Trump Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: December

Beijing’s coercive campaign against Japan dominated U.S.-China dynamics in November. After Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan under its security laws, Beijing demanded a retraction and launched its retaliation: travel advisories, curbs on tourism, and a halt to Japanese seafood imports, all amplified by state-media attacks that even questioned Japan’s sovereignty over Okinawa. The crisis has turned debates about a Taiwan contingency into a test of how Washington balances its China policy with treaty commitments to Tokyo.

The Trump administration’s response was mixed. The State Department reaffirmed that America’s defense treaty with Japan covers the Senkaku Islands and labeled China’s economic steps “coercion” while reiterating opposition to unilateral changes to the Taiwan Strait status quo. President Trump, by contrast, struck a different tone. In a Fox News interview, he complained that “a lot of our allies aren’t our friends” and argued that U.S. partners had exploited Washington on trade more than China. In a November 24 call with Xi Jinping, Trump later touted “extremely strong” U.S.-China ties and Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans, while Beijing’s readout emphasized Xi’s warnings on Taiwan.

Trump then called Takaichi; press reports say he urged her not to escalate or “provoke” Beijing over Taiwan, a characterization Tokyo officially denied. The net effect is muddled signaling: working-level officials stress deterrence and alliance solidarity, while the president prioritizes transactional calm with Beijing. That gap risks emboldening China to keep testing the U.S.-Japan alliance and probing for similar fractures over Taiwan.

The Trump administration boasted of several cyber wins this month, but funding and personnel uncertainty persists across the executive branch.

Alongside Australia and the United Kingdom, the U.S. Treasury Department unveiled a coordinated sanctions package against Russian bulletproof hosting service provider MediaLand for facilitating ransomware and other cybercriminal activities. Bulletproof hosts rent internet infrastructure to cybercriminals and then protect those criminals by refusing to cooperate with law enforcement. Washington and London also designated Hypercore Ltd., a front company for a previously designated bulletproof hosting provider.

Likewise, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a guide to combating bulletproof hosting cybercrime and issued an alert on commercial spyware in messaging apps.

In court early this November, CISA defended its staffing cuts to the Stakeholder Engagement Division. The agency, however, also acknowledged in a November 5 memo that it is operating with only 60 percent of the workforce that it needs. The memo outlines a much-needed workforce strategy.

The workforce cuts and hiring freeze across the executive branch are impacting the viability of a key cyber workforce program. Graduates of the CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service program, which provides scholarships for cyber degree students who enter public service, are facing the prospect of having to pay back loans because they cannot find government jobs. Following backlash, the Office of Personnel Management committed to allowing mass loan deferral for current recipients, but the future of the program is unknown, as the Trump administration has proposed a 65 percent cut to its budget.

On November 7, Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled plans to transform the Pentagon’s acquisition and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) processes. They include replacing the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System, shifting responsibility for FMS, and other measures to expedite arms sales.

The Ford Carrier Strike Group entered the Caribbean on November 16 after being redeployed from Europe, highlighting the growing opportunity costs of the military buildup in the region.

Hegseth threatened to court-martial U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly over a video reminding U.S. troops they do not have to obey illegal orders. Reports then emerged that a secondary U.S. strike on alleged drug traffickers clinging to wreckage near Trinidad was conducted to eliminate survivors. If true, this strike would be illegal according to the Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual. The White House later defended the strike. Bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees expressed significant concern and promised oversight.

The Trump administration pursued a “peace plan” for Ukraine that favored Moscow and reportedly threatened to cut off intelligence sharing and American weapons if Kyiv did not support the plan. This followed the administration’s decision to reduce U.S. military force posture in Eastern Europe, further weakening deterrence.

President Trump affirmed his intent to sell Saudi Arabia F-35s after meeting with the Saudi crown prince on November 18. In addition to following the law related to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, Washington should address concerns related to Riyadh’s military relationship with China.

The Trump administration organized a “3+1” energy ministerial on November 6 in Athens — the first high-level convening in years of officials from the United States, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus. Both Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended the summit, which focused on helping Europe get off Russian energy, cooperating on Europe-Israel energy infrastructure, and enabling the “India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor.”

The 3+1 meeting took place on the eve of the 6th Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation (P-TEC) Ministerial, where the United States, Bulgaria, Greece, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine agreed to launch a “Vertical Corridor” to deliver American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to eastern, southeastern, and central Europe via Greece. Alongside that agreement, Greece committed on November 7 to buying a minimum of 500,000 metric tons per year of American LNG annually over a 20-year period starting in 2030. Demonstrating its more immediate impact on national security, Greece signed a deal with Ukraine on November 16 to deliver U.S. LNG starting in December 2025 through March 2026.

Separately, Burgum and the United Arab Emirates’ minister of industry and advanced technology signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on November 3 pledging to expand U.S.-UAE cooperation on energy and artificial intelligence. Burgum wrote on X that the two countries aimed to “utilize AI to modernize energy infrastructure, optimize systems & expand energy production to meet rising demand.” Notably, the U.S.-UAE pact mirrors another energy and AI MOU signed between the United States and Israel on July 8 — opening the potential for trilateral cooperation.

It is a pattern that has plagued the Trump administration’s pursuit of peace in Ukraine. Just as it finally begins to put pressure on Russia, the White House abruptly turns the tables on Ukraine, emboldening the Kremlin in the process.

In late October, the administration scrapped plans for a U.S.-Russia summit and sanctioned Russia’s top oil companies, citing Moscow’s refusal to soften its maximalist demands for a peace settlement. But U.S. officials soon thereafter attempted to impose some of those same demands on Kyiv. Days after the imposition of sanctions, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner huddled with Russian official Kirill Dmitriev, leading to a 28-point peace plan that heavily favored Russia and incorporated little to no Ukrainian or European input. As the contents of that plan leaked to the press in mid-November, the White House dispatched Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll to pressure Kyiv for quick acquiescence.

The Ukrainian response was constructive. Ukrainian officials and a U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio substantially improved the plan during talks in Geneva, though key issues remained unresolved. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hoped to address them directly with President Trump, but the U.S. leader declined to meet him. Follow-up talks between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Miami yielded no apparent conclusion. Witkoff and Kushner then met with President Vladimir Putin on December 2 to discuss the plan, but the Kremlin continues to display no appetite for the sort of compromise that would make a deal possible.

Despite President Trump’s favors — lifting U.S. sanctions on Syria and brokering the Gaza peace plan with a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction plan — Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) remains unwilling to join the Abraham Accords: no normalization with Israel without “a clear path [toward a] two-state solution.”

Trump’s lavish May visit to Riyadh and MBS’s November trip to Washington produced the usual spectacle: a reiteration of the $600 billion in Saudi investments in the United States, AI cooperation, Nvidia chip purchases, and renewed teasing of F-35 sales. Yet the core demand — Saudi joining the Abraham Accords — went nowhere. Riyadh again rejected a deepened alliance that is explicitly tied to recognizing Israel, insisting Saudi-U.S. relations must stand on their own.

The price of Saudi intransigence has been visible for some time. At the October 2025 Sharm el-Sheikh summit, where Trump, alongside leaders of Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, signed the Gaza peace declaration, Saudi Arabia was conspicuously absent from the top negotiating table. Doha and Ankara now dominate Gaza mediation, sway Lebanon’s Sunni bloc, shape post-Assad Syria, and expand influence in Iraq — terrain Riyadh once claimed as its own.

By clinging to the Palestinian issue as a red line while others move forward, the kingdom is voluntarily ceding the regional leadership it spent decades building.

Following President Trump’s tour of the Indo-Pacific region at the end of October, Washington has continued to build out military ties with allies and partners while carrying forward momentum on accelerating regional economic cooperation.

After attending a Southeast Asian Nations’ meeting of defense ministers, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro announced a new joint task force to improve coordination between American and Filipino forces stationed in theater — a crucial move to counter China’s growing aggression in the South China Sea.

The meeting followed Hegseth’s first visit to Vietnam, during which he announced new initiatives to improve ties between Washington and Hanoi, a burgeoning regional partner, and continued discussions on new fighter and transport aircraft sales to bolster its growing forces.

The United States has also pivoted toward relying on the region to strengthen its own defense industrial base. While negotiations have been halting, New Delhi still expects a new trade deal with the United States by the end of the year, particularly after both countries signed a new 10-year framework agreement in October to improve defense cooperation. India also agreed to purchase the Javelin missile system and Excalibur tactical projectiles, offering a strong market signal for American firms to increase production.

The new deal follows South Korea’s reported discussions with U.S. officials to build nuclear-powered submarines in America for both the U.S. and Korean navies, building on previously announced agreements between Seoul and Washington on Korean investment into strategic American industries.

The UN Security Council endorsed the Trump administration’s “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” on November 17 by adopting Resolution 2803, which allows for the establishment of a U.S.-led transitional Board of Peace. This board will lead efforts to redevelop Gaza and establish a temporary International Stabilization Force until the Palestinian Authority has “satisfactorily completed its reform program” to take back control of the area.

According to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, the resolution “represents the first real step in generations towards forging a lasting peace for Gaza, for Palestinians, for Israelis, and for the entire region.” The Security Council adopted the historic plan in a vote that was nearly unanimous, with 13 votes in favor and two abstentions (China and Russia). As a result, the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which had taken responsibility for aid distribution in Gaza over the past six months, announced that it will wind down its operations.

Meanwhile, on November 20, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) formally passed a resolution introduced by France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States that demanded Iran provide “precise information” about its enriched uranium stockpile. The measure also urged Tehran to cooperate with the agency by providing inspectors with access to all nuclear facilities. In response, the Islamic Republic withdrew from the September 2025 Cairo agreement, which aimed to renew IAEA inspections in Iran after the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran in June.

The Financial Times reported on November 25 that an Iranian company conducting research relevant to nuclear weapons possesses equipment made by a UK-based, French-owned company. The Iranian company is connected to the Organization of Defense Innovation and Research (SPND), a U.S.-sanctioned entity that the State Department has identified as “responsible for research in the field of nuclear weapons development.” Iran’s access to controlled Western technology despite sanctions demonstrates the strength of the regime’s illicit procurement networks. Other entities that have reportedly engaged in illicit procurement remain unsanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Meanwhile, Treasury sanctioned front companies and elements of Iran’s shadow fleet involved in selling oil to support Iran’s armed forces. However, TankerTrackers’ data from November show that Iran continued to export nearly 2 million barrels per day of crude oil to China in October. Treasury also targeted weapons procurement networks involved in Iran’s ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle programs, including entities that played a role in the procurement of chemicals for missile propellants from China.

Amid Tehran’s domestic crackdown following the 12-Day War, the regime reportedly holds multiple Americans as prisoners. The State Department has acknowledged awareness of these cases but is not providing further details at this time. Elsewhere, the State Department’s Persian-language social media accounts have continued to cover Iran’s domestic crises, from environmental degradation to spiraling inflation.

Senior Trump advisers visited Israel in early November to discuss next steps in Gaza. Hamas has returned all living hostages and all but two dead hostages from Gaza, though violence by the terrorist group has occasionally interrupted the Trump-led ceasefire. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has expressed concern that the uptick in violence in the West Bank by Israeli civilians against Palestinians could undermine U.S. plans in Gaza.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) visited the White House on November 18. MBS was able to secure a U.S. designation of his country as a major non-NATO ally and the promise of entering the coveted F-35 program, which would chip away at Israel’s qualitative military edge over other Middle Eastern countries. MBS was able to lock in these achievements without any public commitment to join the Abraham Accords with Israel, causing some tension with the administration.

In early November, Kazakhstan announced its intention to join the accords, but the addition of a Central Asian Muslim country that already enjoyed warm ties with Israel is mostly symbolic.

After Israel eliminated the Hezbollah military’s chief of staff in Lebanon on November 23, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “the president supports Israel’s right to defend itself and to take out any terrorist threats in the region.” However, President Trump warned Israel not to destabilize Syria after Israeli soldiers battled gunmen in Syria’s south.

Throughout November, the Trump administration made valuable progress in bolstering U.S.-South Korea relations, including economic ties, a crucial pillar of the alliance.

At the end of October, President Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung announced that the two nations had finalized an economic and strategic agreement. In November, the White House and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released fact sheets detailing the terms of the Korea Strategic Trade and Investment Deal, which includes key provisions, such as a U.S. commitment to reduce Section 232 sectoral tariffs to 15 percent on automobiles, auto parts, timber, lumber, and wood derivatives from South Korea. The commitment constitutes an important point of accord, as it resolves a key concern raised by the South Korean government. In exchange, Seoul pledged to invest $10 billion in the U.S. shipbuilding sector.

To continue the discussions, South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo traveled to Washington on November 30 to meet with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. Park noted that his priority is to create a dialogue channel to help the allies closely coordinate implementation of the deal, with a specific focus on provisions related to uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing. Park stated that both governments need to set up bodies and organizations to carry out their commitments.

Lebanon has yet to undertake any but the most cursory or cosmetic actions against Hezbollah while adamantly denying mounting evidence that the group is rearming. On November 28, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) sought to dispel Israeli claims of Hezbollah’s regeneration and Beirut’s inaction — making a show to the media of their seizure of installations and assets previously abandoned by the group. To date, however, there has been no public evidence of LAF seizing or dismantling an active Hezbollah installation — even as Hezbollah continues to reject disarmament and while its leadership has boasted that its regeneration efforts have outpaced Israeli strikes, including in south Lebanon.

As a result, Israel has been ratcheting up its operations in Lebanon over the past month, culminating in its assassination of Hezbollah’s newest chief of staff, Haitham Tabatabai, in Beirut on November 23. Israel claimed, and Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem later admitted, that Tabatabai was leading the group’s rearmament and restoring the battle-readiness of its fighting cadres. Jerusalem subsequently conveyed a message to Beirut — via the United States — that it would continue intensifying its airstrikes unless Lebanese officials began taking meaningful action against Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is signaling its own growing exasperation with Lebanon’s inaction while tacitly backing Israel’s escalation. However, Washington is neither leveraging its various forms of direct aid to Lebanon nor its relations with other Lebanese partners — like France or the Gulf states — to induce Beirut to cease its prevarications and begin seriously acting to curb Hezbollah.

China released a new arms control “white paper” — the first of its kind since 2005 — offering insight into Beijing’s nuclear strategic planning in light of growing competition with the United States. Without directly naming America, China decried the nuclear and missile policies of a “certain country” in seeking “absolute strategic superiority,” “maintaining a massive nuclear weapons stockpile,” advancing a “missile defense system without restraint,” and withdrawing from arms control agreements, all of which increase “risks of global nuclear conflicts.”

The U.S. Defense Department estimates China will amass 1,000 operational nuclear weapons by 2030, up from an estimated stockpile of 600 weapons in 2024. Washington also suspects Beijing is secretly conducting low-level tests of nuclear weapons in violation of an informal global nuclear testing ban, providing it an unfair advantage.

On November 20, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors passed a censure resolution against Iran for refusing both access to inspectors and safeguards over nuclear material. Iran has barred the IAEA from key sites since U.S. and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities in June.

During a visit of the Saudi crown prince to Washington on November 18, America and Saudi Arabia signed a joint framework on nuclear cooperation. In a positive development, Energy Secretary Chris Wright appeared to rule out Riyadh’s ability to enrich uranium under the accord, following his suggestion in April that the United States might green-light a uranium enrichment capacity for the kingdom. Access to such fuel would provide Riyadh with an option to build nuclear weapons.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said that American soldiers partnered with forces from the Syrian Ministry of Interior between November 24 and 27 to destroy “more than 15 sites containing ISIS weapons,” including “over 130 mortars and rockets, multiple assault rifles, machine guns, anti-tank mines, and materials for building improvised explosive devices” in the southern Syrian province of Rif Dimashq.

The combined operation is the first between U.S. and Syrian forces and occurred two weeks after Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who previously served as al-Qaeda’s leader in Syria, met President Trump at the White House. After the meeting, the Syrian government announced that it is “affirming its role as a partner in counter-terrorism” against the Islamic State. While the combined operation and partnership with Syria, which has thousands of al-Qaeda terrorists in its security forces, was characterized by Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of CENTCOM, as a significant counterterrorism success, Damascus has problematically refused American requests to expel al-Qaeda-linked foreign fighters from its military ranks in exchange for the recent U.S. military support in eliminating the Islamic State.

The U.S. military made a similar error in Afghanistan, when it partnered with the Taliban between 2014 and 2019 to battle the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province. The partnership between America and the Taliban succeeded in significantly degrading the Islamic State’s capabilities in Afghanistan, but the cooperation also strengthened the Taliban and contributed to its successful takeover of Afghanistan two years later. The Taliban gave no concessions to the United States for its support in battling the Islamic State.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa visited Washington on November 10 for a meeting with President Donald Trump, granting the former al-Qaeda terrorist political legitimacy from the United States. The meeting, which marked the first visit by a Syrian leader to the White House, focused on repealing remaining U.S. sanctions on Syria following Trump’s unconditional lifting of key sanctions in June. The meeting discussed positive issues, like a potential security agreement with Israel as well as the integration of Kurdish forces into the Syrian military, but missed out on other critical internal dynamics, such as questions of political inclusivity and the status of minority communities.

Before al-Sharaa arrived in Washington, the United States sponsored a UN Security Council resolution that lifted international sanctions on al-Sharaa and his minister of interior, Anas Khattab, paving the way for Washington to remove the two leaders from its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. Sharaa’s visit also marked Syria’s entry into the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, making it the 90th country to join the alliance.

On November 30, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that its forces and the Syrian Ministry of Interior “located and destroyed more than 15 sites containing ISIS weapons caches in southern Syria, Nov. 24-27.” This marked the first coordinated anti-ISIS mission between U.S. forces and the Syrian government following Damascus’s entry into the global coalition.

At the same time, U.S.-brokered talks between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces appear to have stalled, even as the integration deadline approaches at the end of the year.

Since the signing of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in October, Turkey has been eager to insert its military into the Gaza Strip to form the backbone of the International Stabilization Force (ISF). The U.S.-backed Gaza plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council on November 17, explicitly envisions an ISF and mentions Turkey among potential contributors. And President Trump’s team has signaled openness — even enthusiasm — for a prominent Turkish role in stabilizing post-war Gaza.

But Jerusalem has publicly objected to such a possibility due to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hostile rhetoric toward Israel, Ankara’s ties to Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood networks, and broader strategic mistrust. Egyptian, Jordanian, Emirati, and Saudi elites also share deep skepticism of a Turkish security footprint on their doorstep, seeing Ankara as well as Doha as protectors of Islamist currents they have spent a decade suppressing.

Given Israel’s veto power over anything touching Gaza’s security architecture, the most likely U.S. compromise would entail the advancement of Turkish roles in intelligence, training, and logistics in Egypt — not Turkish brigades patrolling Gaza streets. Positioning Turkish logistical assets inside Egypt would ensure sufficient geographic distance between Hamas and the Turkish military, making it more difficult for Ankara to aid the terrorist entity. The Trump administration has correctly resisted Ankara’s pressures to insert its military into Gaza and should continue to do so. A Turkish military presence in Gaza would only benefit Hamas.