Our allies are afraid. Here’s how Trump can reassure them.

As his first order of business regarding foreign policy, President Trump should reset relations with all U.S. allies before thinking about a reset with Russia or anyone else. Reassuring allies in Europe and Asia is actually low-hanging fruit: Three signals could change the negative dynamics in our alliance relationships overnight.

First, President Trump could state clearly that our resolve to defend our allies is not conditioned by what our allies pay us for security. Alliances are not protection rackets. Early in his administration, President Trump could add credibility to his statements by expressing support for recently announced but not yet implemented enhancements of our defense commitments to our allies, such as the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in South Korea or the $3.4 billion increase in defense spending planned for Europe to enhance our contributions to NATO deterrence against Russia.

In the second paragraph of such reassurance statements, Trump could then affirm his desire to pursue new burden-sharing arrangements with our allies. Regarding our Asian allies, he could start that conversation by acknowledging the facts about the serious expenditures that Japan and South Korea already provide to underwrite the costs of U.S. troop deployments in these two countries. Doing so would create the permissive conditions for renegotiations about upping their share. Regarding NATO, Trump could simply reaffirm existing policy; every ally should spend 2 percent of its budget on defense. No one would balk, incremental change would begin to happen, and Trump could declare victory.

Second, to further reset relations with our allies, President Trump should moderate his hostile campaign pronouncements about free trade.