International Trade in ICT Goods and Services: The Experience of the GCC Countries

This article examines the foreign and defence policy of the Trump administration in light of the new U.S. National Security Strategy published in December 2025. It asks whether the administration’s course reflects the preferences of a particular wing of the Republican Party or a broader reassessment of the international environment, the threats facing the United States, and the hierarchy of U.S. national interests. Drawing on classical realism and neorealism, the study combines systemic analysis of the administration’s objectives and instruments with qualitative content analysis of the strategy and public statements by U.S. officials. It also uses elements of scenario-based forecasting to assess how the declared priorities may be translated into policy. The article argues that, despite the President’s frequently contradictory rhetoric and transactional style, the administration’s course displays an underlying strategic logic. Washington is reducing the priority attached to global commitments and concentrating on several interconnected objectives: consolidating U.S. predominance in the Western Hemisphere; containing China in the Indo-Pacific through military alliances, multilateral security arrangements, control of maritime access, and technological competition; restructuring relations with European allies by requiring them to assume a larger share of responsibility for their own defence; limiting direct U.S. involvement in the conflict in Ukraine while preserving the European balance of power; maintaining security commitments in the Middle East without returning to open-ended wars; and retaining U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence, space systems, biotechnology, quantum technologies, and advanced defence capabilities. The article interprets tariff pressure, export controls, demands for higher allied defence spending, the Golden Dome missile-defence initiative, the Stargate artificial-intelligence infrastructure project, and renewed attention to the Arctic as elements of this wider reorientation. Its central conclusion is that the reprioritisation of U.S. national interests is unlikely to end with Trump’s presidency. Although the implementation of individual initiatives may change under domestic and international pressure, the broader shift is rooted in changes in the global balance of power, technological competition, constraints on U.S. resources, and the domestic economic and political situation. These structural factors are likely to influence subsequent administrations regardless of their party affiliation.

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