How Donald Trump Winning Would Impact China, Russia, Iran and North Korea

By Brendan Cole

Donald Trump has boasted about his ties with strongman leaders other United States presidents would have kept at arm's length, but this does not mean his potential retaking of the Oval Office next week will be toasted in Moscow, Pyongyang, Tehran or Beijing.

Foreign policy issues on the Resolute Desk's in-tray include whether Trump can make good on his claim that he can end the war in Ukraine started by Vladimir Putin, dealing with a widening conflict in the Middle East in which the U.S. has a key role, North Korea's nuclear threats and a trade tussle with China.

Amid concern that Washington would lurch toward a more isolationist foreign policy should Trump win on Tuesday, Newsweek asked experts what they thought his victory would mean for four countries considered adversaries or rivals.

Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

China

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on November 9, 2017. Another Trump presidency could see a heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington, experts told Newsweek. FRED DUFOUR/Getty Images

Trump's first administration contained China hawks, and during his first term, Trump slapped tariffs and other barriers to tackle what he said were Beijing's unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft.

According to Lyle Goldstein, director for Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities, Beijing is wary of a Trump White House return.

"There is some possibility that the relationship could take a positive turn if Trump is more inclined to strike pragmatic deals with Beijing and less inclined towards directly supporting Taiwan," Goldstein told Newsweek.

"My sense is that Beijing would react by trying to appeal to Trump's pragmatic side but would also steel itself for the more likely intensification of tensions," he said.

Beijing shows little sign of altering its stance either on its ties with Moscow or its belligerence in the South China Sea, including drills around Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its own, which Beijing could invade to prove it.

However, Goldstein said if the Trump administration embraced the One China policy, "Beijing would reciprocate by lowering tensions—both in the Strait and also in the South China Sea."

Zhiqun Zhu, a political science professor at Bucknell University, said a Trump presidency would see him continue or even escalate his trade war.

"One can expect some retaliation from China, and bilateral tensions will rise," he told Newsweek.

"Xi is likely to take advantage of Trump's ego and make some symbolic concessions in trade to Trump, such as buying more agricultural products from the U.S. and simultaneously seek Trump's reciprocity in other areas such as Taiwan or the South China Sea."

Russia and the War in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and then-President Donald Trump at the G20 Summit on November 30, 2018. Kremlin propagandists have championed Trump's return to the White House.

Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Trump has repeatedly said he would end the war in Ukraine within a day were he to retake office. Trump's praise for Putin during the war, calling the Russian president a "genius" at the invasion's start and "smart" as recently as October 25, amplify concerns about what his return to the White House means for U.S. support for Kyiv.

"Trump has indicated a strong preference for Russia over Ukraine in both words and deeds," Robert Orttung, research professor of international affairs at the George Washington University, told Newsweek.

"But his policies are out of step with traditional U.S. national interests and will create strong pushback across the political spectrum and from the intelligence and national security communities," Orttung said. "These groups are rightly skeptical of Russian intentions. Under Trump, the U.S. would appear weak, divided, and easily manipulated by dictators."

Following their September meeting in New York, Trump said he had a good relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky, but he also reiterated his warm ties with Putin.

Simon Schlegel, senior Ukrainian analyst at the International Crisis Group, said Trump has made it clear he wants to resolve the war quickly and could initiate negotiations between Russia and Ukraine even before he takes office after winning.

"All of this, of course, is very worrying for Ukraine," he told Newsweek. "Ukrainians know very well there is no easy way out of this and that it's going to mean very painful decisions for the Ukrainian government which the Zelensky presidency is not very good at taking, and which will be necessary if Trump wins.

"There's also a bit of wishful thinking around Donald Trump's possible next presidency that his foreign policy has been so erratic, and so guided by personal friendships and personal grudges, that if he would try to negotiate with Putin and Putin would let him run into a wall, then he would put all his support behind Ukraine."

"A lot of Ukrainians find consolation in the unpredictability of what Trump is going and also because it is not clear what Kamala Harris winning means for Ukraine," Schlegel added.

IRAN

Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty

During Trump's presidency, tensions between Washington and Tehran soared after he pulled the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which had imposed restrictions on Iran's nuclear program.

Two years later, Iran issued an arrest warrant for Trump and his aides after the killing of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike in Iraq.

Hamidreza Azizi, a research fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said there is no unified view in the Islamic Republic about what a Trump victory might mean. However, the dominant opinion among Tehran's political elite "is that the situation is going to get worse for Iran."

Azizi said this is due to Trump's history of "maximum pressure" on Iran, his alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his support for Israel "and his unpredictability."

A second group in Iran believes that the overarching hostility between Tehran and Washington will remain, regardless of who is in the White House. However, a minority hopes that a Trump presidency would be better for Iran "because he's more open to business, and if you are going to make a deal with Trump, it would be easier with him than with Kamala Harris," Azizi said.

The repercussions of U.S.-Iranian relations will be felt across the Middle East. Tehran backs Hamas in Gaza, which Israel has bombarded following the Palestinian militant group's October 7, 2023, attacks.

The conflict has widened to include Hezbollah in Lebanon, whose leaders Israel has targeted, while the U.S. and the United Kingdom are targeting other Iranian proxies, the Houthis in Yemen, following the group's attacks on Red Sea shipping.

"With Trump, there is a winner and a loser. There's no gray zone, and there's not a diplomatic zone, really," said Gene Moran, a national security expert and former adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, "so I think we might see a more brash approach with Iran."

"I think there would be certainly tougher words," Moran told Newsweek. "We could see Trump take more aggressive action in cutting off funding more completely. I think Biden has allowed money to move in ways that probably could have been prevented more aggressively."

The signals Trump has sent so far could encourage Netanyahu to take the next step in the conflict with Iran between the election and taking the oath of office.

"My fear is that in that scenario—even in the period between November and January—you're going to see an actual war between Iran and Israel," Azizi said.

North Korea

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un talk in the Demilitarized Zone on June 30, 2019. There is speculation over what another Trump presidency would mean for ties between Washington and... More BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/Getty Images

As the first U.S. president to ever step inside North Korea, Trump told podcast host Joe Rogan that he "got along great" with the secretive state's leader.

But Trump's view of Kim Jong Un as both "little rocket man" and "wingman" has reinforced concerns about his attitude toward Pyongyang, which test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday—five days before the U.S. election.

Karl Friedhoff, a fellow for Asia Studies at the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs, said that if Trump were elected, there would be little interagency coordination, which Pyongyang could leverage.

"I think we're likely to see chaos," Friedhoff told Newsweek."We'll see a roller coaster vacillating from very high tensions to highly choreographed personal diplomacy between leaders."

Friedhoff said that when Kim and Trump last met in Vietnam in February 2019, Pyongyang came in unprepared to make any deal, but "that won't be the case this time around.

"They'll be much better prepared with a negotiating package and will seek to exploit all of Trump's weaknesses. Those negotiations will be a real wild card for Trump's presidency and the region."

South Korea is the linchpin of the U.S. alliance architecture, and Friedhoff said that Trump has been "steadily trying to claw that pin loose."

During his first presidency, the presence of 28,000 American troops in South Korea prompted Trump to accuse Seoul of "free-riding" on U.S. military might.

The current agreement expires next year, but in October, the U.S. and South Korea announced a new cost-sharing agreement for U.S. forces in South Korea that both sides were keen to complete ahead of a possible Trump administration, CNN reported.

"The most extreme nonwar result would likely be a South Korean nuclear weapons program coming online within the Trump presidency, and the ripple effects of that program washing up on the shores of Japan," said Friedhoff.

"The development of such a program would be extremely risky in the time between the program being discovered—and it will be discovered—and those weapons becoming operable."