Although Mr. Trump will not be able to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, he can legally ignore its provisions, in keeping with his questioning of the existence of man-made climate change.

The Trump vision, in fact, is an America unbound by a half-century of trade deals, free to pursue a nationalistic approach in which success is measured not by the quality of its alliances but the economic return on its transactions.

Mr. Trump has been consistent in some areas. Since the late 1980s, he has nurtured a set of preoccupations, chiefly that America's allies - Japan and Saudi Arabia among them - are ripping America off.

David E. Sanger Quotes