President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has marked a significant departure from traditional American international engagement, reflecting an emerging worldview endorsed by a faction of the political right known as the “New Right.” This evolving approach has been analyzed by Leonard A. Schuette, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who identifies the underlying framework as “civilizationism.”
Civilizationism envisions a multipolar global order structured around the dominance of civilizations, each led by a major power with historical and cultural claims to distinct civilizational spaces. Under this framework, countries such as the United States, China, Russia, India, and possibly Turkey would act as regional hegemons, prioritizing peaceful coexistence within their respective spheres of influence while forgoing broader aspirations of universal leadership. This contrasts sharply with the longstanding U.S. foreign policy traditions, which have been dominated by three main schools of thought: primacy, liberal internationalism, and restraint. Primacy advocates for global military leadership by the U.S., liberal internationalism promotes multilateral cooperation to sustain an international order, and restraint pushes for scaling back military commitments abroad.
According to Schuette, civilizationism rejects the universalist goals of primacy and liberal internationalism, while diverging from restraint by insisting on strict U.S. control over its own hemisphere. The New Right’s conception of Western civilization is primarily ethnic and territorial rather than ideational. It views Western identity as rooted in shared ancestry, religion, language, and geography rather than universal political values such as democracy, pluralism, and human rights. This perspective draws from long-standing cultural divisions among civilizations as described by political scientist Samuel Huntington.
Schuette argues that this civilizational outlook is deeply intertwined with domestic political ideology. The New Right rejects traditional conservatism’s emphasis on free markets and constitutional principles and instead promotes a vision of America as primarily white and Christian with European heritage, aiming to preserve this identity through restrictive immigration policies and challenges to birthright citizenship. This worldview informs a foreign policy objective focused on securing the Western Hemisphere to protect against cultural and social destabilization and opposing liberal political trends in Europe, which some in the administration view as a form of “civilizational suicide.”
Prominent in shaping this movement are intellectual institutions linked to the right, such as the Claremont Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Many of their alumni have taken influential roles in the Trump administration, reflecting how these ideas moved from the margins to mainstream conservative policy circles.
Despite these intellectual currents, the Trump administration’s foreign policy has exhibited inconsistencies. Schuette notes that Trump himself lacks a coherent ideology and has severely weakened the foreign policy establishment, making sustained strategy formation difficult. Key divergences from civilizationism include Trump’s active engagement in the Middle East, particularly his close relationship with Israel and confrontational stance toward Iran, which run counter to a focus on defending a defined civilizational space. Moreover, questions remain about how other powers, especially in Europe and in regions with complex historical overlaps, would respond to the rigid boundaries civilizationism suggests.
Civilizationism also presents practical and conceptual challenges. The interconnected nature of today’s global economy and technology, including AI development, complicates efforts to isolate civilizational spheres. Furthermore, defining civilization boundaries is inherently ambiguous, potentially fueling conflict rather than preventing it. The approach echoes the ideas of German political theorist Carl Schmitt, who envisioned an international order divided into “Grossraum” or great spaces controlled by regional hegemons to avoid central security dilemmas—a concept that some in the New Right find appealing.
While civilizationism represents a marked shift in understanding international relations and Western identity, it remains an evolving and contested framework. Its rise underscores ongoing debates over the future of Western civilization and the role of the United States in a rapidly changing world system.