Foreign Reporting
Trump’s Revolution in Foreign Affairs
Fall 2025, Journalism 298, Tuesdays 2 – 5, North Gate 108
Not the least consequential of President Donald J. Trump’s myriad feats is ending the bipartisan consensus on American foreign policy that has endured for eight decades. Since shortly after World War II ended in 1945, the United States built its international power on alliances which had wartime foes at their heart: In Europe, an American-occupied Germany anchored the North American Treaty Organization. In Asia, Japan hosted the American Seventh Fleet — and the US Marines. Decade after decade, as Republican followed Democrat in the White House, they cultivated and grew these alliances as the key underpinning of American power — until Donald Trump. With his brash self-assurance and proud ignorance of history and precedent, President Trump is gleefully dismantling the partnerships that his predecessors constructed and busily replacing them with… what? Well, that — like so much else with Trump — remains unclear. Whatever it is, it is transactional, aggressive and, up to now, deeply improvisational. In this seminar, we will follow Trump’s slapdash revolution by debating the moves and feints Trump is making day by day, by analyzing how they are covered and by putting ourselves in the position of editors and reporters who have the duty to bring the Trumpian insurrection before the eyes of the public. Our aim: to learn about foreign policy and how to cover it in the unprecedented Age of Trump.
Course Goals In this seminar we will seek to achieve three broad and interconnected goals:
- To explore the present shift in American foreign policy and determine why it is important
- To gain familiarity with current coverage of that shift and with those reporters covering it
- To highlight basic techniques of reporting about foreign policy
Class Requirements This seminar will be a mixture of lecture, class discussion and written assignments, backed up by selected readings of books and articles and viewings of films. The most important requirements are that students
*Attend all class sessions
*Keep up with reading and viewing assignments
*Participate in discussions
*Do one 10-page paper about Trump’s foreign policy
A student’s record of attendance and participation in class discussion, together
with the quality of their writing, will determine the success of our class and
contribute the better part of the grade.
Schedule Note that classes will meet Tuesdays at 2 pm in North Gate 108 and will end at 5 pm. We will normally break for about 10 minutes at 3:30. Please plan to do any texting and telephoning you find necessary during the break.
Reading Our primary reading will draw largely from a number of books and
articles on U.S. foreign policy, classic and contemporary. I strongly urge you to obtain these books in your own copies and in the edition specified, either from local bookstores or from online suppliers, so that you will be able to highlight and annotate them.
Tracking the News A significant part of each class will be given over to tracking
and discussing U.S. foreign policy as it takes shape each week. Following these events closely in various publications, beginning with the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and other newspapers and websites, and familiarizing yourselves with the work of the leading contemporary foregin correspondents and foreign affairs commentators, is essential. Even if you are not a habitual newspaper reader, you must become one for this class. Also strongly recommended are The Guardian, New York, The Atlantic and Politico, among other publications.
Research paper or Article. Each student will have to write an analytical paper about foreign policy during the early Trump administration or a journalistic article or OpEd. For October TK, each student will have to hand in a printed precis of 4-5 lines explaining what will be addressed in the research paper. The paper should be 10 to 12 pages long, double spaced, titled, paginated, and printed out for December TK.
AI and Chatbots. Note that using AI tools or chatbots is not permitted on assignments in this course.
Office Hours I will count on meeting with each of you individually at least once
during the term. We will make these appointments on an ad hoc basis. I am best reached via email, at mark@markdanner.com. My office is North
Gate 32. My writing, speaking and other information can be found at my website,
markdanner.com.
Grading. Students will be graded on their preparedness and their participation in
class, the strength of their presentations, and the quality of their written work, as
follows:
Attendance 25 percent
Participation 25 percent
Research paper 50 percent
Note that regular attendance is vital. Those who miss classes will not do well.
Films. Each week films will be assigned along with the reading. Please try to watch these on a large screen, uninterrupted and with the utmost attention. Don’t “multi-task”! Best to watch along with colleagues from the class.
Syllabus and Texts. Note the list of assignments and books below will likely
change during the semester. Some books we will read in excerpt, not in full. As the
semester progresses some articles will replace books or supplement them. The
syllabus will be regularly updated on bCourses and you will receive a fully revised
syllabus at the end of the course.
Course Assistant. Our course assistant this semester will be Christian Baba. will be updating the syllabus with notes from each class, taping the sessions, keeping a list of presentations and of office hours appointments, and otherwise making the trains run on time. Christian can be reached via email at christianbaba@berkeley.edu.
Texts
Atef Abu Saif, Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide (Beacon, 2024)
John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
Hal Brands, American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (Brookings, 2018)
Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public (Stripe, 2018)
Luke Mogelson, The Storm is Here: An American Crucible (Penguin, 2022)
Josh Rogin, Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi and the 21st Century (Harper, 2021)
Yarislav Trofimov, Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence (Penguin, 2024)
Donald J. Trump w/Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal (Random House, 2015 [1987])
Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
Michael Wolff, All of Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America (Crown, 2025)
Films & Videos
Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice
Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham et al, No Other Land (2024)
Evgeny Afineevsky, Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom
Dylan Bank et al, Get Me Roger Stone
Mstyslav Chernov, 20 Days in Mariupol
Patricia DiCarlo, Assault on Democracy
Tentative Syllabus
September 9 – Introduction: Trump’s Revolution in Foreign Affairs
Tour d’horizon. Tracking foreign policy crisis. Ukraine and Gaza and Taiwan. Trump’s diplomacy. The wars that haven’t ended. The end of American primacy. What was the American superpower? The roots of US foreign policy. The three poles of US power. NATO and the European alliance. Japan and the Asian littoral. The latecomer: The Middle East. The Cold War and the post-Cold War era. The plan of the course. Beginning with the contemporary. Our reading list. Projects and writing. The final paper. Research and reporting.
September 16 –Who Is Donald Trump? The Rise of the Deal Maker
Read:
- Donald J. Trump w/Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal (Random House, 2015 [1987])
- Donald Trump ad, 1987. https://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/donald-trump-1987-nyt-ad_edited-1.pdf
September 23 – Who Is Donald Trump? The Family Background
- Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
- Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public (Stripe, 2018), excerpts
Watch: Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice
September 30 – US Grand Strategy in the Trump Era
Read: Hal Brands, American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (Brookings, 2018)
October 7 – Who Is Donald Trump? Deal Maker to Leader of the Western World
Read: John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
Watch:
- Mark Burnett, The Apprentice (Excerpts)
- Dylan Bank et al, Get Me Roger Stone
- Anonymous [Miles Taylor], “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump
Administration,” New York Times, September 5, 2018
October 14 – All About the Stupid Coup: January 6
Read:
- Luke Mogelson, The Storm is Here: An American Crucible (Penguin, 2022)
- Mark Danner, “Be Ready to Fight,” New York Review of Books, February 12, 2021
- ————-, The January 6th Report (US Printing Office, 2021) (excerpts)
Watch:
- Patricia DiCarlo, Assault on Democracy
- NBC News, Video Of Capitol Riot Shown During First Jan. 6 Committee Hearing
October 21 – Return to Triumph: The Re-election of Trump
Read: Michael Wolff, All of Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America (Crown, 2025)
- David Leonhardt, “’A Crisis Coming’: The Twin Threats to American Democracy,” The New York Times,” September 17, 2022
- Robert Kagan, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending”, The Washington Post, November 30, 2023
October 28 — Blueprint for a Revolution: Project 2025
Read: Paul Dans & Steven Groves (eds.), 2025: Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (The Heritage Foundation, 2023), Section 2: “The Common Defense”
- Charlie Savage, Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, “Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First,” The New York Times, December 4, 2023
November 4 – Trump, Russia and the War in Ukraine
Read: Yarislav Trofimov, Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence (Penguin, 2024)
Dexter Filkins, “Is the US Ready for the Next War?” The New Yorker,
July 14, 2025
Watch: Evgeny Afineevsky, Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (2015)
Mstyslav Chernov, 20 Days in Mariupol (2023)
November 11 – Veteran’s Day: No Class
November 18 – Trump, Gaza and the Middle East
Read: Atef Abu Saif, Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide (Beacon, 2024)
Watch: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham et al, No Other Land (2024)
Three Sentence Precis of Final Paper Due
November 25 – Trump, Taiwan and the China Challenge
Read: Josh Rogin, Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi and the 21st Century (Harper, 2021)
December 2 – Liberation Day: Trump and International Trade
Research Paper or Article of 12 Double-Spaced Pages Due
