When U.S. President Donald Trump completed the first 100 days of his second term in office, we published a list of the drivers and passengers of his foreign policy—examining the people who were emerging as his most influential lieutenants in the early days as well as who was being sidelined.
As we approach the one-year mark, we decided to revisit the positive side of that ledger, and we found that it has largely held up, reflecting the relative lack of personnel turnover in Trump’s second administration compared to his first. There are also a few officials whose sway in the administration has grown over the past eight months.
Here are the people most prominently shaping—and communicating—Trump’s foreign policy.
Steve Witkoff
Billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff, a close friend of Trump’s, has emerged as the president’s top diplomatic deal-maker, with a portfolio ranging from the Middle East to the Russia-Ukraine war. Despite his lack of prior diplomatic experience, Witkoff has chalked up some wins, starting with securing the release in February of an American teacher who’d been held in Russia. Witkoff, alongside Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, also successfully negotiated a cease-fire in Gaza, effectively ending the conflict between Israel and Hamas that began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
But when it comes to ending the Russia-Ukraine war, Witkoff has had far less success. In August, a peace summit in Alaska between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended without a deal. Plans for another summit in Budapest also fell apart after it became clear that Russia was not prepared to offer concessions.
Witkoff is leading a new round of diplomacy with Russia and Ukraine that began with Witkoff and Kushner working with to draft a 28-point peace plan. It’s unclear how successful this effort will be—several points have already been removed from that proposal after Ukraine and its European allies balked at the initial version, and Russia has again signaled that it is not ready to compromise.
Witkoff’s inexperience has also led to several missteps and controversies. In August, he apparently misconstrued Russia’s negotiating position on Ukraine and claimed that Russia was offering major concessions when it wasn’t, which reportedly contributed to the Alaska summit’s disappointing results. And in late November, Witkoff faced calls to step down over a leaked transcript of a conversation between Witkoff and a top aide to Putin in which Witkoff appeared to advise Russia on how to lobby Trump.—Sam Skove
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Marco Rubio
During the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, it often appeared that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been sidelined—particularly as Witkoff was repeatedly tapped to spearhead talks on an array of major issues, assuming a role generally played by the top U.S. diplomat. But Rubio now ranks among the most influential members of the administration, and it’s clear that Trump trusts him. In early December, the president said that Rubio may go down as the “greatest secretary of state” in U.S. history.
On top of serving as secretary of state, Rubio is also the national security advisor—and he’s the first person to hold both roles simultaneously since Henry Kissinger. Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States, and from February to late August, he served as the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development while he oversaw the dismantling of that agency.
Beyond Trump’s words of praise and the multiple titles under his belt, Rubio’s clout in the administration has also been apparent in the ongoing U.S. military operation in Latin America. The series of strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the region, which began in early September and have killed more than 80 people so far, is widely seen as part of a broader effort to foment regime change in Venezuela—and Rubio is thought to be the driving force behind this effort.
Rubio’s influence has also been evident in the Russia-Ukraine negotiations, where he seems to be acting as a more Russia-skeptical counterbalance to Witkoff and Trump, who tend to be more trusting of Moscow’s intentions. For instance, in October, after a phone call between Trump and Putin, the U.S. president tasked Rubio with working out the details of a future summit with Putin in Budapest, Hungary; however, after Rubio spoke with his Russian counterpart, the planned summit was abruptly scrapped.
And last month, Rubio reportedly helped alleviate anxiety among U.S. allies in Europe after the initial Witkoff-Kushner 28-point peace plan emerged and was seen as far too favorable to Moscow. He’s been credited with pushing the Trump administration to take Europe’s and Kyiv’s concerns into greater consideration, and the plan was revised to a version that’s more palatable to Ukraine.
While much remains up in the air regarding Ukraine peace negotiations, Rubio continues to be at the center of the discussions.—John Haltiwanger
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Pete Hegseth
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has vowed to restore a “warrior ethos” to the military by focusing on increasing troops’ lethality. As part of that effort, he has overseen major changes at the Defense Department and in the U.S. military more broadly—including taking controversial steps to limit media access; eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and ban transgender service members. Hegseth has also moved to change his title to “secretary of war” and rebrand the Defense Department as the “Department of War,” though the name change has not been made official because doing so would require congressional approval.
Hegseth’s influence in the administration can also be measured by major scandals he’s been at the heart of. In the first one—the March incident known as “Signalgate”—Hegseth discussed classified plans about a U.S. military operation against Yemen’s Houthis on the Signal messaging app in a group conversation with other senior U.S. officials that also inadvertently included a prominent journalist. A recent report from the Pentagon inspector general found that Hegseth, who has denied wrongdoing, risked endangering service members with his actions.
The Pentagon chief is also being scrutinized over a Sept. 2 operation against an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean. In that incident, the United States conducted a second strike on two men who survived the initial attack, killing both, in what critics say amounts to a war crime (though most legal experts say the entire U.S. operation against alleged drug boats is illegal). There are open questions about precisely what happened, including whether Hegseth directly gave the order for the second strike or if the Special Forces commander overseeing the operation was simply acting on the Pentagon chief’s directive. The Trump administration has not publicly provided any evidence to back up its claims that the boats targeted with strikes so far are involved in drug trafficking.
The controversies swirling around Hegseth have led to speculation that his days as Defense Department chief could be numbered, but he remains unapologetic and defiant. In a speech in early December, Hegseth defended the boat strikes, stating that Trump “can and will take decisive military action as he sees fit to defend our nation’s interests.”
But it remains to be seen whether Hegseth can weather the storms, as even some Republicans have criticized the Pentagon chief over the strike. Though Hegseth is an Army National Guard veteran, he had no prior government experience before becoming defense secretary and was seen by many as among the most unqualified picks for Trump’s cabinet. Meanwhile, Trump has reportedly stopped pushing back when it’s internally suggested by others that Hegseth is not up to the job. —John Haltiwanger
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J.D. Vance
True to his track record from his time as a U.S. senator, Vice President J.D. Vance has emerged as a loud voice in the administration pushing for a less munificent and protective United States when it comes to trans-Atlantic relations and advocating staunch anti-immigration policies both at home and abroad.
Early in the year, he publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during an Oval Office visit for not being sufficiently grateful for U.S. support in the fight against Russia. The White House also recently tasked Vance’s close personal friend, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, with pushing Kyiv to accept a peace plan seen as deeply favorable to Russia.
Vance shocked Europe early in Trump’s second term by delivering a high-profile speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he accused longtime European allies of allowing in too many immigrants and not being inclusive enough toward rising far-right populist parties. Vance has also repeatedly criticized the German government for trying to “delegitimize” the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. German intelligence has designated the AfD as an extremist group, and some German politicians have called for the party to be banned.
And the vice president, who often uses X posts to communicate his thoughts, recently castigated Canada’s political leaders, accusing them of harming their country’s living standards by promoting diversity through what he called “immigration insanity.”
Vance’s mix of isolationist views when it comes to things such as how much Washington should pay to defend Ukraine, coupled with his willingness to vocally insert himself into the internal politics of fellow Western democracies, is emblematic of the type of the deeply transactional and often inconsistent “America First” foreign policies that typified the National Security Strategy released by the White House early this month. — Rachel Oswald
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Elbridge Colby
It’s rare for the U.S. Defense Department’s policy chief to wield as much influence as Elbridge Colby has in his first eight months on the job as undersecretary of defense for policy. That can be partially chalked up to his boss, Hegseth, having so little experience running a bureaucracy even approaching the size of the Pentagon, as well as Hegseth’s firing of so many top-ranking generals and admirals that otherwise might have counteracted Colby’s bureaucratic reach.
Prior to his current stint, Colby, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy in the first Trump administration, had a reputation for being a China hawk and for urging the prioritization of U.S. military resources in the Indo-Pacific at the expense of Europe. Even so, the vigor with which Colby moved to implement his agenda—including through actions such as unilaterally halting some weapon shipments to Ukraine and reopening for review the popular Australia-United Kingdom-United States defense partnership—surprised many.
Both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have accused Colby of withholding from them basic defense-related information that they need to fulfill their oversight responsibilities, including concerning the Defense Department’s recent decision to withdraw 800 soldiers from Romania. The escalating bipartisan tensions between Colby and congressional defense overseers, many of them supporters of maintaining the United States’ military commitments to Europe and the Middle East, have spilled out into the public, with multiple senior personnel picks for Colby’s office seeing their nominations stalled due to lack of sufficient congressional support. —Rachel Oswald
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Stephen Miller
While not technically holding a foreign-policy position in the White House, as Trump’s deputy chief of staff and trusted point man for the execution of an aggressive and sweeping anti-immigration policy, Stephen Miller has had a direct impact on U.S. bilateral relations with the large majority of countries that have emigration to the United States.
Miller has been the public face of the administration’s harsh clampdown on refugees, asylum seekers, those under temporary protected status or humanitarian parole, H1-B specialty workers, seasonal laborers, and especially undocumented migrant workers. Following the deadly shooting in Washington in November of two National Guard troops by an Afghan man who was granted formal asylum by the U.S. government earlier this year, Miller championed—in blistering and xenophobic language—an end to policies that had allowed the migration of large numbers of Afghan nationals to the United States following Afghanistan’s 2021 fall to the Taliban.
Miller has also worked closely with Rubio to support the administration’s apparent push to topple Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro from power and has strongly defended the U.S. missile attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. — Rachel Oswald
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Jared Kushner
Trump’s son-in-law has been far less front and center in Trump’s second administration and doesn’t have a formal “special advisor” role like he did in the first administration. Yet Kushner has shown up alongside Witkoff in Trump’s two biggest diplomatic negotiations this year.
He traveled to Israel to help finalize the 20-point Gaza peace deal in early October and negotiated further with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a solo trip in November. Kushner and Witkoff also spent several hours sitting across the table from Putin in Moscow in early December followed by a reported two-hour call with Zelensky, seeking to further still-ongoing negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Like Witkoff, Kushner has also been subject to concerns around conflicts of interest with his businesses—his companies have deals worth billions in the region with Arab Gulf countries, and his potential role in Gaza’s postwar future has raised eyebrows.
But Kushner batted aside those concerns in an interview (again alongside Witkoff) with 60 Minutes soon after the Gaza peace deal was announced. “What people call conflicts of interests, Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships that we have throughout the world,” he said.—Rishi Iyengar
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Scott Bessent
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, like many of his predecessors, has become one of the pivotal foreign-policy players of the administration that he serves. And his role may become even more influential in the second year of Trump’s second term.
Bessent has run point first and foremost on Trump’s trade wars. That’s perhaps a surprising role for a Wall Street veteran who for years professed a rational skepticism of tariffs and trade barriers; however, Bessent now says he sees the wisdom of raising import taxes to coerce other countries. Trump’s many trade wars haven’t fulfilled their objectives—the U.S. trade deficit was a lot bigger through the first eight months of this year than last year, and “trade deals” with Europe, China, and the United Kingdom remain aspirational, not finalized—but at least they have one more powerful cheerleader.
Bessent has also played a leading role in ongoing trade talks with China, including in meetings held in early December, as Washington and Beijing seek to turn their trade truce into something like a trade deal. That matters, because for the Trump White House, China is much more of an economic challenge than a national security challenge.
Bessent has also been instrumental in instrumentalizing U.S. statecraft to serve Trump’s political purposes, most notably the U.S. bailout of an ideological ally in Argentina—a multibillion-dollar bet that may yet even pay off.
But the already-powerful head of U.S. finances may become more influential next year. Trump is still planning an overhaul of the Federal Reserve, including naming a new chairman. That may lead to him tapping White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett for the role and moving Bessent into a dual-hatted job as Treasury chief and White House advisor. That would make him a potential architect of both U.S. domestic and foreign economic policy at a time when they are poised to dominate Trump’s political agenda.—Keith Johnson
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HONORABLE MENTIONS
Melania Trump
First lady Melania Trump has largely steered clear of the foreign-policy spotlight, with one key exception: the Russia-Ukraine war. The first lady, who is from Slovenia, has involved herself in diplomatic efforts to reunite thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia with their families. Kyiv has accused Moscow of abducting and deporting at least 19,000 Ukrainian children since Russia launched its full-scale invasion began in February 2022; Moscow claims that its actions were aimed at keeping them safe.
The first lady has publicly pushed for their release, including by writing a letter to Putin, which she said her husband personally delivered. She ultimately even established an open line of communication with the Russian leader and back-channeled with him over the course of months, she said in October.
Notably, Trump’s own remarks suggest that she has had this ear on the war, at times even challenging his perspective on Putin. “I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ And she said, ‘Oh really? Another city [in Ukraine] was just hit,’” Trump recalled in the Oval Office in July. —Christina Lu
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Susie Wiles
As White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles has been a core and authoritative member of Trump’s inner circle, all while operating largely in the shadows and pulling strings behind the scenes. Wiles rarely makes headlines for steering U.S. foreign policy, but Trump has praised her influence and publicly hailed her as the “most powerful woman in the world.”
“She can take out a country with a mere phone call,” he declared in July. —Christina Lu
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