What is "America First" about Trump's foreign policy?
Trump's hyperactive and highly personal international interventions aren't based on a narrower calculation of actionable U.S. strategic interests.
Ten months into Donald Trump’s second term as president, a pertinent question has arisen: What is “America First” about his foreign policy?
An America First foreign policy was supposed to consist of restrictions on immigration, protectionist tariffs, and a sharp reduction in the U.S. role of managing and policing international hotspots.
A case can be made that Trump has moved on the first two measures, although, as will be discussed, he is using tariffs for more than just bolstering domestic manufacturing.
However, when it comes to international conflicts and regional issues, there has been no reduction in the U.S. role. In fact, Trump has been hyperactive in attempting to manage and police conflicts and issues in which the U.S. strategic interests are, at best, marginal.
And that gets to the heart of the matter. The United States has strategic interests throughout the globe. The question that requires judgment is this: At what point in a regional conflict or issue that does not directly involve the United States do the stakes for our strategic interests become actionable, making it more prudent for the U.S. to do something to affect the outcome rather than letting the conflict or issue run its course?
Under an America First foreign policy, the bar for rendering such a situation actionable was supposed to be pretty high, much higher than it has been for the post-World War II period. With Trump, there does not seem to be any bar to be cleared at all.
Take the armed skirmish that flared between Thailand and Cambodia. It was likely to return to a simmer on its own. There were no actionable U.S. strategic interests at stake. Yet Trump threatened both countries with high tariffs if they didn’t sign a peace accord. What was America First about that?
More significant is the role he has maneuvered the U.S. into playing in the Israeli-Hamas conflict. The Middle East is a geopolitical snakepit. A narrow calculation of the U.S. strategic interests would have us getting less involved and exposed to what’s going on in the snakepit. Instead, Trump has us more directly involved than any time since the U.S. led the effort to recognize Israel as a nation-state.
Trump propounded a peace plan and used U.S. diplomacy to get Israel and Hamas to agree to it, even though neither one is actually committed to the plan beyond the initial hostages-for-prisoners exchange. Trump has personally taken chairmanship of a Board of Peace that is supposed to oversee the disarmament of Hamas, the establishment of an international security force, the formation of a technocratic interim government for Gaza, the reformation of the Palestinian Authority, and ultimately a transition to an ill-defined self-governing, unified Palestine that may or may not be a recognized nation-state.
American presidents have serially sought to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. None have come close to having the U.S. assume the role and responsibility Trump has taken on. The United States now is responsible for the management of the center point of the snakepit. This role is vastly disproportionate to the U.S. strategic interest in Israel’s security as a democratic capitalist country in a troubled and troubling neighborhood.
Trump is using tariffs not just to protect domestic manufacturers, but as an instrument to exert U.S. influence and will in circumstances in which there is not much of a U.S. strategic interest at stake, as he did regarding Thailand and Cambodia.
The most extreme example is Brazil. The United States actually has a trade surplus with Brazil. Nevertheless, Trump hit Brazil with the highest tariff of any country, at 50%. The reason? The trial of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, for election-related crimes.
Trump is using tariffs to pursue personal piques. Colombia’s president publicly questioned whether everyone killed in the boat bombings were actually drug-runners. Trump vowed to cut off aid and threatened additional tariffs. The Canadian province of Ontario ran an ad featuring Ronald Reagan extolling the virtues of free trade. Trump slapped an additional tariff on Canada.
U.S. policy is now being conducted not upon a narrower calculation of our strategic interests, as one would expect from an America First foreign policy, but increasingly according to the personal relations and whims of the chief executive.
I wish Argentine President Javier Milei well in his herculean efforts to reform his country’s political economy. And his success would be a beneficial influence in the world. However, America has done just fine with Argentina being a non-threatening economic basketcase. Our strategic interest in Milei’s success is marginal.
However, Milei is another Trump ally. So, the United States took various actions, including a generous currency exchange, to provide some monetary stability just before a crucial election for the Argentine parliament. Trump, who isn’t coy about any of this, expressly conditioned U.S. help on Milei’s political success.
Most of all, an America First foreign policy was supposed to mean far greater circumspection about the use of U.S. military force. However, Trump wantonly threatens the use of such force.
Trump threatened Hamas with direct U.S. military action if it didn’t comply with the requirements of the first phases of his peace plan. This one struck me as particularly odd. What in the world could U.S. forces do to Hamas that the Israeli military hadn’t done or didn’t have the capability of doing?
Recently, Trump threatened U.S. military action in Nigeria if the Nigerian government didn’t better protect Christians in that country being targeted by Islamist jihadists, who are also targeting the Nigerian government. Trump hasn’t ruled out military force to effectuate his goal of absorbing Greenland. He has beneficently said he won’t use military force to incorporate Canada as the 51st state.
The U.S. military is blowing up boats alleged to be carrying drugs without congressional oversight, much less approval. The U.S. is amassing military might in a transparent attempt to trigger regime change in Venezuela. Regime change wasn’t supposed to be an America First activity.
I support free trade and a generous immigration policy, particularly for the high-skilled. So, I was never a supporter of the full America First foreign policy panoply. However, I’ve long held that the United States had assumed international responsibilities well beyond what should be our actionable strategic interests. If an America First foreign policy was more circumspect about getting involved in regional conflicts and issues, that would at least be something of benefit, even if haphazardly pursued.
However, that’s not what we’re getting. Instead, the U.S. is pursuing a deracinated hyperactive foreign policy not anchored in either our values or a narrower calculation of our actionable strategic interests. It’s an erratic U.S. still trying to throw its weight around the world and poking its nose into things we, and the world, would be better off if we left alone.
Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.