As the US midterm election is approaching, the correlation between President Trump’s statements and actual US policies, gets more and more uncertain. And while his occasional eccentricities on Twitter or during rallies with supporters, have become part of a political landscape, some of his recent foreign policy gestures- and their consequentiality- deserve scrutiny.

Recently, Donald Trump’s undisguised rapprochement with the Russian position on Ukraine, has caught much attention. Starting from a suggestion for Ukraine that it is time to have a new president, later on he openly accused President Zelensky of sabotaging US peace efforts, and for some reason endorsed a highly controversial interpretation of Russian failure “to catch Kyiv in three days” which happened, according to the President, just because one Russian general drove his tank column from the highway into the mud. These statements, causing an outburst of anger in Ukraine and Europe, coincided with the “diesel deal” with Moscow that partly lifted sanctions on the Russian energy sector, and unexpected problems in accessing Starlink services Ukrainian army started to face.

This remarkable U-turn has been met with undisguised disagreement and resistance not only by American political experts and media, and from a wide political spectrum, including the majority of the Republicans. At the same time, President Zelensky didn’t show signs of giving in; he rebuked pressure to step down, and boldly claimed that US counterpart was “standing on the right side of history”. While many commentators expressed concern that Washington may fully ditch Kyiv following these remarks, in fact, intelligence sharing and Starlink coverage have been quietly restored, Donald Trump claiming that he had personally instructed Elon Musk to do the latter.

On another key geopolitical chessboard for the US, the Middle East, President Trump has made another remarkable move, having endorsed Israel’s acting Prime Minister Netanyahu a few days before the parliamentary election scheduled for October 27. This endorsement visibly runs contrary to the American diplomatic activity in the region since 2025, focused on forging an acceptable solution for the Gaza crisis and Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general. Trump’s numerous rows with Netanyahu over the latter’s intransigence have been made public, while his openings to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon etc., have attested to an attempt to find a more balanced approach to the Middle East policy. US ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack, has systematically criticizing Israel’s regional expansionism, while encouraging efforts to build more sustainable security and political order in Lebanon and Syria. Moreover, Netanyahu himself must have not been very impressed with Donald Trump’s position, as he has lately called Israelis to be ready for financial sanctions and curbing of American military aid.

Given these developments, it can be assumed that the foreign policy of the Trump administration is not nearly as personalized as it is often considered. Despite the president’s unconventional approach, institutional continuity has not been replaced by voluntarism, and the profound changes that have been made indeed, are part of the general systemic evolution and reevaluation of core U.S. interests. This is why, those Trump’s initiatives that worsened relations with the allies and were met with widespread bewilderment, such as annexation of Greenland, spats with Mexico or a confrontation with Canada, have been quietly toned down and discarded. So, while a Democratic victory will probably mean stronger verbal commitment to the NATO agenda and traditional allies, it is wrong to assume that the alternative is an irreversible and complete U-turn on the classic US foreign policy.