Only 100 days into his second term as president, Donald Trump has already left his mark on U.S. foreign policy. No aspect of foreign policy has gone untouched, from foreign aid to trade, from nuclear weapons to repatriation, from Europe to Asia to Latin America. In contrast to his predecessor’s timid, sleepy foreign policy, America’s once-and-current diplomat-in-chief has sought to reshape every foreign policy, everywhere, all at once.

In a short 100 days, the Trump administration has initiated ambitious diplomatic efforts between Israel and Hamas, Ukraine and Russia, and itself and Iran. It proposed a new vision for the Gaza Strip, while deploying significant military resources against Iran-backed terrorists. It awed Latin American nations into receiving their repatriated criminal emigrants and launched an effort to kick China out of the Panama Canal.

Meanwhile, it confronted China over its predatory trade practices, elbowed Canada and Mexico for not fulfilling their neighborly responsibilities, and lectured European democracies on their increasingly undemocratic and censorious practices. Last but not least, it announced tariffs on the entire world as an aggressive starting point from which to renegotiate all of our international commercial partnerships.

In many respects, Trump’s foreign policy blitzkrieg is the direct result of Biden’s hapless mismanagement. In a striking parallel to California’s wildfire preparations, Biden was unprepared for every foreseeable crisis because his foreign policy was too focused on woke social programming. He focused more on deflecting blame for crises than on actually solving them.

After four years of cascading — and impending — disasters, the whole world was aflame, but at least the new firefighter-in-chief was ready for action.

It’s hard to focus on the big picture amid the din of battle. Many of President Trump’s foreign policy firefights are either treated individually or else filtered through his larger push to reform and economize the federal government. Many of the results lie hidden in the smoky haze that conceals the future. Yet it’s worth asking whether there is a “method to the madness,” a specific foreign policy vision that underpins and makes sense of the head-spinning parade of major foreign policy decisions that the Trump administration has made in a mere 100 days.

Before answering this question, we should first acknowledge the two main approaches to U.S. foreign policy: realism and liberalism. Foreign policy liberalism (which is not identical to domestic liberalism) wants to expand freedom around the world and stresses America’s role as the foremost champion of the cause of liberty. Foreign policy realism stresses the reality that every country should look out for its own interests and therefore wants to advance America’s interests around the world.

Both realist and liberal elements are present in U.S. foreign policy, with each taking the upper hand in different times and places. America’s partnership with Saudi Arabia is driven by realist considerations like accessing their oil reserves and countering the influence of Iran. America’s advocacy for international religious freedom is based in the liberal tenet that people should have the right to choose their own religion.

Then again, Ronald Reagan voiced the liberal view when he called America “the last best hope of man on earth.” But his country’s pro-freedom diplomacy during the Cold War also served the realist objective of counterbalancing the Soviet Union. Donald Trump leads with the realist tenet that America’s foreign policy should put “America First.” But that has not banished liberal threads from his administration, such as Vice President J.D. Vance’s critique of growing illiberalism in Europe, considering possible asylum for Afghan Christians, or the ongoing staunch friendship with the Middle East’s freest country, Israel.

Even Trump’s tariff announcement, viewed by economists as a reversal of decades of free trade policies, was couched in the language of liberty as “Liberation Day.”

With Trump’s foreign policy, the realist elements certainly dominate the liberal elements. Yet Trump’s foreign policy is realism with a twist. That is, Trump’s realist vision is different than how realism has often been conceived.

For the past 80 years or so, America has fostered security partnerships with other Western or developed nations, such as NATO in Europe, Pacific Rim countries (Japan, South Korea, etc.), and the English-speaking world (Canada, Australia, etc.). Trump approached these partnerships with skepticism, questioning whether U.S. partners were really doing enough to hold up their end of the bargain.

The dominance of America and its military partners since World War II has effectively deterred most large-scale, international conflicts, preserving international borders and, along with them, widespread peace. For example, when Saddam Hussein overran neighboring Kuwait before the first Gulf War, America and its allies swooped in and threw him out before he carried his aggressive ambitions into other countries. Although playing the world’s policeman is certainly an ambition of a liberal foreign policy, realists historically have recognized that preserving a peaceful world order served America’s interest by securing our own international commerce.

Here Trump’s realist vision for America — one apparently shared by Vance — seems to diverge from previous iterations. For example, Trump apparently feels no responsibility to defend Ukraine’s borders from Russian aggression and intends to walk away from peace talks if a deal is not reached soon. As his Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained it, “It’s not our war.” Likewise, in the leaked Signal chat, Vice President Vance suggested it was a “mistake” to bomb the Houthis and restore freedom of navigation through the Red Sea because it was merely “bailing Europe out again.”

From Ukraine to tariffs to the Panama Canal, Trump’s logic is still recognizably realist, but it’s a different sort of realism than has surfaced in American foreign policy since World War II. This means that, for better or worse, Trump is making his mark on U.S. foreign policy. The question is, what will this mean for U.S. alliances? Will America get more from our partners over the next four years? Or will those alliances fade into the background as a new sort of world order emerges?