This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the period from the commencement of the first presidential term of Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2017, through the first nine months of his second term, to October 20, 2025. The analysis finds that this period has been defined by three concurrent and mutually reinforcing developments: the rapid, systematic implementation of the political and administrative restructuring outlined in Project 2025; an unprecedented proliferation of large-scale financial entanglements between the President’s family and foreign state-linked actors, particularly from China and the Persian Gulf; and a foreign policy characterized by deep strategic incoherence, most notably in its approach to Russia, China, and key U.S. alliances.
The central finding of this report is that the convergence of these factors has created a suite of acute strategic vulnerabilities for the United States. When assessed through the analytical frameworks of ‘Sovereignty Audit,’ ‘Multipolar Lure,’ and ‘Strategic Incoherence,’ the administration’s actions are revealed to be systematically degrading the integrity of U.S. government institutions, compromising national security decision-making, and eroding America’s strategic position in the global order. The hollowing out of the federal civil service has created a permissive environment for conflicts of interest to flourish, while massive financial flows from foreign powers to the President’s family have created direct vectors for influence. This dynamic, in turn, fuels an erratic and personalized foreign policy that weakens U.S. alliances and inadvertently strengthens the geopolitical narratives of adversaries. The result is a nation whose sovereign integrity is compromised from within, creating profound and lasting challenges to its national security.
This report assesses the strategic implications of the Trump administration's actions during its first nine months, from January 20, 2025, to October 20, 2025. The events of this period are not treated as isolated phenomena but as the culmination of ideological and behavioral patterns documented over a four-decade history of engagement between Donald Trump, his business interests, and foreign actors, particularly those linked to Russia.[1] The central thesis of this analysis is that the administration's concerted implementation of the Project 2025 government overhaul, combined with the extensive foreign financial entanglements of the President's family and a highly personalized, transactional foreign policy, has systematically degraded U.S. sovereign integrity. This degradation has, in turn, created significant strategic openings for adversaries, primarily Russia and China, to advance their interests at the expense of the United States.[2]
To provide a structured assessment of these developments, this report employs three core analytical lenses:
An analysis of Donald Trump's first presidency reveals a profound and persistent contradiction between the official policies of the United States government and the president's personal rhetoric, private actions, and ongoing financial interests. This dual-track approach—one of institutional confrontation with adversaries, the other of personal accommodation and financial entanglement—created immediate and significant strategic vulnerabilities. While the formal apparatus of the state continued, often under congressional pressure, to enact policies aimed at countering Russian and Chinese ambitions, the president himself consistently undermined these efforts. His actions created confusion among allies, sowed deep political division domestically, and provided adversaries with unparalleled opportunities for information warfare and influence operations.[1] This period was not characterized by a coherent alternative grand strategy but by a schism that rendered U.S. foreign policy erratic and susceptible to manipulation by foreign powers whose interests intersected with the president's personal and financial objectives.[1]
A central paradox of the Trump presidency was the stark divergence between his personal rhetoric regarding Russia and the official policies enacted by his administration. Driven by bipartisan congressional pressure—such as the near-unanimous passage of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) in 2017—and the consensus of his national security team, the administration imposed dozens of new sanctions on Russian individuals and entities.[1] These punitive measures targeted Russian oligarchs, government officials, and intelligence agencies for a range of malign activities, including the 2016 election interference, malicious cyberattacks, human rights abuses, and aggression in Ukraine.[1]
Simultaneously, President Trump was consistently deferential to Vladimir Putin and deeply skeptical of his own government's findings.[1] This contradiction culminated in the infamous joint press conference at the July 16, 2018, summit in Helsinki, Finland.[16] After a private two-hour meeting with Putin, attended only by interpreters, Trump was asked directly whether he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president about the 2016 interference.[16] He sided with Putin, stating, "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be".[18] This public rebuke of the U.S. intelligence community on foreign soil, standing next to the adversary who ordered the attack, provoked a firestorm of bipartisan condemnation and was widely viewed as a strategic victory for the Kremlin.[16]
This dual-track policy, while appearing incoherent, served Russian strategic objectives with remarkable efficiency. The official sanctions could be weathered as a cost of doing business, but the spectacle of an American president actively validating the Kremlin's narrative over that of his own government was an invaluable and lasting achievement in information warfare.[1] The contradiction did not paralyze Russia; rather, it provided Moscow with a powerful narrative to project both domestically and to a global audience: that the American "deep state" was hostile, but its leader was a reasonable figure who could be engaged. This dynamic fractured the unity of the Western response and eroded public trust in U.S. institutions, which are core objectives of Russian strategic doctrine.[1]
A consistent through-line, connecting his 1987 "open letter" to his actions as president, is a deep-seated hostility toward U.S. alliances, particularly NATO.[1] Throughout his presidency, he repeatedly attacked NATO members for failing to meet defense spending targets, labeled the alliance "obsolete," and publicly questioned the fundamental principle of collective defense enshrined in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.[20] By suggesting the U.S. commitment to defend an ally was contingent on their financial contributions, he reframed the bedrock security guarantee of the post-war era as a transactional service.[20]
This approach is a textbook application of a 'Sovereignty Audit.' The alliance was assessed not on its strategic value in providing collective security and deterring Russian aggression, but on a narrow, transactional ledger of whether allies were "paying their fair share".[21] A traditional alliance is founded on shared values and mutual security guarantees, creating a credible and unambiguous deterrent. Trump's rhetoric, however, consistently framed it as a protection racket where the United States was the aggrieved enforcer and its allies were delinquent clients.[1] This audit, by using a metric divorced from the alliance's primary purpose, introduced a corrosive uncertainty that directly serves Russia's long-standing strategic goal of weakening and dividing the alliance from within.[1]
The administration's posture toward China was characterized by a similar, if not more pronounced, dual-track approach. Publicly, the administration launched an aggressive trade war, imposing massive tariffs on Chinese goods in an effort to punish Beijing for what it deemed unfair trade practices.[22] Privately, however, the Trump family was simultaneously pursuing and receiving lucrative financial benefits from Chinese state-linked entities, creating a profound 'Strategic Incoherence'.[25]
This pattern of private accommodation undermining public confrontation manifested in several ways:
This coexistence of a public trade war and private deal-making sent a clear and damaging signal to Beijing: the administration's "tough" public stance was negotiable, and a pathway to favorable treatment ran directly through the First Family's business interests.[3] It created a direct vector for financial influence over U.S. policy. This was not merely a conflict of interest; it was a structural vulnerability at the heart of the executive branch.[27]
The pattern of foreign financial entanglement was not limited to family members. During his presidency, Donald Trump's own businesses received millions of dollars in direct payments from foreign governments, a practice that appears to be a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause. A 2024 report from the Democratic staff of the House Oversight Committee, based on limited records from Trump's former accounting firm Mazars, documented at least $7.8 million in payments to just four of his properties from 20 foreign governments.[30]
The largest single source of this revenue was the People's Republic of China, which, along with its state-owned enterprises, spent over $5.5 million at Trump properties.[30] The majority of this came from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), a state-owned bank, which paid an estimated $5.4 million in rent for its space in Trump Tower during his presidency.[30] Other significant payments came from Saudi Arabia ($615,422), Qatar ($465,744), the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and India, among others.[30]
The sheer volume and regularity of these payments normalized a practice the Constitution was explicitly designed to prevent. Patronizing Trump's hotels and towers became a routine and expected part of diplomatic engagement for many countries seeking to influence the administration.[33] This created a system where foreign states could directly enrich a sitting U.S. president, transforming aspects of American foreign policy into a pay-to-play enterprise and creating an unprecedented and systemic corruption of the national interest.[31]
Freed from the limited constraints of office, the patterns of foreign financial entanglement and shadow diplomacy that characterized the Trump presidency have intensified. With Donald Trump remaining the dominant figure in his party and a potential future president, foreign actors—both allied and adversarial—have continued to engage with him and his family. The family's sprawling business ventures have become the primary vehicles for these interactions, blurring the lines between private enterprise, shadow diplomacy, and foreign influence operations.
Since leaving office, Donald Trump has maintained a private, undisclosed channel of communication with Vladimir Putin. According to reporting in Bob Woodward's 2024 book, "War," Trump has had as many as seven private phone calls with the Russian president between 2021 and early 2024.[34] In at least one instance, Trump reportedly asked an aide to leave his office at Mar-a-Lago to ensure the call was private.[34] Both the Trump campaign and the Kremlin have denied the reporting.[35]
These actions represent the establishment and operation of a shadow foreign policy, conducted in parallel to and often in direct opposition to the official U.S. government position prior to 2025. Maintaining a personal, unaccountable diplomatic backchannel with a primary U.S. adversary creates profound strategic confusion for allies and offers the Kremlin a powerful tool to bypass and undermine official policy.[1] It signals to Putin that the formal U.S. stance is temporary and can be circumvented by appealing directly to a more sympathetic political leader, thereby reducing the coercive pressure of sanctions and diplomatic isolation.[1]
The most significant financial entanglement of the post-presidency is centered on Jared Kushner's private equity firm, Affinity Partners. Founded in 2021, shortly after he left his role as a senior White House advisor, the firm became a quintessential example of the 'Multipolar Lure'—the strategic use of capital by rising powers to secure political access and influence within the U.S. system.[41]
Six months after leaving office, Kushner secured a cornerstone $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF).[41] This investment was personally approved by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who overruled the PIF's own screening panel.[43] The panel had cited significant concerns, including "the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management," the risk that the kingdom would bear "the bulk of the investment and risk," and the "public relations risks" of dealing with Kushner.[44] The deal's terms were highly favorable to Kushner, guaranteeing his firm a $25 million annual management fee from the Saudi investment alone, regardless of performance.[44]
Affinity Partners subsequently secured hundreds of millions more from other sovereign wealth funds, including over $200 million from the UAE and a similar amount from a Qatari entity.[47] A September 2024 letter from the Senate Finance Committee, which is investigating the firm, revealed that Affinity had collected approximately $157 million in fees from foreign investors since 2021 while generating no return for its clients.[47]
The transaction is best understood not as a commercial investment but as a political one: a massive post-facto payment for policy actions taken by Kushner and the Trump administration and a pre-payment for future access and influence.[44] This represents a dangerous evolution in foreign influence, where geopolitical relationships cultivated using the authority of the U.S. government are privatized for personal profit.[48] The table below summarizes the known foreign sovereign funding of Kushner's firm.
| Sovereign Investor | Country | Known Commitment | Key Reported Terms | Source(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Investment Fund (PIF) | Saudi Arabia | $2 billion | 1.25% annual management fee | [47] |
| Unnamed Sovereign Wealth Fund | UAE | >$200 million | 2% annual management fee | [47] |
| Unnamed Qatari Entity | Qatar | ~$200 million | 2% annual management fee | [47] |
| Terry Gou (via investment vehicle) | Taiwan | Undisclosed | 2% annual management fee | [47] |
| "Unidentified ""Mystery"" Investor" | Foreign | Undisclosed | 2% annual management fee | [47] |
The administration's first and most immediate priority upon taking office was the rapid and forceful restructuring of the U.S. federal government. This effort, guided by the blueprint of Project 2025, was not merely an administrative reshuffling but a strategic campaign to dismantle the institutional guardrails and professional civil service that could constrain the executive.[49] This restructuring created the necessary conditions for the subsequent radical shifts in foreign policy and the unchecked pursuit of private financial interests by actors connected to the administration.[49]
On January 20, 2025, his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order reinstating and amending Executive Order 13957, which had been rescinded by the previous administration.[50] This order created a new "Schedule Policy/Career" classification, effectively reviving the "Schedule F" concept central to Project 2025.[49] This action reclassified tens of thousands of career civil servants in positions deemed to have a "policy-influencing" character, stripping them of long-standing employment protections and making them functionally at-will employees who could be fired without cause.[50]
The implementation was swift and brutal. On January 28, the administration offered a "deferred-resignation" deal that approximately 75,000 federal workers accepted by mid-February.[55] On February 13, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) directed agencies to dismiss probationary employees, citing inadequate performance without requiring evidence.[55] This was followed by orders for agencies to develop plans for mass layoffs, or "reductions in force" (RIFs).[55] By August 26, 2025, the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service reported that just under 200,000 federal workers had already left their jobs through a combination of firings, buyouts, and resignations.[55] This purge resulted in a massive brain drain, removing decades of institutional knowledge and non-partisan expertise from critical agencies, including the Departments of Education, Treasury, and Health and Human Services.[55]
The speed and scale of this purge were not simply about improving government efficiency; they represented a strategic maneuver to preemptively neutralize the very institutions responsible for oversight and enforcement of laws concerning foreign influence, ethics, and national security.[49] By removing experienced, non-partisan civil servants from key regulatory and enforcement bodies, the administration dismantled the internal checks and balances that could have scrutinized or impeded the foreign business dealings detailed in the subsequent section.[1] The documented layoffs at the Treasury Department, for instance, directly impact the agency responsible for chairing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and enforcing economic sanctions, creating a permissive environment for conflicts of interest to flourish as the primary lines of institutional defense were deliberately weakened.[55]
The hollowing of the civil service was paired with the installation of loyalists in key national security and law enforcement leadership positions. The confirmations of Pam Bondi as Attorney General and Kash Patel as FBI Director signaled a fundamental reorientation of these institutions away from traditional norms of independence.[57]
On February 5, 2025, shortly after being sworn in, Attorney General Bondi issued a series of 14 policy memos that immediately and drastically altered the Department of Justice's (DOJ) enforcement priorities.[57] Among the most significant changes, the memos formally disbanded the DOJ's Foreign Influence Task Force and severely restricted the use of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), directing that its criminal enforcement be limited to cases of "conduct similar to more traditional espionage".[57] This effectively deprioritized the prosecution of covert foreign lobbying and influence campaigns. Simultaneously, the memos directed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) unit to shift its focus away from general corporate bribery and toward cases with a direct nexus to drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations.[57]
The confirmation of Kash Patel as FBI Director further cemented this trend. Patel, known as the primary author of the controversial 2018 "Nunes memo" that alleged FBI misconduct in the Russia investigation, was confirmed by the Senate in February 2025.[60] During his confirmation hearings, he pledged to reform the FBI by moving thousands of agents out of Washington, D.C., to "go chase down criminals" across the country, a move framed as depoliticizing the bureau but which critics warned would dismantle its counterintelligence and national security capabilities.[58]
The simultaneous dismantling of the Foreign Influence Task Force and the narrowing of FARA enforcement represents a deliberate policy choice to decriminalize the very types of malign influence operations that are inherent in the business deals being pursued by the President's family.[57] This is not a simple reallocation of resources; it is a structural dismantling of the legal and investigative tools designed to combat covert foreign influence. As a result, the U.S. government is being systematically blinded to sophisticated foreign influence operations at the exact moment the President's family is engaging in transactions that create unprecedented vectors for such influence.
The administration's ideological restructuring was made explicit on September 5, 2025, with the signing of an executive order authorizing the secondary title of "Department of War" for the Department of Defense.[64] The order also authorized the title "Secretary of War" for Secretary Pete Hegseth, a military veteran and author whose worldview aligns with this shift.[68] The official rationale provided in the order was that the name "Department of War" better "ensures peace through strength" and "sharpens the Department's focus on our own national interest" by demonstrating a "willingness to fight and win wars" rather than merely "to defend".[64]
This rebranding, while symbolic pending congressional action, is more than a semantic change.[66] It represents a psychological and ideological reframing of the purpose of the U.S. military, moving away from the post-World War II paradigm of collective security and alliance maintenance (embodied by "Defense") and toward a pre-war paradigm of unilateral power projection and nationalist military posture ("War"). This shift provides the ideological justification for policies that treat alliances as transactional burdens rather than as force multipliers for collective security. It signals a move away from a strategy of deterrence through partnership and toward a more bellicose, unilateral, and nationalist military posture, aligning with the administration's broader "America First" ideology.[67]
The foreign policy and national security chapters of Project 2025, authored by former officials such as Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and State Department Director of Policy Planning Kiron Skinner, propose the full codification of the 'Sovereignty Audit' framework.[17] The plan advocates for "transforming" NATO by pulling back U.S. forces and demanding European allies assume primary responsibility for deterring Russia.[70] It privileges unilateral militarism—including a major expansion of the nuclear arsenal—while deriding diplomacy and arms control.[70]
This blueprint is complemented by a clear intent to pursue a transactional foreign policy. Analysts widely anticipate a push for a "land-for-peace" deal in Ukraine that would ratify Russia's territorial gains.[74] There is also speculation about a potential "grand bargain" with China, in which the U.S. might trade away its security commitments to Taiwan in exchange for concessions elsewhere.[74] This represents the ultimate transactional approach: treating the sovereignty and security of democratic partners as negotiable bargaining chips in great power transactions. The rhetoric of the 1987 "open letter" and the first-term presidency is no longer just a personal viewpoint; it has been formalized into a concrete policy blueprint for the deliberate dismantling of the U.S.-led international order.[1]
The table below illustrates the direct alignment between the proposed policies of Project 2025 and the publicly stated strategic objectives of Russia and China. The convergence is not coincidental; it is the culmination of a decades-long process of financial entanglement and ideological cultivation that has resulted in a policy agenda that would, if implemented, achieve the primary foreign policy goals of America's chief adversaries.[2]
| Project 2025 Proposal / Stated Trump Policy | Corresponding Russian / Chinese Strategic Objective |
|---|---|
| "Transform" NATO by pulling back U.S. forces and shifting burden to European allies.[70] | "Weaken, divide, and ultimately dismantle the NATO alliance, removing the primary obstacle to Russian influence in Eastern Europe.[1]" |
| "Force a ""land-for-peace"" settlement in Ukraine, likely ratifying Russian territorial gains.[74]" | "Solidify control over annexed Ukrainian territory, shatter the Western coalition, and demonstrate the failure of U.S. security guarantees.[76]" |
| "Pursue a transactional, ""America First"" foreign policy, questioning the value of alliances.[1]" | "Promote a ""multipolar"" world order free from U.S. dominance and its alliance system; establish spheres of influence.[2]" |
| Aggressively expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal while deriding arms control treaties.[70] | "Erode the existing arms control architecture, which Russia views as constraining, and create a more fluid, multipolar nuclear environment." |
| "Politicize and purge the U.S. intelligence community, DOJ, and FBI.[49]" | "Degrade and neutralize the U.S. government's ability to detect, investigate, and counter foreign intelligence operations and influence campaigns.[1]" |
| "Withdraw from international climate agreements (e.g., Paris Agreement, UNFCCC).[70]" | "Create divisions between the U.S. and its European allies, for whom climate policy is a priority, and allow China to position itself as a global leader on climate issues." |
Applying the 'Sovereignty Audit' framework to the first nine months of the administration reveals a systematic blurring of the lines between the public interest of the United States and the private financial interests of the President's family. A series of massive, opaque financial flows from foreign state-linked actors to entities controlled by the President's son and son-in-law are actively compromising U.S. national security, regulatory integrity, and strategic independence.
On September 29, 2025, a consortium of investors announced a definitive agreement for a $55 billion leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts (EA), a major American video game publisher with a global network of over 700 million players.[77] The consortium comprises Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), the U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, the investment firm founded by the President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.[77]
The structure of the deal is highly revealing. The PIF, which already owned a nearly 10% stake, will roll over its shares and emerge as the majority owner of the newly private company.[77] Affinity Partners, whose fund is capitalized primarily by a $2 billion investment from the PIF, will take a minority stake of approximately 5%.[41] The $55 billion purchase price represents a premium of more than $10 billion over EA's market valuation, suggesting that the PIF's motivation extends beyond purely commercial considerations.[82]
This transaction presents a direct and profound conflict of interest, as Kushner concurrently serves as a key diplomatic envoy for the administration in the Middle East while his private firm, bankrolled by the Saudi government, participates in the takeover of a major U.S. technology and cultural asset.[42] The national security implications are significant, as majority ownership by a foreign government would grant it potential access to the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans and influence over a powerful medium for cultural narrative-shaping.[82]
These concerns prompted Senators Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren to send a letter on October 14, 2025, to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who chairs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), urging "searching scrutiny" of the deal.[83] The letter highlights the risk of foreign influence and explicitly points to a clause in the acquisition agreement that requires the investors to pay a $1 billion termination fee if the deal fails to secure regulatory approval. The senators assert that the investors "appear to be betting $1 billion that Mr. Kushner can deliver the Trump Administration's regulatory approvals".[83]
This is not a standard case of potential conflict of interest; the structure of the EA deal indicates that Kushner's conflict of interest is the central, enabling feature of the transaction. The PIF is paying a significant premium for a U.S. cultural and data asset, and it has included the President's son-in-law as a partner, seemingly to guarantee that the U.S. government's own national security review process will be neutralized.[44] The $1 billion termination fee contractually quantifies the perceived value of Kushner's political influence.[83] This weaponization of a conflict of interest renders U.S. sovereign control over foreign acquisitions of critical technology and data infrastructure inert. The CFIUS process, a cornerstone of national security, is being subverted from within, setting a dangerous precedent that national security can be bypassed for personal enrichment.[82]
A parallel dynamic is unfolding with the President's son, Eric Trump. He is a co-founder of American Bitcoin Corporation (ABTC), a cryptocurrency mining and holding company that went public on the Nasdaq in September 2025 after merging with Gryphon Digital Mining.[85] The core of ABTC's business model is a major hardware deal with Bitmain, a private Chinese technology giant that dominates the global market for bitcoin mining equipment.[86]
According to industry sources and SEC filings, Bitmain is providing ABTC with over 16,000 advanced mining machines under "preferential access" and "unusually beneficial payment terms".[86] These terms reportedly include allowing ABTC to pay for the multimillion-dollar equipment not with cash, but with pledged Bitcoin that can be redeemed up to two years in the future—far more generous than the six-month window Bitmain offered other customers.[86] This "sweetheart deal" stands in stark contrast to the administration's public policy toward China: a full-scale trade war involving the imposition of tariffs of over 100% on most Chinese imports.[94]
This private venture is also deeply intertwined with official U.S. policy. In March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve," directing the Treasury to consolidate and hold the government's forfeited Bitcoin as a national reserve asset.[86] This policy directly enhances the strategic value of Bitcoin, the very asset being mined and accumulated by his son's company.
The administration is thus pursuing two diametrically opposed policies simultaneously. The public policy is one of aggressive economic decoupling from China to protect U.S. industry. The private policy, which directly benefits the President's son, is one of deep integration with a key Chinese technology supplier in a sector—cryptocurrency mining—that has direct implications for U.S. critical energy infrastructure.[86] This strategic contradiction creates a clear vulnerability. A foreign entity, Bitmain, is able to curry favor and gain potential leverage with the First Family by offering a deal that undermines the administration's own stated national policy. This gives China a direct channel to influence the President's family in a critical infrastructure sector, creating a massive counterintelligence risk and compromising the integrity of the U.S. supply chain for digital assets.[86] Notably, the CFIUS review process appears to be completely absent, despite the clear national security implications of connecting large amounts of foreign-sourced hardware to the U.S. power grid.[109]
After pledging during his first term not to pursue new foreign deals, the Trump Organization, now run by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, has resumed its international licensing business with vigor.[85] This has resulted in a series of major deals with state-owned or state-adjacent entities in the Persian Gulf.
In September 2025, the company announced a $1 billion agreement with Dar Global, a Saudi-linked luxury developer, to build "Trump Plaza Jeddah," a mixed-use residential and office project.[85] This is the second major project with Dar Global in Saudi Arabia, which is also developing Trump-branded properties in Oman and Dubai.[85] While Dar Global is publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange, it is the international arm of Dar Al Arkan, a large Saudi developer with close ties to the government.[116]
Even more direct is a $5.5 billion deal to build a Trump International Golf Club in Qatar. This project is a partnership between the Trump Organization, Dar Global, and Qatari Diar, a real estate company wholly owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, the country's sovereign wealth fund.[120] This arrangement appears to be a clear violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the administration's own ethics agreement, which prohibits the Trump Organization from striking deals "directly with foreign governments".[120] The use of Dar Global as an intermediary in a project with a state-owned enterprise appears to be a thin veil to provide plausible deniability while achieving the same end: a foreign state making payments to the U.S. President's family business.[120]
Foreign governments are no longer attempting to hide their financial dealings with the President's business; they are normalizing them. By partnering with state-owned (Qatari Diar) or state-adjacent (Dar Global) entities, Gulf monarchies are creating direct revenue streams for the Trump Organization. This establishes a direct transactional relationship where U.S. foreign policy decisions in the Gulf could be, or could be perceived to be, influenced by the business interests of the Trump Organization, fundamentally compromising the integrity of U.S. diplomacy in a critical region.
The following table consolidates these foreign financial flows, providing a clear overview of the sovereignty risks they present.
| Trump Family Entity | Family Principal(s) | Primary Foreign Partner(s) | Deal/Transaction | Identified Sovereignty Risk | Relevant Source(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Affinity Partners | Jared Kushner | Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) | $55B leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts (EA) | Circumvention of CFIUS national security review; foreign state control of U.S. data and cultural assets. | [77] |
| American Bitcoin Corp. (ABTC) | "Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr." | "Bitmain (Private, China)" | "Preferential deal for 16,000+ mining machines" | Compromise of critical energy infrastructure; supply chain vulnerability; vector for Chinese influence. | [86] |
| The Trump Organization | "Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr." | Dar Global (Saudi-linked) | "$1B+ licensing deals for projects in Saudi Arabia, Oman" | "Direct financial flows from state-adjacent entity to President's business, creating potential for policy influence." | [85] |
| The Trump Organization | "Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr." | "Qatari Diar (Qatar SOE), Dar Global" | $5.5B licensing deal for golf club in Qatar | Direct violation of ethics pledge; emoluments from a foreign state to the President's business via proxy. | [120] |
The administration's transactional and often disruptive approach to its key alliances is creating strategic vacuums that U.S. adversaries, particularly Russia and China, are actively exploiting. By treating alliances as commercial arrangements rather than strategic partnerships, the administration's policies are inadvertently validating the "Multipolar Lure"—the narrative that a post-American world order offers a more equitable and reliable alternative for global actors.
A central foreign policy goal of the administration has been to force NATO allies to increase their defense spending. This campaign culminated in a June 2025 agreement in which member states committed to raising their defense budgets to an unprecedented 5% of GDP by 2035.[21] While presented as a victory for American taxpayers, this achievement has come at a steep strategic cost. The rhetoric from administration officials, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, has consistently emphasized the need for a "European-led NATO" that can "translate goals into guns," effectively shifting the primary responsibility for European security onto the Europeans themselves.[125] This policy is the fulfillment of Trump's decades-long view of NATO as a protection racket in which allies are "freeloaders" taking advantage of American military power.[20]
By forcing the 5% target under the implicit threat of withdrawing the U.S. security guarantee, the administration has achieved a superficial "win" that it can present to its domestic base. However, the critical second-order effect is the severe erosion of the credibility of Article 5, the collective defense clause at the heart of the alliance. The clear message is that the U.S. commitment to defend its allies is no longer a matter of shared values or strategic interests, but is instead conditional on financial payments. This forces European allies to accelerate their pursuit of "strategic autonomy" and plan for a future in which the United States is not a reliable security partner. This outcome directly serves one of Russia's most cherished strategic goals: to decouple European security from the United States, thereby weakening the primary military bloc that contains Russian expansionism. It strengthens the 'Multipolar Lure' by making an independent European pole of power seem not just desirable, but a strategic necessity.
A similar pattern of strategic contradiction is evident in the administration's Indo-Pacific policy. The U.S. has engaged in an escalating trade war with China, imposing tariffs of up to 145% on Chinese goods and triggering retaliatory measures from Beijing.[120] This aggressive economic posture, however, is being pursued alongside a policy of strategic ambiguity and burden-shifting toward Taiwan, the key democratic partner on the front line of Chinese expansionism.
The administration has canceled a $400 million military aid package to Taiwan that was to be provided through the Presidential Drawdown Authority.[129] Simultaneously, officials have insisted that Taiwan must pay for its own defense by increasing its military spending to as much as 10% of its GDP.[129] This perceived unreliability has prompted a notable shift in Taiwanese foreign policy, with the Lai administration actively seeking to strengthen its diplomatic and security ties with European nations as a hedge against American abandonment.[129]
The administration's policy is fundamentally incoherent. It is confronting China economically while simultaneously weakening the military posture and confidence of its most critical partner in the region. This sends a clear signal to other regional allies, such as Japan and South Korea, that the United States is an unreliable security guarantor, more interested in pursuing transactional economic disputes than in upholding the regional security architecture. This approach creates a power vacuum by design, one that China is best positioned to fill, either through military coercion or by presenting itself as a more stable (if authoritarian) regional partner. It makes the 'Multipolar Lure' of a China-centric Asian order a more appealing and pragmatic option for nations in the region.
The administration's policy toward the Russia-Ukraine war provides the clearest example of 'Strategic Incoherence.' Rather than a coherent strategy based on a stable assessment of U.S. interests, the policy has been a series of erratic, highly personalized maneuvers that have consistently undermined Ukrainian sovereignty, confused European allies, and rewarded Russian aggression.
A recurring pattern has defined the administration's approach to military aid for Ukraine. President Trump has repeatedly threatened to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles as a means of pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war.[132] However, each of these threats has been swiftly followed by a reversal after direct telephone contact with Putin.[19]
During these calls, Putin has successfully persuaded Trump that providing such weapons would "cause substantial damage" to U.S.-Russian relations.[132] Following a call on October 17, Trump publicly walked back the missile threat, telling reporters, "We need Tomahawks for the United States of America, too. We can't deplete for our country".[132] This sequence—a public threat of escalation to aid Ukraine, followed by a private conversation with Putin, followed by a public reversal—has occurred multiple times since February 2025.[19]
This "madman theory" approach to diplomacy has become transparently performative and, consequently, predictable. The Kremlin understands that a direct appeal to President Trump's ego and his desire to personally broker a "deal" can instantly override any strategic advice from his own national security team.[76] The threat of providing advanced weaponry to Ukraine is not a credible deterrent because its reversal can be easily triggered by a single phone call from Moscow. This dynamic effectively gives Putin direct control over the throttle of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. It demonstrates to the world, and especially to U.S. allies, that American foreign policy is not guided by a stable national interest but by the personal whims of a President who is highly susceptible to manipulation by his Russian counterpart.[76]
The substance of the administration's proposed "peace deal" further illustrates its strategic incoherence. The core of the plan is a call for an immediate ceasefire along the current lines of contact.[34] Such an agreement would de facto recognize Russia's control over approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory and reward its military aggression.[34]
During the August 15, 2025, summit in Alaska, Trump publicly suggested that the onus was on Ukraine to "cede territory" in order to end the war.[34] This position aligns with proposals the U.S. reportedly made as early as April 2025.[138] In a recent phone call, Putin offered a supposed "concession" by indicating he might be willing to cede parts of the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in exchange for Ukraine relinquishing its claim to the entirety of the Donetsk region—a proposal White House officials privately described as a "narrowing" of Russia's demands.[137] This framing legitimizes Russia's initial aggression by treating illegally occupied territory as a negotiable asset.
The proposed peace plan is not a neutral mediation; it is a blueprint for a Russian strategic victory. A ceasefire-in-place would reward Russia's invasion by allowing it to keep its territorial gains, shattering the post-World War II principle of the inviolability of national borders.[138] It would leave a truncated and demographically devastated Ukraine permanently vulnerable to future attacks. The President's framing of the goal as "Let both claim Victory" is a rhetorical cover for what would amount to a substantive and historic U.S. strategic defeat.[132] Such a policy would profoundly destabilize European security for a generation, demonstrating that the United States is willing to sacrifice the sovereignty of a democratic partner for the sake of a superficial "deal." It would embolden other revisionist powers around the world, signaling that military aggression is a viable and ultimately profitable tool of statecraft.
The following table illustrates the direct correlation between President Trump's communications with President Putin and the subsequent shifts in U.S. policy toward Ukraine.
| Date(s) | U.S. Action/Statement Regarding Ukraine | Key Communication Event | Resulting U.S. Policy Shift | Relevant Source(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Feb 12, 2025" | Initial discussions on peace talks begin. | Trump-Putin phone call (90 mins). | "Trump announces upcoming personal meeting with Putin and agrees to ""immediately begin peace talks.""" | [140] |
| "Aug 7-8, 2025" | U.S. deadline for new Russia sanctions passes. | U.S. envoy meets Putin in Moscow. | "Instead of sanctions, Trump announces he will host Putin for a summit in Alaska." | [18] |
| "Aug 15, 2025" | Pre-summit rhetoric suggests pressure on Russia. | Trump-Putin Alaska Summit. | Trump abandons pressure for a ceasefire; suggests Ukraine must cede territory to end the war. | [142] |
| Late Sep/Early Oct 2025 | Trump signals he may send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine to pressure Putin. | Zelenskyy visits White House to request Tomahawks. | "Trump remains noncommittal, expresses frustration with Putin for refusing direct talks." | [132] |
| "Oct 17, 2025" | Zelenskyy fails to secure Tomahawk commitment during WH meeting. | Trump-Putin phone call (2.5+ hours). | Trump announces new summit with Putin in Budapest; publicly questions giving Tomahawks to Ukraine. | [132] |
The analysis conducted in this report reveals a deeply interconnected and self-reinforcing cycle of national security degradation. The administration's policies and the private actions of the President's family are not creating isolated vulnerabilities; rather, they are components of a systemic erosion of American strategic integrity.
The process begins with the Project 2025-driven purge of the federal government. The dismantling of the professional, non-partisan civil service and the politicization of the Department of Justice and FBI have removed the primary institutional guardrails designed to prevent corruption and foreign influence.[49] This engineered institutional weakness creates a permissive environment in which profound conflicts of interest can go unexamined and unchecked.
This environment enables the massive financial entanglements detailed in the Sovereignty Audit. These deals—involving Saudi majority ownership of a U.S. tech giant, a sweetheart deal for the President's son from a Chinese hardware supplier, and direct licensing fees from Gulf monarchies—create direct vectors for foreign state influence to penetrate the highest levels of the U.S. government, compromising the integrity of sovereign decision-making.
This compromised and highly personalized decision-making process, in turn, produces a foreign policy of Strategic Incoherence. The vacillating and easily manipulated policy on the Russia-Ukraine war is the most acute example, where national security interests are subordinated to the pursuit of a personal "deal" with an adversary.
Finally, this incoherent and unreliable foreign policy actively weakens U.S. alliances, pushing partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific to hedge their bets and seek alternative security arrangements. This dynamic validates and strengthens the Multipolar Lure propagated by Russia and China, creating a global environment that is fundamentally more favorable to U.S. adversaries and more dangerous for the United States. Each element of this cycle reinforces the others, accelerating the decline of U.S. strategic standing.
To mitigate the severe and escalating vulnerabilities identified in this report, a robust and multi-faceted response is required from Congress, the intelligence community, and civil society. The following recommendations are designed to address the foundational, structural weaknesses that enable this cycle of degradation.