NEW YORK (AP) — He’s making threats, traveling abroad and negotiating with world leaders.
Donald Trump has more than a month and a half to go before he’s sworn in for a second term. But the Republican president-elect is already moving aggressively not just to fill his Cabinet and outline policy goals, but to achieve those priorities.
Trump has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, prompting emergency calls and a visit from Canada’s prime minister that resulted in what Trump claimed were commitments from both U.S. allies on new border security measures.
The incoming president has warned there will be “ALL HELL TO PAY” if, before his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, Hamas does not release the hostages being held in Gaza . He has threatened to block the purchase of U.S. Steel by a Japanese company, warning “Buyer Beware!!!”
And this weekend, Trump was returning to the global stage, joining a host of other foreign leaders for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral five years after it was ravaged by a fire. On Saturday, he met with French President Emmanuel Macron — joined at the last minute by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — and had plans to see Britain’s Prince William also in Paris.
Absent in Paris: lame duck President Joe Biden, who has largely disappeared from headlines, except when he issued a pardon of his son, Hunter, who was facing sentencing for gun crimes and tax evasion. First lady Jill Biden is attending in his place.
“I think you have seen more happen in the last two weeks than you’ve seen in the last four years. And we’re not even there yet,” Trump said in an over-the-top boast at an awards ceremony Thursday night.
For all of Trump’s bold talk, though, it is unclear how many of his efforts will bear fruit.
Breaking precedent
The pre-inauguration threats and deal-making are highly unusual, like so much of what Trump does, said Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton University.
“Transitions are always a little complicated in this way. Even though we talk about one president at a time,” he said, “the reality is one president plus. And that plus can act assertively sometimes.”
Zelizer said that is particularly true of Trump, who was president previously and already has relationships with many foreign leaders such as Macron, who invited both Trump and Biden to Paris this weekend as part of the Notre Dame celebration.
“Right now he’s sort of governing even though he’s not the president yet. He’s having these public meetings with foreign leaders, which aren’t simply introductions. He’s staking out policy and negotiating things from drug trafficking to tariffs,” Zelizer said.
Foreign leader meetings
Trump already has met with several foreign leaders, in addition to a long list of calls. He hosted Argentinian President Javier Milei in Florida at his Mar-a-Lago club in November. After the tariff threat, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago for a three-hour dinner meeting. Canadian officials later said the country is ready to make new investments in border security, with plans for more helicopters, drones and law enforcement officers.
Last Sunday, Trump dined with Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Israeli prime minister.
Incoming Trump aides have also been meeting with their future foreign counterparts.
On Wednesday, several members of Trump’s team, including incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz, met with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelenskyy, in Washington, as Ukraine tries to win support for its ongoing efforts to defend itself from Russian invasion, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Yermak also met with Trump officials in Florida, he wrote on X.
That comes after Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Qatar and Israel for high-level talks about a cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza, according to a U.S familiar with the efforts, meeting with the prime ministers of both countries.
One president, two voices
There is no prohibition on incoming officials or nominees meeting with foreign officials, and it is common and fine for them to do so — unless those meetings are designed to subvert or otherwise impact current U.S. policy.
Trump aides were said to be especially cognizant of potential conflicts given their experience in 2016, when interactions between Trump allies and Russian officials came under scrutiny. That included a phone call in which Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, discussed new sanctions with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, suggesting things would improve after Trump became president. Flynn was later charged with lying to the FBI about the conversation.
Trump’s incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that, “All transition officials have followed applicable laws in their interactions with foreign nationals.”
She added: “World leaders recognize that President Trump is returning to power and will lead with strength to put the best interests of the United States of America first again. That is why many foreign leaders and officials have reached out to correspond with President Trump and his incoming team.”
Such efforts can nonetheless cause complications.
If, say, Biden is having productive conversations on a thorny foreign policy issue and Trump weighs in, that could make it harder for Biden “because people are hearing two different voices” that may be in conflict, Zelizer said.
Leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Netanyahu may also anticipate a more favorable incoming administration and wait Biden out, hoping for more a better deal.
Coordination between incoming and outgoing administrations
It also remains unclear how extensively the Biden administration has been kept apprised of Trump transition efforts.
Although there is no requirement that an incoming administration coordinate calls and meetings with foreign officials with the State Department or National Security Council, that has long been considered standard practice. That is, in part, because transition teams, particularly in their early days and weeks, do not always have the latest information about the state of relations with foreign nations and may not have the resources, including interpretation and logistical ability, to handle such meetings efficiently.
Still, the Biden and Trump teams have been talking, particularly on the Middle East, with the incoming and outgoing administrations having agreed to work together on efforts to free hostages who remain in held in Gaza, according to a U.S. official, who, like others, was not authorized to comment publicly about the sensitive talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.
That includes conversations between Witkoff and Biden’s foreign policy team as well as Waltz and Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Last month, Biden administration officials said they had kept Trump’s team closely apprised of efforts to broker a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah on the Israel-Lebanon border.
“I just want to be clear to all of our adversaries, they can’t play the incoming Trump administration off of the Biden administration. I’m regularly talking to the Biden people. And so, this is not a moment of opportunity or wedges for them,” Waltz said Friday in a Fox Business interview.
But when it comes to immigration, Biden administration officials haven’t been entirely in the loop on discussions around how to execute on Trump’s pledge to deport millions of migrants, according to four administration officials with knowledge of the transition who spoke on condition of anonymity. That’s not terribly surprising given how differently the teams view migration.
Taking credit already
Trump’s team, meanwhile, is already claiming credit for everything from gains in the stock and cryptocurrency markets to a decision by Walmart to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion policies Trump opposes.
“Promises Kept — And President Trump Hasn’t Even Been Inaugurated Yet,” read one press release that claimed, in part, that both Canada and Mexico have already pledged “immediate action” to help “stem the flow of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and deadly drugs entering the United States.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has stopped short of saying Trump mischaracterized their call in late November. But she said Friday that Trump “has his own way of communicating, like when we had the phone call and he wrote that we were going to close the border. That was never talked about in the phone call.”
Earlier this week, Mexico carried out what it claimed was its largest seizure of fentanyl pills ever. Seizures over the summer had been as little as 50 grams per week, and after the Trump call, they seized more than a ton.
Security analyst David Saucedo said that “under the pressure by Donald Trump, it appears President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration is willing to increase the capture of drug traffickers and drug seizures that Washington is demanding.”
Biden, too, tried to take credit for the seizure in a statement Friday night.
___ Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, Colleen Long and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
