Trump’s Transition From Soft to Hard Power
By: Samuel Schaible
For the over thirty years following the Cold War, the United States has maintained its global hegemony by virtue of “soft power” – the ability to shape foreign policy outcomes through attraction instead of coercion, such as military might or economic pressure. This power can be exerted through foreign aid, multilateral institutions, cooperation, and exchange programs, for example. This approach has allowed the US to impose influence disproportional to its tangible capabilities. However, recent policy action from President Trump and his administration has signaled a fundamental shift away from soft power in favor of a hard power strategy based around military might and economic coercion.
This transition is more than rhetoric with ever more transactional foreign policy and blatant rejection of multilateralism. The unraveling of institutions critical to American soft power, such as The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), displays a purposeful pivot with significant implications for the future of US foreign policy and influence. USAID is a de jure agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government, formerly the world's largest foreign aid agency. Supporters of the shift claim that it is simply an acceptance of realism in a time of renewed great power competition, but it may accelerate American decline by alienating previous allies.
Soft power works in three main avenues – culture, foreign policy, and political values. For example, American universities attracted over a million international students in 2024, which forms communities between foreigners educated in American systems, leading to a more favorable view of America and American culture. Similarly, cultural exports, such as media like music or film, helps shape global tastes in favor of American culture. International organizations such as the Peace Corps or USAID also help build goodwill and reliance on American assistance around the world. These tools all help maintain the US as a widely supported hegemon, and the downfall of these institutions will make the rest of the world much less sympathetic to American action. From the dissolution of USAID into the State Department, budget cuts to the US Agency for Global Media, threats against the Fulbright program, we can clearly see a coordinated plan of attack against the infrastructure which supports soft power exertion.
Vice President J.D. Vance also explicitly rejected the transition from hard to soft power, stating that there was an incorrect assumption that economic integration would lead to peace by shaping other countries to be more similar to the US. This is a clear and official rejection of decades of bipartisan consensus on foreign policy, claiming that soft power is an insufficient replacement for hard power.
Finally, the most relevant element in modern-day political discourse is the increasingly transactional approach to foreign policy. From withdrawing from multilateral institutions such as the Paris Climate Accord, to imposing drastic tariffs on even what are normally allies, President Trump’s approach has fundamentally altered the way America projects power – attraction to coercion and transaction.
This shift in foreign policy has already had negative consequences. Internationally, favorable views of the US have dropped significantly, especially among allies. International tourism has dropped significantly year over year. Visa restrictions and anti-immigration rhetoric are projected to lead to a significant decline in international student enrollment in the coming years, impacting both the US economy and the dissemination of pro-America rhetoric. Compounding on top of this, China and Russia have stepped in where the US has left a void. China has implemented a new soft power strategy, expanding influence as well as spreading propaganda. Russia has similarly stepped in to previously American dominated broadcast networks to spread anti-Western propaganda. The erosion of soft power in the US is not just a loss for America, but a gain for rival great powers and a possible shift even further towards a multipolar world order.
The transition away from soft power to hard displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how influence is exerted in the modern-day international system. Current trajectories risk voluntarily handing over influence to rival powers, as well as accelerating American hegemonic decline. Without soft power, the age of American hegemony and a Western-led international system may be short lived. The question is not whether soft power is still effective in the current era of great power competition, but whether the US will remain a great power if it continues on its path away.
