The Art of the Deal for North Korea: The Unexplored Parallel between Bush and Trump Foreign Policy

Abstract

‘Make America Great Again,’ has been revived while ‘America First’ and ‘peace through strength,’ have been revitalized by the Trump administration. Americans and the rest of the world were shocked by the dramatic transformation in U.S. foreign policy. In the midst of striking changes, this research analyzes the first hundred days of the Trump administration’s foreign policy and aims to forecast its prospects for North Korea. In doing so, the George W. Bush administration’s foreign policy creeds, ‘American exceptionalism’ and ‘peace through strength,’ are revisited and compared with that of Trump’s. Beyond the similarities and differences found between the two administrations, the major finding of the analysis is that Trump’s profit-oriented nature, through which he operated the Trump Organization for nearly a half century, has indeed influenced the interest-oriented nature in his operating of U.S. foreign policy. The prospects for Trump’s policies on North Korea will be examined through a business-sensitive lens.