Set the Tone, Establish Policy, Hire Personnel—And Prepare for Crisis

• President Donald Trump enters office at a critical moment and faces multiple crises.
• His administration should lay the groundwork for significant, reachable deals but not expend energy on those that are unrealistic.
• On Ukraine, the administration should pursue an escalate-to-deescalate policy.
• The administration should quickly fill senior- and mid-level national security positions.
• Inevitably, there will be an unforeseen crisis; the new team should take anticipatory steps to address it.

New U.S. administrations tend to follow a common foreign policy trajectory across their first 100 days. They seek to set a new tone, especially with allies and adversaries. They reverse their predecessor’s policies, often issuing a flurry of executive orders and other directives. They appoint and nominate key personnel to the top national security positions. And they often face a crisis few envisioned on Election Day.

The second Trump administration likely will trace a similar course. A new president’s initial steps are always consequential, and early 2025 will be an unusually important period. The world has changed since Donald Trump first took office in 2017; multiple regions are in turmoil, and the U.S. election produced a dramatic new political environment at home. The First 100 Days, a collection of papers written by Center for a New American Security (CNAS) experts, lays out steps the administration should take in its first 100 days in office across a spectrum of issues—ranging from China, Russia/Ukraine, and the Middle East, to tariffs, technology, and defense.

As the new administration takes office, it would do well to follow a few key maxims.

Send deliberate signals that can endure. President Trump has already begun signaling his foreign policy priorities and areas of departure from President Joe Biden’s approach. He is expected to do more of the same after taking office—pulling the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, threatening countries with tariffs unless they cooperate on immigration or trade, and telling allies to spend more on defense or risk abandonment.

Just as important, however, is the imperative to signal areas of continuity with Biden’s foreign policy. There are very likely to be several enduring approaches, such as retaining a competitive approach to China, enhancing Indo-Pacific diplomacy via the Quad and other groupings, seeking Saudi-Israel normalization, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and more. Indeed, in some of these areas, Biden retained the approach Trump had set during his first term. While there will be significant differences in tactics and style, the new administration should articulate where it shares objectives and strategies with its predecessor.

The new administration also should signal answers on major outstanding questions in its first 100 days. Will the new administration supply Ukraine? Remain in NATO? Keep U.S. troops in Iraq, given the 2026 deadline for their withdrawal? Seek a nuclear deal with Iran or pursue regime change? Maintain AUKUS? Uphold a policy of strategic ambiguity on the issue of Taiwan? Providing early answers will stabilize expectations internationally and provide guidance within the U.S. government as it adapts to a new direction.

Both international actors and national security agencies will read vast significance into relatively minor actions—Trump’s first phone call as president, for example, or the decision regarding which head of state makes an early Oval Office visit. The new president should consider early engagement with the new government in Mexico and taking an Indo-Pacific tour—to Japan, South Korea, and India—to signal the importance of the region in U.S. policy. Early visits to Washington by key European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, would represent a sign of commitment.

Set the foundation for deals where they are possible—and understand where they are not. Many new administrations hunt for quick wins—relatively easy, high-visibility foreign policy successes they can tout as evidence of their new approach. Far better is laying the groundwork for deals where they are possible. Trump holds himself as “dealmaker-in-chief,” creating leverage and extracting concessions across the world.¹ He has promised, among other things, to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.² That will not happen—but the administration is likely to pursue an agreement on Ukraine and other issues.

In the first 100 days, Trump will face decisions that either could pave the way for some settlement or risk making him the president who lost Ukraine. The foundation for any eventual deal regarding Ukraine will require enduring military support to Kyiv and continued pressure—economic and otherwise—on Moscow. Simply ending assistance to Ukraine would incentivize Russia either to continue fighting or push for a deal that amounts to Western capitulation. A clear Russian victory in Ukraine would cheer North Korea, China, and Iran and deal a major blow to Western powers, including the United States, that have resisted Moscow’s aggression. The new administration should instead pursue an escalate-to-deescalate approach that floods Ukraine with military equipment, relaxes existing restrictions on their use, pressures Moscow, and signals openness to a peace agreement that protects Ukrainian sovereignty.

Iran, too, may be open to an agreement. The first Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and sought, among other goals, to strike a better nuclear deal with Tehran.³ The Middle East has changed drastically since then. The twin pillars of Iran’s offensive capability—its proxies and its ballistic missiles—have been rendered nearly useless. Its defenses, including air defenses, are either destroyed or seriously weakened. And Israel has broken the taboo against military attacks inside Iran. Tehran today is weaker, more isolated, and likely more afraid than at any time in recent decades. While it remains a stretch to envision a new nuclear deal that avoids the original version’s drawbacks and includes measures on missiles and even Iran’s regional behavior, the administration can create conditions to test the possibility.

It also should understand where deals are unlikely or even impossible. North Korea will not give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for any major carrot or severe stick. A two-state solution in the Middle East, however desirable, is far out of reach in the near term. No “grand bargain” with China that swaps trade concessions for Taiwan is possible or desirable. The new administration should not use its early days to try.

Get people into the right jobs. It takes people to run a policy, and while this truth is obvious, it was honored only in the breach during Trump’s first term. Delays in nominating individuals for key jobs, combined with a broken Senate confirmation process, left gaping holes in coverage. For example, the administration went more than two years without assistant secretaries of state for the Middle East or East Asia and the Pacific.⁴ It took more than two years to get a U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and no ambassador ever made it to Singapore.⁵ Nor was there an assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia for the four years of Trump’s first term, even as the end of the Afghanistan war was under negotiation.⁶

The incoming team has moved far more quickly this time around to identify individuals for key positions. After Inauguration Day, when new officials are managing multiple relationships, dealing with crises, and engaging in the routine work of foreign policy, the focus on personnel can slip. It shouldn’t. Filling out the team—and considering how individual nominees will work together (or not)—should remain a priority for the first 100 days.

Get ready for a crisis. Every president goes through a crisis, large or small, during the first 100 days. George W. Bush had the EP-3 incident with China.⁷ Barack Obama faced a global financial crisis. Trump saw Syria use chemical weapons on his early watch as tensions with North Korea spiraled.⁸ Biden had a global pandemic on his hands and a looming withdrawal from Afghanistan.⁹ The question of which crisis the new administration will face in early 2025 is difficult to answer. The fact that one will happen, however, is almost certain. Candidates abound, including the renewal of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, escalations in Sudan or Burma, a further security deterioration in Haiti, violence in the Western Balkans, an ISIS resurgence in the Middle East, or a new North Korean provocation. And that is hardly an exhaustive list of possibilities.

A key priority for the new administration will be the successful management of an early crisis, and in a way that does not derail the new team’s other foreign policy efforts. How precisely to do so depends on context, but at a minimum it requires the full complement of national security officials in place, established relationships with key foreign players, priorities that are well understood within the executive branch, and prudent moves to dial down a crisis rather than fan its flames.

Franklin Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to focus on the 100-day mark, observing what had been accomplished by that totemic date. Since then, observers foreign and domestic have looked at the outset of presidential power to understand an administration’s intentions, support, and effectiveness.

The First 100 Days is a series of recommendations from CNAS experts. The recommendations span the most pressing issues that will test the administration, including competition with the People’s Republic of China, foreign interference in domestic affairs, the future of a nuclear Iran, and the U.S. military recruiting crisis.

The test of the second Trump administration starts now.