Many of Trump’s detractors across the political spectrum have declared that he has no foreign policy approach or even the most rudimentary knowledge of foreign policy making. This is a dangerous misperception about the Republican front runner. He has a foreign policy agenda and it is a curious blend of old fashioned isolationism, militant unilateralism, global hegemony seeking and xenophobia. In all this he differs with the neoconservatives who see the rise of Trump as further evidence of their claims of US moral decay and rising decadence. The object to Trump’s apparent stubborn refusal to lead the world in a sacred mission to “save civilization” due to his perceived reluctance use American power to pursue global hegemony. Trump is a true 1930s era “America First” champion which has a broad appeal to paleocons and the emerging far right white nationalist movement led by such figures as David Duke who has publicly endorsed Trump and called for people to energetically support his presidential candidacy.
David Heilbrunn has mapped out the core of the Trump foreign policy in a recent NYT opinion piece that deserves to be quoted at length;
Mr. Trump represents a return to the party’s roots. It’s the neocons who are the interlopers. The extent to which the neocons and their moralistic, crusading Wilsonian mission overtook the Republican foreign policy establishment, beginning in the 1970s, was so nearly complete that it can be hard to remember that a much different sensibility had previously governed the party, one reminiscent of Mr. Trump’s own positions: wariness about foreign intervention, championing of protectionist trade policies, a belief in the exercise of unilateral military power and a suspicion of global elites and institution...One can hear echoes of this Republican past in Mr. Trump’s own positions. His animating credo on foreign policy seems to be to farm out the heavy lifting to other countries whenever possible. Speaking on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” last August, he made his distaste for intervention clear: “At some point, we can’t be the policeman of the world. We have to rebuild our own country." Since then, to the consternation of the party establishment, he has also forthrightly denounced the Iraq war, declaring that the Bush administration’s case for it was based on a “lie.”
His anti-Neocon, isolationist tendency was expressed in his opposition to the Iraq venture recently on MSNBC where he stated; “When I see the policy of some of these people in our government...we’ll be in the Middle East for another 15 years if we don’t end up losing by that time because our country is disintegrating.” It is for this reason that Trump rejects a “world policeman” role for America preferring instead to commit those same resources to rebuilding America. He further seemed to buck the Washington establishment (at least the conservative part of it) by advocating support for the Iran Nuclear Treaty (he recently refused to “tear it up” but said he would “police it” if elected), neutrality in the Israel/Palestine conflict, high tariffs against our main Asian trade partners and demands that key strategic allies such as Germany, South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia contribute more revenue to pay for their own defense needs. All of this resonates with his paleocon and far right white nationalist base (many of whom supported Ron Paul in the recent past) despite the fact that these positions often rest on a real ignorance of reality. One thing is certain, Trump’s views and candidacy in general is a far right backlash against the disastrous failures of neoconservative foreign policy and the pursuit of disadvantageous free trade agreements over the past twenty years that have harmed America’s embattled middle class. The problem is that the Trump candidacy is a mere fostering of hate, fear and resentment rather than a reasoned critique which speaks truth to power. The consequence is the creation of an atmosphere of hateful, racist scapegoating that is conducive to the rise of fascism.
Trump’s traditional “go it alone” isolationism from “foreign entanglements” as America’s founders described it contrasts sharply with the stern moralism of the Neoconservatives whose conservatism is more in the old European tradition. The neoconservatives see the suppression of rugged individualism and materialist decadence, both of which Trump seems to epitomize, as key to the ability of a people to morally prepare to unify in the acceptance of the sacrifices necessary for their country to achieve the status of unchallenged world dominance. If all this sounds like Mussolini style fascism it is because that is exactly what it is! Trump rejects such a dangerous vision. Instead of pursuing an aggressive policy of regime change, as did the neoconservatives under Bush, he vaguely advocates dauntlessly pursuing American interests around the globe in a unilateral fashion.
Trump’s foreign policy posturing resonates with his base whose bitter hatred of neoconservative policies is often expressed as sublimated anti-Semitism. Trumps Neanderthal supporters decry the Iraq War-an obvious war for oil fully consistent with other wars the US has fought for economic gain-as “a war for Israel” and breathlessly denounce most US political figures who are neither Trump nor Ron Paul as treasonous, fifth column “neocons” serving foreign interests. But in a highly incoherent foreign policy speech before the Center for the National Interest in Washington DC in late April of this year, Trump made a number of vague and logically inconsistent statements making him appear even more inept on foreign policy. Most importantly, Trump showed himself to be closer to the establishment than his base would like to admit. Should Trump become president, most of his biggest fans would be highly disappointed with his foreign policy if his April Speech is any indicator of his future approach.
Trump wants to be perceived as an America First style isolationist. He began his speech with a rather impressive critique of recent US foreign policy blunders,
Unfortunately, after the Cold War, our foreign policy veered badly off course. We failed to develop a new vision for a new time. In fact, as time went on, our foreign policy began to make less and less sense. Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, and this led to one foreign policy disaster after another. We went from mistakes in Iraq to Egypt to Libya, to President Obama’s line in the sand in Syria. Each of these actions have helped to throw the region into chaos, and gave ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper. It all began with the dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western democracy. We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed. Civil war, religious fanaticism; thousands of American lives, and many trillions of dollars, were lost as a result. The vacuum was created that ISIS would fill. Iran, too, would rush in and fill the void, much to their unjust enrichment.
There is very little here with which most progressives would take issue. He seems from this statement to believe that the US is an overextended superpower, a “crippled giant” in the words of former Senator J. William Fulbright. But then comes the angry jingoism and advocacy for war. He seems to be ready for renewed conflict with Russia and China and a massive military buildup to prepare for intervention anywhere at any time. Trumps states;
The Russians and Chinese have rapidly expanded their military capability, but look what’s happened to us! Our nuclear weapons arsenal – our ultimate deterrent – has been allowed to atrophy and is desperately in need of modernization and renewal. Our active duty armed forces have shrunk from 2 million in 1991 to about 1.3 million today. The Navy has shrunk from over 500 ships to 272 ships during that time. The Air Force is about one-third smaller than 1991. Pilots are flying B-52s in combat missions today which are older than most people in this room. And what are we doing about this? President Obama has proposed a 2017 defense budget that, in real dollars, cuts nearly 25 percent from what we were spending in 2011. Our military is depleted, and we’re asking our generals and military leaders to worry about global warming. We will spend what we need to rebuild our military. It is the cheapest investment we can make. We will develop, build and purchase the best equipment known to mankind. Our military dominance must be unquestioned.
Trump is concerned about depleting resources but wants to “modernize” our war making capabilities. How? Lockheed Martin’s F16 fighter jet, which came on line in 1978, is still unsurpassed nearly four decades later and it is still the world’s top selling fighter jet around the world. It is doubtful that Trump will pare down the vast and ever growing US military industrial complex. On the issue of the Middle East, he also declares that he will stand firmly with Israel as our only true and democratic ally in that region. He chided Obama for “snubbing and criticizing” Israel (without giving specifics or a context) and stated that he opposed the Iran nuclear treaty characterizing it as “disastrous” without even hinting at a possible alternative or bothering to acknowledge or explain its near universal level of support even among so many former and present military officials and experts. It seems that on these two issues he’s perfectly in line with the US foreign policy establishment so often dubbed “neocon” by the typical Trump supporter.
He denounces regime change and war to spread US style democracy to countries in places like the Middle East which he wrongly believes never had or desired “western style democracy” but then finishes his speech with the curious pronouncement that, “I will work with our allies to reinvigorate Western values and institutions. Instead of trying to spread “universal values” that not everyone shares, we should understand that strengthening and promoting Western civilization and its accomplishments will do more to inspire positive reforms around the world than military interventions.” Just what does this mean? What “universal values” does he think that past and present administrations have been attempting to spread around the world? This is a load of propaganda and meaningless spin! He panders to his ignorant base with nativist remarks about putting American interests first before those of foreigners. He repeats the lie that US interests have been sacrificed to that of foreign powers when in fact globalization has always been in the corporate interest, something which no one can expect Trump to challenge. Does anyone take him seriously when he declares that, Their [sic!] will be consequences for companies that leave the U.S. only to exploit it later?
His absurd remark about surrendering our interests to the “false song of globalism” is utterly playing the nativist card while giving credence to the ignorant conspiratorial belief, so common among both Ron Paul and Trump supporters, that there is such a thing as a “New World Order” that has somehow eclipsed the nation-state which he praises as “...the true foundation for happiness and harmony.” Does this mean one of the richest men in the world opposes the unimpeded export of capital across national boundaries? This has been one of the most clearly defining trends of the global era. It is obvious that Trump is being highly disingenuous. In fact, his entire speech and all his policy pronouncements can be so characterized!
Trump’s pronouncements on China are among the silliest and least believable. First of all, according to US law, Trump “...could impose tariffs only on specific categories of imports, not whole countries, and only by demonstrating specific violations of trade rules, such as export subsidies.” And such policies have been shown to be utter failures. When Bush imposed tariffs on roughly 76 different steel products in 2002 in order to save the declining US steel industry it did more harm to the overall US manufacturing economy than anything else. Not only did the taxes fail to spur more domestic production, the estimated losses from the impact of the newly imposed tariffs were actually greater than the potential losses from all the effected steel manufacturers going out of business! Tariffs have been a failure throughout the global era. Obama’s attempts to tax imports of Chinese tires were similarly ineffective; importers simply shifted to other sources of tires such as Indonesia that didn’t have the tax applied to them. But trade with China is a hot button issue that resonates with voters. Trump knows that this is mostly about corporations shifting domestic manufacturing overseas where costs are cheaper and reexporting the output to expand bottom lines. He is not likely serious about “disciplining” China given our economy’s dependence on that country’s recycling of their annual trade surplus through US bond markets.
The reality of Trump is far different than Trump’s public image as a right wing populist repudiating a heartless globalizing world promoted by nefarious forces which vex his naive, xenophobic salt of the earth following. Most US politicians equate the “national interest” with corporate interests and Trump is no exception. In fact, despite severe criticism by conservatives of Trumps speech, Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker Magazine was able to characterize the speech as a typical Republican foreign policy address stating that;
Trump’s speech was hardly a break with current conservative thinking about foreign policy. Anyone who has listened to conservative talk radio or read prominent conservative columnists, such as Charles Krauthammer, condemn President Obama’s foreign policy as weak and feckless would recognize Trump’s speech as a standard list of grievances and proposals on the right. On foreign policy, just as he has done on immigration and crime and race, Trump has been paying attention to the base of the Republican Party. He has simply distilled the base’s grievances into something like a platform.
In other words, Trump is simply reformulating his base’s mindless and ill informed hateful views as a “new” political agenda. His base’s low information opinions has been reflected in Trump’s low information speeches! Very few facts were given to support most of Trump’s core arguments which seem to become more convoluted over time. Worst of all, Trump gives false hope to the angry mob that not only can globalization be reversed but that it will be easily done under a future Trump Administration. Nothing can be further from the truth. Trump and the US corporate sector have no intention of doing any such thing. But they are more than willing to appease the angry mob for votes. Some might say this is a dangerous portend of fascism.