There was an underrated storyline of the 2024 election, one that’s increasingly starting to resurface now, as President Donald Trump goes on a foreign policy crusade, threatening to upend longstanding geopolitical norms between the United States and our allies (*cough, acquiring Greenland, cough*): Gen Z really doesn’t want to go to war.
In my work as a researcher, this is something I heard in focus groups and on campus quads at the time. Yes, economic issues mattered the most, but a surprising number volunteered that they were worried about the US being dragged into conflicts — and what it would mean for the generation that would be tasked with fighting them.
“I think Trump ran a good campaign to young people on stopping war,” Nicholas, an 18-year-old from Arizona, told me in a December listening session. “That was one of the main kind of slogans, that he went off of as being pro-peace.”
I’ve been thinking of these voters this week, as the president’s approval rating plummets with young Americans. Nicholas, for example, pointed out that the war in Ukraine still remained active. By the time I organized my next listening session in January, Trump had already ordered a dramatic raid in Venezuela, made noise about follow-up action elsewhere in Latin America, threatened fresh strikes in Iran to support protesters, and escalated his pressure campaign over Greenland.
George, a 19-year-old Republican from New York, said that while he has been optimistic about Trump’s foreign policy because he believes the United States should “make the world a safer place,” he’s skeptical of the administration’s recent suite of military operations and standoffs.
“It feels like it’s very ‘make it up as you go,’” he said. “And then when it comes to Greenland, I feel like it’s sort of, ‘What are we doing here?’ It’s not being the good guys on the world stage. And why are you trying to mess things up?”
George is perhaps more hawkish than many young men voters right of center, who are increasingly wary of the need for US involvement abroad at all. Sixty-three percent of conservative young men under 30, 57 percent of MAGA Republican men under 30, and 53 percent of all men under 30 said “the US should be less actively involved in world affairs,” according to a YouGov/Young Men Research Project poll from November 2025.
But it’s not just young men.
“The ‘no new wars’ thing is now the biggest joke of my life,” said Corinne, a 22-year-old woman from Ohio who voted for Trump. “It would be one thing if I felt like we were getting involved in something that mattered…but we’re inserting ourselves in conflict that we have no real reason to right now.”
The foreign policy age split
Though Gen Z might not remember the forever wars like millennials do, but they’ve grown up watching foreign conflicts in real time: Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza, and more. While relatively few have faced combat themselves, TikTok and Instagram afford a veil of proximity to these crises and their humanitarian toll.
Across the board, polling shows young Americans have less tolerance for foreign intervention than older generations. Just one in 10 Americans ages 18 to 34 years old said the US should take the leading role in world affairs, which is 10 percentage points lower than those ages 35 to 54 and 13 points lower than those 55 and older, according to a Gallup poll from March 2025.
And a Pew Research Center study from December 2025 shows that only 39 percent of Americans under 30 believe it is extremely or very important for the United States to take an active role in world affairs. That’s a 5-point drop from respondents ages 30-49, a 20-point drop from those ages 50-64, and a whopping 34-point drop from those aged 65 and older.
It’s likely these gaps are playing at least some role in Trump’s collapse in polling among young voters barely more than a year after Gen Z shifted toward Republicans in 2024. A recent CNN poll found Trump’s approval rating on foreign affairs was 39 points below water with 18- to 34-year-olds. Sixty-one percent of Americans under 30 in a CBS/YouGov poll said the Trump administration is focusing “too much” on “international matters and events overseas,” 11 points higher than 30- to 44-year-olds, 9 points higher than those ages 45 to 64, and 12 points higher than those 65 and older.
Raised on “America First”
Part of Trump’s pitch to voters of all ages in 2024 was his promise to focus on Americans over foreign interests. Many Americans concluded that their country had more than enough problems at home to justify pulling back abroad, a view reinforced by popular voices on both the “America First” right — especially when it came to Ukraine — and anti-interventionist left — especially when it came to Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Trump campaign was well aware of these concerns: JD Vance, who prided himself on his connection with rising conservatives, mockingly warned voters under 30 that former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney would team up with Kamala Harris to launch a nuclear war and reassured a podcaster, “our interest very much is in not going to war with Iran.”
But this summer, after the United States struck Iranian nuclear sites, I started to hear unease with Trump’s policy abroad popping up again. When the US military captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, these concerns were reignited, even as some had conflicted views on whether the move was justified or helpful.
As costs continue to rise at home and the national debt grows, and Trump dips his toes into foreign affairs and deploys US resources elsewhere, many young voters are starting to doubt that the “America First” president really has everyday Americans’ best interests in mind.
Corinne, the 22-year-old Trump voter from Ohio, said she was hopeful going into his second term that Trump would pay attention to issues like lowering rent and upholding traditional values.
“There were a lot of interesting things on the table, where I was like, ‘Okay, I can get behind that,’” she said. “And then all of those things, just like ‘poof,’ and then all of a sudden, all these new things came in.”
Outside of wartime, voters have a reputation for not voting on foreign policy in comparison to domestic issues — a Pew poll in September 2024 found it ranked well behind economic issues in both parties, for example. But for many young Americans, foreign policy and domestic policy aren’t separate issues. They’re linked together by a president who they feel is focused on his own priorities and pet projects, instead of the American people’s.
For this generation of young adults trying to build their futures, college education can feel nearly impossible to afford, AI is reshaping the job market, homes are increasingly out of reach, and ICE agents are pouring into American communities. For them, it can feel like Trump is threatening to invade Greenland instead of working to bring down their bottom line or keeping American streets safe.
As Tim, a 24-year-old in Illinois, shared in January 2026 by text, he believes Trump is “using foreign policy for his own good and gain, whether to make him and his all[ies] and friends richer or to make himself look like the most powerful person in the world.”
According to a recent New York Times/Siena poll, Trump’s under water in his approval rating with 18- to 29-year-old voters on a whole range of issues — from his handling of the Epstein files (80 percent of young respondents disapprove) to the cost of living (73 percent disapprove), Russia-Ukraine war (70 percent disapprove), immigration (73 percent disapprove), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (66 percent disapprove), and more. He’s performing so poorly, in fact, that it can be hard to single out any one cause. But while Gen Z Americans may not vote on foreign policy in isolation in November, this administration’s foreign policy posture is surely part of the broader slate of issues they’re prioritizing ahead of November. Republicans should be very worried.
