# The narration of status in far-right populist foreign policy: the United States of Trump 2.0

## TL;DR

This paper examines how Donald Trump's second-term foreign policy used storytelling to restore the United States' global status by linking past and future narratives.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a novel analysis of status in far-right populist foreign policy through strategic narratives and role theory.

## Key findings

- Trump's narratives frame the US as disrespected by elites and global actors, requiring restoration of its status.
- The paper shows how Trump uses symbolic interactionist role theory to construct a master role for the US in foreign policy.
- Strategic narratives are used to connect a desired future with a glorified past to legitimize foreign policy actions.

## Abstract

This paper focuses on how, during his second mandate, far-right leader Donald Trump tells a story of his nation as having been disrespected in the recent past by national elites and global ones, while the leader and their close circle have the mission to repair that status as part of United States foreign policy (i.e. respect for the status of the US). When narrating a better future, Trump travels to a remote national past to show the possibility of reinstating US stature in the international. While constructing that better future, Trump also starts to unfold a foreign policy story of success to cement the brighter future in a retrospective way given this future has purportedly been previously lived in a more remote national past. Relied on here is symbolic interactionist role theory, strategic narrative analysis and the notion of ‘heartland’ from populism scholarship; this paper also contributes to the study of narratives of roles and populism in the field of foreign policy analysis by engaging with the IR notion of ‘status’. Taking an interpretative analysis approach, this case study shows how far-right leaders like Trump can conceive and play the status or master role of their states in foreign policy via strategic narratives.