Like it or not, the United States has an imperialist presidency, and in his first term Donald Trump has shown a track record of gleefully wielding such power on the world stage. As in many fields, he does not have a conventional approach to world relations. But it may turn out that Trump, like Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush before him, enjoys foreign policy involvement.
His unique political style is certainly provocative, but it is also effective. Mr. Trump’s approach to America’s place in the world may be pragmatic or unpredictable, or both, and may offer surprising opportunities for peace.
If Trump re-enters the Oval Office, he hopes his final act will cause surprise and perhaps inspire similarities in unpredictability and instability with President Nixon and his “madman” foreign policy. I might aim for it.
During Trump’s first term, his diplomatic achievements were generally underappreciated. For the “madman” there was a real accomplishment. No new foreign wars, the Abraham Accords between Israel and a handful of Sunni countries that many experts on the issue thought impossible, now bipartisan and a focus on China that draws attention to allies. is. They were not vaguely told that they had to contribute to their own defence.
Barring a sudden change in world conditions, Mr. Trump will return to the Oval Office and face the foreign crises he largely avoided during his first term, particularly conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
But circumstances will never change the way he manages foreign affairs. Trump, who is in his first term, could become a key figure on Monday for establishment and Republican neoconservatives (as in his interactions with Kim Jong Un and NATO leaders). And he could become the deadly tip of American power’s spear on Tuesday (as in the 2020 Baghdad airstrike that killed Qassim Suleimani).
Trump will not assemble a right-wing establishment cabinet of oil executives and generals in his second term. Instead, he wants broader turmoil in foreign policy and, while growing dismayed by the state of American culture, he has joined forces with some in the New Right, who wonder if the world will collapse if left unchecked. It will be guided not only by advisers but also by a new group of establishment figures and realists. A new Cold War-style enemy, perhaps China, will unite the people.
Members of this new right-wing group are increasingly at odds, especially over how far to take China and the extent to which conservative foreign policy should be compatible with Israel’s foreign policy.
Among the new realists, Robert O’Brien, who succeeded John Bolton as national security adviser, is likely to play a key role in his second term, perhaps as secretary of defense or secretary of state. It’s almost certain that it will work.
Mr. O’Brien is a modest but powerful lawyer from the West Coast. (Another Trump-Nixon echo: In 2022, Mr. O’Brien was appointed chairman of the Richard Nixon Foundation.) He describes himself as a Reagan Republican, making Senate confirmation easy. Dew.
The team could also include Richard Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020. Grenell, an ally of Mr. O’Brien, has engaged in the contentious interpersonal politics that characterized his checkered tenure. In Berlin. But his style aligns well with Trump’s approach to diplomacy as negotiation.
In addition to fickle ideologues and realists, there is an unpredictable environment of true believers, including Steve Bannon and others appointed to the Pentagon amid the chaos of the 2020-2021 transition. This includes retired Colonel Douglas McGregor, a cult hero of the New Right. Trump supporters intend to quickly withdraw from Afghanistan.
This team has a vision that could realize Mr. Trump’s foreign policy approach, which prefers to stay out of trouble and engage decisively in conflicts in the short term: a relative aversion to ideology but not to radicalization. will propose a vision of tolerance. Washington veterans often react with bewilderment to the idea that Mr. Trump has a foreign policy vision. His approach has upset people like Bolton, who has criticized Trump for “thinking about things on a transactional basis.”
But Trump likes to wear two hats: threat and negotiator. And, as he demonstrated in a recent interview with Time magazine, he has great insight into how to manage teams in negotiations. For example, he said in an interview that Bolton “served a good purpose” because “every time he walked into a room, people thought you were going to war.”
This again suggests similarities with the Nixon administration. One of his first decisions in the White House was to hire Henry Kissinger as National Security Advisor. Even Kissinger, a Harvard professor who was an advisor to Nixon’s rival Nelson Rockefeller, was surprised by the decision.
But Mr. Kissinger balanced Mr. Nixon’s fiercely anti-communist Cold War stance and kept allies and enemies alike guessing about Mr. Nixon’s intentions. Mr. Nixon’s seemingly wild card tactics gave his threats credibility. He is well remembered today for his balance of power, realpolitik, and politics. Although known for his efforts to end American involvement in Vietnam, he is better remembered for opening relations with Communist China.
It took a while for Mr. Nixon to go to Beijing. Is it really so intolerable that Trump has to travel to Beirut or even Tehran?
Trump’s dual-position approach can also be applied to a variety of other hotspots. Take Israel, for example. In a recent interview, he reiterated that he would “defend Israel” if war broke out with Iran, but added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has been rightly criticized for what happened on October 7.” Stated.
He said the Jewish state should “get the job done” in Gaza, but at the same time concluded that Israel had managed to lose the public relations battle in this war. You can imagine that Trump, as president, would support Israel unconditionally in its military operations in Gaza. But it is equally conceivable that he would speak to Mr. Netanyahu in much harsher terms than President Biden, perhaps calling for a ceasefire.
Or take Trump’s words about Russia and NATO. Last winter, Mr. Trump sparked outrage by saying that Russia “does whatever it wants” to NATO members who don’t spend enough on their defense.
“When I say things like that, I’m saying it as a negotiating point,” Trump said in an interview with Time.
Criticism of his comments regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Russia is based on the assumption that Trump, a master negotiator, will easily eliminate his greatest influence (membership in the organization). There is. The global impression that Mr. Trump is a pawn of Vladimir Putin and an admirer of dictators like Mr. Kim only surprises Mr. Trump in the other direction.
In his second term, Trump will finally try to prove wrong the technocrats and Washington bureaucrats — the experts he fired and despised, the big-name capitalists who mocked him and the lawyers he tried to jail. There will be promises. he.
Consider how the mere possibility of a Trump victory in November has been plausibly galvanized in recent weeks. France has assumed responsibility for the defense of an independent Europe, and Israeli offers in negotiations with Hamas have become more reasonable.
If Trump wins in November, he will almost certainly receive a lifetime’s worth of vindication about the way he does business and the value of his ability to be in two places at once. The uncertainty that accompanies his style threatens to give him renewed control over America’s soft and hard power in world affairs.
Perhaps Mr. Trump can continue to surprise and achieve what Mr. Nixon wanted. His tombstone in Yorba Linda, California, bears a passage from his first inaugural address. “The greatest honor bestowed in history is the title of peacemaker.”
Curt Mills is the executive director of American Conservative.
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