Tag: foreign policy

The Moralistic Risk for Trump’s Foreign Policy

As the new Trump Administration turns a critical eye to the priorities of government spending, one target of its investigations seems to be delivering an endless supply of questionable practices for scrutiny. USAID, long theorized to be part of a global soft regime change network by many opposed to the status quo of foreign policy, has been proven to be exactly that. This ranges from manufacturing opposition to the Cuban government, to using progressive identitarian groups to affect elections in Bangladesh, and even to create a feedback loop where American media cites supposedly independent activists abroad (who are funded by USAID)  in order to justify distorting the narrative at home.

None of this is particularly surprising to those of us who have been skeptical of the softer side of endless interventionism. Two and a half years ago I published Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence of Social Justice and Neoconservatism, which made the case that the increasingly messianic nature of progressivism served the cause of moral justification for a foreign policy of endless interventionism abroad; it provides a built-in excuse to be involved in as many foreign countries as possible. Through everything from non-governmental organizations supporting ethnic minorities in geopolitical fault lines to the funding of media that pushes a North American–style cultural vanguardism onto very different societies, a changing domestic audience could be brought into the quest for global domination through a self-flattering moralism.

That process is hardly unique to the liberal faction of politics, however. The George W. Bush administration was obsessed with democracy promotion and nation-building as a part of its plan to combat terrorism. It also had a reputation for conflating its own conservative Christian fixation on culture war with foreign policy, such as when its plans to combat AIDS in Africa were tied to abstinence-only education and a ban on condoms, reflecting the administration’s domestic obsession with similar policies at home. It was under such conditions that foreign governments could reasonably claim that American missionaries were tied at the hip to intelligence operations.

The present Trump administration’s willingness to question old talking points about foreign policy being a moral project are laudable but inconsistent. In the transactional worldview that Trump emphasized on campaign, there can be little room for such sentiments, yet already there are signs that he is willing to lean into domestic culture war in order to justify unnecessary interventions abroad. Any plan to remake war-shattered Gaza by acquiring it in a real estate deal facilitated by the United States reflects a long line of interventionist thought about the United States playing some kind of providential role in transforming the Middle East. Indeed, USAID itself once cooked up a potential plan for the relocation of Palestinians into new settlements in Egypt.

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Forget America, Foreign Leaders Want To Know Exactly How Far US Meddling Went In Their Own Backyards

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico wrote to U.S. President Donald Trump’s close advisor, Elon Musk, who tasked his DOGE with rooting out corruption and waste in the U.S. government. Fico has asked for clarity on exactly what funds the USAID sent to Slovakia, requesting a face-to-face with the X CEO as the past operation of USAID is “extremely serious for the internal affairs of the Slovak Republic.”

The Slovak prime minister also wants to discuss ways in which the two countries, Slovakia and the United States, can cooperate. As of now, Musk has given no public reply. 

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PANIC IN BRUSSELS: Trump and Secretary Rubio Reportedly Ignoring the European Union, Focusing on Bilateral Relations with the Countries

US President Donald J. Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio are reportedly focusing on bilateral relations with some European countries, and totally ignoring the European Union in their early diplomatic moves.

But, come to think of it – why wouldn’t they?

The EU is pushing every losing, crippling Globalist agenda under the sun – from unchecked mass migration to the Net-zero obsession of the ‘Church of Global Warming’; from DEI nonsense to Transgenderism for children, to advancing a ‘forever war’ in Ukraine… Brussels is destroying their nations to obey the orders of the Globalist overlords.

In the words of old-time Trump ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán: ‘The EU is a contemporary parody of the Soviet Union’.

The most prominent point of tension – but far from the only one – is the unfairness of the trade imbalance.

From Trump’s speech at the Davos WEF conference:

“From the standpoint of America, the EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly.

They make it very difficult to bring products into Europe, and yet they expect to be selling and they do sell their products in the United States. So, we have, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of deficits with the EU, and nobody’s happy with it. And we’re going to do something about it.

They essentially don’t take our farm products and they don’t take our cars, yet they send cars to us by the millions. They put tariffs on things that we want to do … We have some very big complaints with the EU.”

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Will There Be a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine?

One of the earliest points to become apparent about Donald Trump’s second term as president is that there is a significant difference in foreign policy priorities and a vast change in style from his predecessors over the past 8 or 9 decades.  Blather about the United States promoting or defending democracy around the world has already faded with the onset of the new administration.  That change is just as well, since more often than not, such rhetoric merely served as a cover for U.S. power politics and an attempt to prolong Washington’s fading global hegemony.

If one truly wants to understand Trump’s likely approach to both continental and world affairs, though, it would be more instructive to study the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, James K. Polk, and Andrew Jackson than to focus on the post-Pearl Harbor, globalist presidents.  That is especially true with respect to Trump’s attitudes and policy preferences regarding the Western Hemisphere.  Indeed, his focus on that arena is so intense and stridently nationalist that it is not too early to wonder if there will be a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.

The original Monroe Doctrine became official U.S. policy in 1823.  The actual architect was Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, and it was a bold declaration of rising U.S. power as well as the explicit assertion of a sphere of influence for the upstart republic.  Indeed, the scope of the declaration greatly exceeded Washington’s military and economic capabilities at the time to enforce it unaided.  However, Great Britain’s objectives and interests in keeping other major powers out of the Western Hemisphere coincided with those of the United States.  London became a de facto U.S. ally for that limited, but important, goal.  During the post-Civil War period, U.S. economic and military power gradually grew to the point that Washington’s assertion of preeminence in the hemisphere became increasingly credible. Indeed, U.S. leaders even made it clear to their British counterparts in the 1890s that new or expanded enclaves by their country would be as unwelcome as such entities controlled by other outside powers.

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How Washington Helps: Bloody Lessons From Ukraine to Bosnia

Nearly three years after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Kiev’s outlook appears worse than ever. Ukrainian forces, facing manpower shortages, are losing territory at a faster pace than in the first 30 months of the conflict.

Now, Kiev looks at an evolving political situation where future support is less certain. President Donald Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine, and several prominent figures in the MAGA movement are calling for an end to shipping billions of dollars to Kiev as Americans struggle.

If Kiev is going to make a deal to end the war, it will be decidedly worse than the one that was on the table in 2022. In April, just two months after the invasion, an agreement between Moscow and Kiev was nearly completed that would have seen Ukraine retain all its territory except for the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed in 2014.

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Can Trump Fix Our Broken Foreign Policy?

By the time most of you read this column, we will have a new US President. Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated for his second term today at 11:30 AM, Eastern time, and many Americans are hopeful that the disastrous foreign policy of the past four years under Biden will be improved. There is good news and bad news.

First the good news. It is no surprise that Trump’s appointees to foreign policy and national security positions are to the person very hawkish on China. However Trump, as he often does, has defied conventional wisdom on what his China policy might be by not only inviting Chinese leader Xi Jinping to attend the inauguration, but actually picking up the telephone and having a conversation with his Chinese counterpart.

According to a read-out of the call, the two discussed “trade, fentanyl, TikTok, and other subjects” and agreed to remain in regular contact. Winston Churchill is often (inaccurately) credited with the phrase “jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” but nonetheless it is an accurate statement. It is much better to engage even with “adversaries” than to refuse contact and add more sanctions. Those who prefer sanctions over communications are the true isolationists.

On TikTok, the popular application has credited Trump with preventing the Congressional ban from taking effect. If true, it is another good Trump move in favor of our Constitutional free speech guarantees.

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Exit stage left: Biden’s curious Cuba move

President Joe Biden’s January 14 removal of sanctions imposed on Cuba during the first Trump administration could have been a major step toward restarting Barack Obama’s policy of engagement if Biden had done it in his first week as president instead of his last.

But done at the last minute, they are unlikely to have much impact. Two of the three will not even take effect until after Trump’s inauguration.

Senior members of Trump’s incoming foreign policy team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy for Latin America Maurico Claver-Carone, have criticized Biden’s actions, noting that they can be quickly and easily reversed by the incoming administration.

“No one should be under any illusion in terms of a change in Cuba policy,” Waltz said.

Nevertheless, within hours of the White House’s announcement, the Cuban government announced that, in response to appeals from the Vatican, it would gradually release 553 prisoners, many of whom were involved in the nationwide protests on July 11, 2021. The deal was the culmination of three years of Vatican shuttle diplomacy.

Biden’s package includes three measures: (1) It rescinded Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) 5, of June 16, 2017, the basic framework for Trump’s policy of regime change; (2) It suspends Title III of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which gives U.S. citizens, including naturalized Cuban Americans, whose property was nationalized by Cuba’s revolutionary government the right to sue in U.S. Federal Court anyone making beneficial use of that property; and (3) It initiated removal of Cuba from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of International Terrorism.

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Joe Biden’s Bizarro World of Foreign Policy “Achievements”

Biden’s farewell boasts ring hollow as his foreign policy missteps—from emboldening Iran and Hamas to the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal—undermine his claims of global achievement.

 Departing President Joe Biden offered a farewell brag this week to his State Department about how his tenure had improved America’s stature abroad. In his now accustomed weird mix of whispering and fiery shouting, Biden apparently felt he had to lie or mislead about almost every one of his “achievements.”

Yet to the extent that anything improved abroad on his watch—the weakening of Iran or the near destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah—it was due despite, not because of, Biden.

Biden, bowing to election year political pressure, did all he could to restrain and block Israeli retaliations to the October 7 massacres. Only after he was repeatedly proven wrong does he now shamelessly take credit for what Israel ironically achieved by ignoring his own threats directed at Israel. Additionally, the Afghanistan withdrawal remains a significant marker of his presidency.

Biden is correct only that Iran is “weaker than it’s been in decades.” But Tehran was aided, not hurt, by Biden’s nonstop efforts to lift sanctions, to allow Iran to make billions in oil revenues, to pay the theocracy billions of dollars in hostage ransom, and to beg the mullahs to reenter the ill-starred Iran deal. Everything Biden did makes it much harder for Israel to survive.

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Micromanaging Foreign Nations: A Bipartisan Syndrome

If one thing is certain, there will be more uncertainty abroad. Yet most Washington officials believe their job is to manage the world, even the least minutiae involving other states. And the rest of the world’s job is to obey them. At a time of multiplying wars, U.S. policymakers continue to waste time, resources, and credibility on issues that are frankly none of America’s business. 

Consider Georgia in the Caucasus. It had the misfortune in 2008 to be ruled by Mikheil Saakashvili, who triggered an invasion by recklessly bombarding Russian troops, apparently expecting the American cavalry to race to his rescue. Even the war-happy President George W. Bush, however, wasn’t prepared to confront Moscow.

Today a new government is in power in Tbilisi. Derided as pro-Russian, it has won several elections and appears to be carefully balancing Moscow and Brussels, a far smarter approach. Yet it has been under siege of late. Claims of electoral fraud have been leveled without proof. Charges of excessive force against demonstrators are better grounded, although protestors also were violent. Another issue is the European Union, which younger Georgians are impatient for their country to join. 

None of this should matter much to Washington. Georgia is not a security interest for America. It has no notable economic, cultural, or historic connection to the U.S. Yet Washington joined Europe in funding groups backing Georgia’s entry into the EU. The Biden administration then was outraged when the Tbilisi government targeted foreign funding for domestic organizations, the sort of political interference that Washington politicians ritualistically criticize in the U.S. Indeed, the Georgian legislation looks like America’s broad Foreign Agent Registration Act. Rather than taking this as a sign of flattery, Washington suspended financial aid to Tbilisi, its position apparently that the U.S. is entitled to make secret contributions to influence other nations’ politics.

More recently, Georgia’s prime minister said that he was suspending discussions involving EU membership. Protests erupted. Last month the administration issued a statement, citing alleged threats to the freedom to protest, while calling on “all sides to ensure protests remain peaceful” (emphasis added), a tacit admission that protestors also had been at fault. Yet the State Department led with criticism of “the decision by Georgian Dream [administration] to suspend Georgia’s EU accession process” and concluded by reiterating “our call to the Georgian government to return to its Euro-Atlantic path.” The U.S., a great power a continent and an ocean away, was telling another Russian neighbor that it should ignore Moscow’s sensitivities and go all in with the West—even though the U.S. refused to intervene militarily on Tbilisi’s behalf in 2008 and, as demonstrated in Ukraine, would not do so today in the event of conflict.

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Trump’s Foreign Policy Agenda Must Start By Undoing Four Years Of Global Insolvency

As the second Trump administration prepares to take office, it faces a full slate of foreign policy crises and a limited capacity for dealing with them. For decades, U.S. foreign policy has been led by people who saw a world without tradeoffs. There was no need for prioritization, either among foreign policy goals or between domestic and foreign projects. America could have more guns and more butter, forever.

Even at the height of the unipolar moment, tradeoffs still existed, but now they are back with a vengeance. The Trump administration will have to deal with insolvency in its foreign policy, both in terms of material resources, as well as its attention. Strategy is about prioritization among various objectives and applying resources commensurately. The D.C. foreign policy establishment is bad at strategy.

In his 1943 book, US Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, Walter Lippmann famously worried about the alignment of American ends and means. Solvency, Lippmann wrote, was achieved when “our power [was] adequate to our commitments.” Still, it was not merely balance that policy should seek, but “a comfortable surplus of power in reserve.”

Can anyone with a straight face argue that U.S. foreign policy is, at present, solvent? Much less that we have a comfortable surplus of power in reserve?

The questions answer themselves.

Since President Trump left office in 2021, the People’s Republic of China has eroded the U.S. military advantage each year. In Europe, U.S. policymakers deploy tumid prose to argue that unless Ukraine is capable of defeating Russia (it is not), Americans cannot be safe. For its part, Israel has consumed roughly $18 billion in U.S. military aid for its wars in Gaza and Lebanon. All this while Washington spends more than a trillion dollars per year on defense programs.

There is no slack capacity to draw from. The national debt is $35 trillion and growing. The Congress is racking up budget deficits in excess of $1.5 trillion each year. Unsurprisingly, forward-looking budget projections are absolutely dismal. With Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt largely off the table to close the gap, defense hawks have no stash of money into which they can tap.

Unfortunately, the insolvency of America’s allies and partners is, if anything, even larger. Taiwan, which faces arguably the worst threat environment on earth, spends a piddling 2.5 percent of its own GDP on defense, piling its insolvency on top of ours. U.S. policymakers have made matters worse by not prioritizing the provision of weapons to the island. Taipei is still waiting for roughly $20 billion of U.S. weapons it has purchased but not yet received, but the Biden administration made clear in June that its priority for weapons transfers was Ukraine, not Taiwan. As Biden put it, other recipients are “going to have to wait. Everything we have is going to go to Ukraine until their needs are met.”

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