Is the honeymoon over? Two new polls this week paint a grim picture for Donald Trump. According to Pew, 56% of respondents express a lack of confidence in the President’s foreign policy decisions, while half believe his administration has weakened the US internationally compared to the Biden administration. Results from CNN are even more damning: Trump’s net approval on foreign policy has declined 15 percentage points since his inauguration in January. This marks the lowest approval ever recorded for a president at this stage of his tenure.

There are several reasons for this dip. The Trump administration is still in its early days, which means that there aren’t many major foreign policy successes to catalogue yet. Trump is a highly ambitious man who wants to do great things and make his mark on history. But he can also be extraordinarily impatient and has a tendency to juggle so many balls in the air that a few of them are bound to fall to the ground.

That does not make life easy for this national security team, which is stretched thin. One man, billionaire envoy Steve Witkoff, is in the prestigious but unenviable position of negotiating with the Russians, the Iranians, the Israelis and Hamas all at the same time. Whether it’s the war in Ukraine, Gaza, the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran or the trade talks with China that haven’t started yet, all these lines of effort require time, skill and tenacity to resolve — assuming they can be resolved at all.

Of course, Trump does have some foreign policy wins under his belt. The administration’s pressure on Panama coerced the government to remove itself from China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative earlier than previously scheduled. Meanwhile, Central America (minus Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua) is now participating in Washington’s migration policy, if only to stave off whatever economic repercussions Trump might have in store for these countries if they don’t cooperate. The Europeans are boosting their military budgets, with even Spain and Italy, traditionally Europe’s most lax defence spenders, changing their tune.

Trump’s brusque tactics, however, shortchange these accomplishments. The ends are clouded by the means, and the means usually centre on the President using a sharp stick to get what he wants. Whether it’s through tariffs, rhetorical bomb-throwing or threats to reassess longstanding defence relationships, Trump is more interested in subservience than compromise. This rubs a lot of people up the wrong way and could, over time, cause some of these targeted countries to hedge against the United States by seeking alternative foreign relationships elsewhere.

Finally, one can’t underestimate the power of the status quo. Before Trump came along, US foreign policy was static, listless and based on the same three old assumptions: America is the chief defender of the so-called rules-based international order, the chief bulwark against authoritarians, and a superpower which has the responsibility to dip its toes into every international issue. Although there was some variance across administrations — Barack Obama hated his predecessor’s fondness for preventive wars, for instance — US foreign policy was largely the same over the last 40 years. In short: you knew what you were getting.

Yet Trump doesn’t care about the rules-based order, doesn’t buy into the democracy versus authoritarianism framing, and is often as hard on allies as he is on adversaries. He still thinks America is the world’s most exceptional nation due its military strength and economic stamina. But he dismisses the notion that it should be fighting other states’ battles and protecting allies indefinitely. There are no optimistic, emotional Reagan-esque “shining city on a hill” moments from Trump. Instead, what we’re getting is a mix of William McKinley and James Polk.

Whatever the reasons for the lacklustre poll numbers, Trump’s foreign policy decisions should ultimately be judged on whether they serve the US national interests, not on whether they win a popularity contest.

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Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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