepped-up presidential-level attention to dissidents and political forces that can challenge U.S. adversaries.’ He emphasizes that Trump ‘did pay attention to opposition forces in authoritarian states’ that are the rivals of the US. This selective approach suggests that while Trump rejects global governance in principle, he could adopt liberal or globalist behaviors on specific issues when they align with his political objectives. 

Trump’s statement that Americans reject the ideology of globalism implies a selective acceptance of liberal values. This observation presents a counterexample to the established theoretical paradigms of international relations. There are terms such as ‘principled realism’ that were used officially by the first Trump administration to refer to their own foreign policy, however as Michael Anton, who served on the US National Security Council in the first Trump administration and was recently picked as the director of policy planning in the State Department, notes, Trump’s ‘foreign policy doesn’t easily fit into any of these categories, though it draws from all of them.’ But, ‘even when we think that we are just using common sense, there is usually an implicit theory guiding our actions,’ as Joseph Nye and David Welch explain the relationship between policy and theory. Trump is no exception. Theoretical refinement from leading paradigms will be able to clarify his theoretical and policy orientations. In this process, not only the US citizens but also ‘the rest of the world are about to participate in a vast social experiment,’ as Stephen Walt posits.

During Trump’s second term, the US diplomatic counterparts will need to secure a convincing bilateral diplomatic agenda that is separate from, but in addition to, continued engagement in multilateral bodies and multilevel initiatives. In South Korea’s case, ensuring democratic resilience and strengthening its efforts in diplomatic middle power practice will be essential to prepare for the shift in the US leadership, encompassing these policy implications. The US diplomatic agenda would be structured outside the global governance framework, considering the Trump administration’s prioritization of the Make America Great Again goals. However, there is also the possibility that Trump could selectively adopt an issue-based liberal or globalist approach that deviates from his existing course.