Donald Trump, foreign policy realist?
Donald Trump now
enjoys a big delegate lead after the most recent primaries. While Ted Cruz
isn’t too far behind, Trump is looking like he will be this November’s leading
candidate for commander-in-chief.
The businessman has
made international deals, but doesn’t have experience with the military or with
heads of state. So what would the Trump doctrine look like?
The candidate’s
statements on foreign policy don’t fit neatly into any existing template for
American foreign policy – He’s vocally opposed
to illegal immigration, but supports moves to attract and keep highly skilled
workers from other countries. He has long sounded
the alarm over issues like Iran’s nuclear program and China’s trading schemes,
but he favors increased sanctions, rather than military action. He supports a hefty
Pentagon budget, but he was a critic of the Iraq War and he’s skeptical of
regime-change.There does appear to be an underlying theme to Trump’s vision for
world affairs: The United States should be the most powerful force, but other
capable nations need to start picking up more slack.
Trump points to Libya
and Iraq as examples of good intentions gone awry. In both countries, the
United States used the military to muscle out oppressive leaders,Muammar Muhammad and
Saddam Hussein.
Both countries have
since turned into disaster zones, giving safe haven to Islamic extremists and
other anti-American interests. That’s why Trump has urged caution in dealing
with Bashar al-Asad in Syria, while most other candidates this cycle have
called for ramping up the military actions in that country.
Instead, Syria’s
neighbors should deal with the mess, Trump said.
“The countries should
all get together, including the Gulf states, who have nothing but money, they
should all get together and they should take a big swath of land in Syria and
they do a safe zone for people,” Trump told CBS during an interview in October.
Trump’s potential
Democrat opponents have substantially different foreign policy agendas.
Front-runner Hillary
Clinton has an extensive foreign policy resume, but it’s full of missteps and
lacks many clear achievements: Clinton voted in favor of the Iraq War in 2002,
which even many Republicans now say that was a mistake. As Secretary of State,
Clinton also was the leading cheerleader for many of President Barack Obama’s
overseas adventures – Libya, Syria, and more. And it’s widely known that
Clinton organized favors for world powers that did political favors for her or
donated to the Clinton Foundation.
In short, Clinton has
never seen an overseas intervention she didn’t like. As president, she would
appear poised to continue burning U.S. resources across the globe without clear
objectives.
On the other hand,
self-described socialist Bernie Sanders has shown little interest or expertise
in foreign policy. He’s running for commander-in-chief of the world’s greatest
military power, but until recently he didn’t have a single foreign policy
adviser on his campaign staff.
The American
Conservative, one of the right-wing’s loudest voices for limited military
intervention, recently ranked 2016 candidates on various foreign policy issues:
Trump received the best score among the Republican candidates.
So what would a
President Trump’s foreign policy philosophy be? As the candidate himself said
in the November FOX News/Wall Street Journal debate: “We can’t continue to be
the policeman of the world.”
Comments
I hope
Trump will clean up the military, end the social engineering and hire back the
good generals. I hope Trump changes the law to let the US Military defend the
Mexican border.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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