The new president is sounding themes that he has stuck with since his surprise election, promising to crush ISIS and promoting NATO, but demanding that allies pay their share of defense costs. America, he insists, seeks friends and peace in the world.

Since his days on the campaign trail, Trump has been a huge critic of China. However, he will need to come to terms with the fact that criticizing and alienating China, especially over the threat that North Korea poses, is not wise. North Korea will serve as a test of not just Trump’s ability to make a deal but also his ability to employ diplomacy with a rival to address a common and growing threat.

Trump should be wary of two major traps that history has set for him - the “Thucydides Trap", as well as the “Kindleberger Trap”: a China that seems too weak rather than too strong.

President Trump, in clinging to this narrative, promises to fight a war long past with weapons that are likely to hurt his allies as much as his supposed enemy. Hardly a vision of America being made great again.

The new US president has demonstrated his ability to act and a sense of urgency to “Make America Great Again” through a flurry of executive orders, and he will recognize that the United States and China, the two most important countries in the 21st century, can work to ensure that the American Dream and the Chinese Dream will go hand in hand with no contradiction.

Donald Trump is a new type of political phenomena that has caught the world off guard. His unpredictability and lack of experience set the stage for a perfect storm of wild-card events that will almost certainly be an early theme during his presidency. While it is China’s decision how it reacts to Trump, tact and precision will be Beijing’s greatest defense in not only ensuring that relations with the U.S. do not deteriorate further, but in safeguarding key aspects of the current international system.

During his time in office, President Trump will relax and possibly abolish sanctions against Russia and mend the relationship between the US and Russia considerably. But the sense that Russia is a major threat and strategic opponent of the US, which needs to be contained, enjoys bipartisan consensus and represents mainstream opinion in US society. Trump must develop relations with Russia slowly and can only go so far; otherwise, his position will become untenable.

While there are some variables in Trump diplomacy, variables do not necessarily equal uncertainties. Many of the forces affecting US diplomacy and global interactions are constant and predictable.

The new president showed that the United States would attach importance to the Asia-Pacific region, to its alliances and to deepening the relationship with the region’s major countries. His recent overtures to China, however, and his disinterest in Abe’s “values diplomacy” suggest that US policy will not always give Japan what it wants.

Trade protectionism won’t bring new opportunities to the US, because the global markets have become highly intertwined and interdependent, and the new president’s massive fiscal stimulus plan conflicts with contractionary monetary policy.