What an America First Foreign Policy Should Look Like
During the Cold War, America’s foreign policy revolved around defeating the Soviets and thanks to the more aggressive policies of Ronald Reagan, it paid off with the end of the Soviet Union during his successor’s time in office. Then, the “Bush Doctrine” came along post-9/11. It was centered around defeating radical Islamist terrorism. We could have a robust debate about how successful it was at achieving that aim, although the general consensus is that it worked at too high a price. On the pro side, you could say that Bush’s goal of “fighting them over there instead of over here” paid dividends since we were largely able to decimate Al-Qaeda and later ISIS without having another major terrorist attack on America. On the other hand, we lost a lot of blood and treasure to replace the Taliban with the Taliban in Afghanistan and far more to create an unstable democracy in Iraq that may or may not withstand the test of time.
Today, we’re looking at a different set of challenges that we haven’t quite adapted to yet. China is moving from a regional power to a rising power, our core allies in Europe seem to be in decline, the United Nations has become a badly compromised joke and we’re going to be facing increasingly strong financial pressure to curtail our defense budget in the coming years. Meanwhile, we seem focused on aimlessly killing terrorists here and there, spewing money we don’t have all over the world despite a complete lack of appreciation for our efforts and we’ve been spending a staggering amount of money to weaken Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine, which was of dubious value.
While all this happening, China is expanding its Navy, appears to be pulling ahead of us in drone warfare, and has been making strategic moves across the globe to guarantee its resources and hamper us in a potential conflict. Consider the fact that one of the first things Donald Trump did when he came into office was to intimidate Panama into agreeing that the Chinese could no longer run the Panama Canal. What does it say about how toothless our foreign policy is when Panama has allowed that to happen in the first place? Similarly, how is it that Hamas felt completely comfortable holding American hostages for more than a year despite the massive amounts of money we’ve given the Palestinians? Similarly, our bad neighbors in Mexico have been leaving our borders wide open and doing little to stem the flow of drugs into America.
In other words, since the threat of radical Islamism has receded, our foreign policy has become aimless. Our money and influence are being wasted in return for very little. That needs to change, and Trump has been doing it. First of all, let’s talk about the philosophy behind what he’s been doing.
It starts with the idea that our foreign policy should be, “America First” and goes back to that classic phrase about foreign policy that has been attributed to so many people it’s hard to know who actually said it first, “Nations don't have friends they have interests.”
When you look at foreign policy through that lens, some of the things Trump is doing seem obvious.
For example, look at tariffs. The critics of tariffs only look at the first step in the process, “He’s making goods coming from other countries more expensive!” Yes, he is. Why is he doing that? In some cases, it’s to get those other nations to do certain things to get the tariffs taken off. Part of the reason our border has been locked down and Mexico is suddenly starting to cooperate with us on stopping the cartels is because of the threat Trump’s tariffs present to Mexico. In other cases, he’s hitting countries with reciprocal tariffs to urge them to drop tariffs that are already in place on American goods. Also, consider this from the point of view of a company trying to decide where to build a manufacturing plant. If America is the biggest market in the world for your goods and tariffs may hurt sales there, where do you want to put your factory? That’s right… in America. There is already evidence that this approach is working.
Yes, Trump could go too far with tariffs and despite claims to the contrary, it’s probably not realistic to think that we could get enough revenue via tariffs to replace the income tax, but tariffs are a necessary correction. Theoretically, it may sound fine to say that the United States should embrace free trade whether our trading partners do or not, but in the real world that has produced a staggering trade gap, and whole industries have disappeared from our country. If you really support free trade and want it to succeed, you’ve got to be willing to take some steps to even the playing field.
Similarly, in Ukraine, the original plan seemed to be to hit Russia with crushing sanctions and give the Ukrainian military the weapons they needed to fight back. We did that, but ultimately by late 2023, it had become apparent that the strategy had failed. Russia was inside of Ukraine; Ukraine had no hope of pushing them out and the Ukrainians were likely to run out of men before Russia. After that, there was no strategy unless you call pouring infinite amounts of money into Ukraine and encouraging them to hold out until the last Ukrainian soldier was dead a strategy. Rather than continuing an endless war that has cost American taxpayers more than 175 billion dollars, Trump’s looking to get Ukraine the best deal he can, improve our relations with Russia, and get the money we lost back through the deal that was made for rare earth minerals that also happens to give the US a long term interest in seeing the Ukrainians remain free. Not only does this benefit us, which should be our primary consideration, it also benefits Russia and Ukraine to end the war.
As to Israel, this is going to sound very mercenary, but there’s a very good reason to support them that goes beyond their democracy, our long-term friendly relations, and Christian beliefs. In the Middle East, they’re called “the Little Satan,” while we’re called, “The Big Satan.” Many of the terrorist groups that focus on Israel would be focused on murdering Americans if Israel didn’t exist. Perhaps it seems irrational to some people, but radical Islamists want to achieve world domination, and they consider our country to be in the way of that happening. If Israel didn’t exist, they’d be focused on murdering as many of us as possible. The more of them Israel kills, the better. It is also worth noting that Trump’s plan to push the Palestinians out of Gaza is the only realistic path toward peace. There is nothing else that has any reasonable chance of success or that would do more to help secure Israel’s future long-term.
When you see the Trump Administration cutting off funds for UNRWA and pulling out of the World Health Organization, it’s because we’re the largest financial contributors to those organizations, yet they are badly run and hopelessly corrupt. If they’re not doing what we want them to do, why should we keep funding them? Along similar lines, most NATO nations are a joke militarily. NATO is now comprised of the United States, the Brits, and a few other nations making small, but significant contributions along with a bunch of tag-alongs that are there more in spirit than reality. NATO was formed in 1949, and the idea was to, "keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." Well, none of that is relevant anymore. America could just as easily pull out of NATO, sign a treaty with the Brits, cut a deal for base rights in a few other countries, and have far fewer obligations. If more members of NATO don’t step up and build serious militaries, we should have a serious debate in those countries about whether that should happen.
In other words, what are we talking about here? We’re talking about Trump ensuring that America’s foreign policy is centered around putting America first and pursuing America’s best interests. It always should have been that way, and it never should have gotten so unfocused that we were inserting ourselves into questionably relevant wars, letting nations that take our help mock us, and funding nonsense like Sesame Street in Iraq and DEI programs in Serbia. It’s time to get America’s foreign policy focused again on what matters to keep our nation strong and healthy over the long term. It’s great that Trump is taking us in that direction, but it needs to continue when he leaves office. The world has changed since the Cold War and 9/11, but the purpose of our foreign policy should ALWAYS be to look out for the best interests of the American people.
Well stated , factual overview. Thanks for describing foreign policy in practical terms. and the common sense approach which Trump is known for. Europe has strayed far from the US in personal freedoms. Some of this trend Should make us refocus our efforts on America first policies.
Really well said.