Trump’s 19th Century Foreign Policy
Politico.usa
His views aren’t as confused as they seem. In fact, they’re remarkably consistent—and they have a
One
of the most common misconceptions about Donald Trump is that he is
opportunistic and makes up his views as he goes along. But a careful
reading of some of Trump’s statements over three decades shows that he
has a remarkably coherent and consistent worldview, one that is unlikely
to change much if he’s elected president. It is also a worldview that
makes a great leap backward in history, embracing antiquated notions of
power that haven’t been prevalent since prior to World War II.
It
is easy to poke fun at many of Trump’s foreign-policy notions—the
promises to “take” Iraq’s oil, to extract a kind of imperial “tribute”
from U.S. military allies like South Korea, his eagerness to emulate the
Great Wall of China along the border with Mexico, and his embrace of
old-style strongmen like Vladimir Putin. But many of these views would
have found favor in pre-World War II—and even, in some cases, 19th
century—America.
In
sum, Trump believes that America gets a raw deal from the liberal
international order it helped to create and has led since World War II.
He has three key arguments that he returns to time and again over the
past 30 years. He is deeply unhappy with America’s military alliances
and feels the United States is overcommitted around the world. He feels
that America is disadvantaged by the global economy. And he is
sympathetic to authoritarian strongmen. Trump seeks nothing less than
ending the U.S.-led liberal order and freeing America from its
international commitments.
Trump has been airing such views on U.S. foreign policy for some time. He even spent $100,000 on a full-page ad in the New York Times in 1987 that had a message remarkably similar to what he is saying today.
With his background and personality, Trump is so obviously sui generis that
it is tempting to say his views are alien to the American foreign
policy tradition. They aren’t; it is just that this strain of thinking
has been dormant for some time. There are particular echoes of Sen.
Robert Taft, who unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination in
1940, 1948 and 1952, and was widely seen as the leader of the
conservative wing of the Republican Party. Taft was a staunch
isolationist and mercantilist who opposed U.S. aid for Britain before
1941. After the war, he opposed President Harry Truman’s efforts to
expand trade. Despite being an anti-communist, he opposed containment of
the Soviet Union, believing that the United States had few interests in
Western Europe. He opposed the creation of NATO as overly provocative.
Taft’s speeches are the last time a major American politician has
offered a substantive and comprehensive critique of America’s alliances.
Trump’s
populism, divisiveness and friendliness toward dictators is also
reminiscent of Charles Lindbergh, once an American hero, who led the
isolationist America First movement. In some areas, Trump’s views go
back even further, to 19th-century high-tariff protectionism and
every-country-for-itself mercantilism. He even invokes ancient Chinese
history, telling Bill O’Reilly last August that his idea for a wall
across the U.S.-Mexican border is feasible because “you know, the Great
Wall of China, built a long time ago, is 13,000 miles. I mean, you're
talking about big stuff.”
***
Trump’s starting point and defining emotion on foreign policy is anger—not at America’s enemies, but at its friends. In a lengthy interview with Playboy magazine
in 1990, Trump was asked what would a President Trump’s foreign policy
be like. He answered: “He would believe very strongly in extreme
military strength. He wouldn’t trust anyone. He wouldn’t trust the
Russians; he wouldn’t trust our allies; he’d have a huge military
arsenal, perfect it, understand it. Part of the problem is that we’re
defending some of the wealthiest countries in the world for nothing. ...
We’re being laughed at around the world, defending Japan.”
He
then elaborated on his skepticism of allies. “We Americans are laughed
at around the world for losing a hundred and fifty billion dollars year
after year, for defending wealthy nations for nothing, nations that
would be wiped off the face of the earth in about 15 minutes if it
weren’t for us. Our ‘allies’ are making billions screwing us.”
Trump
has long believed the United States is being taken advantage of by its
allies. He would prefer that the United States not have to defend other
nations, but, if it does, he wants to get paid as much as possible for
it. No nation has come in for quite as much criticism from Trump as
Japan. “It’s time for us to end our vast deficits by making Japan and
others who can afford it pay,” Trump said in an open letter to the
American people in 1987. “Our world protection is worth hundreds of
billions of dollars to these countries and their stake in their
protection is far greater than ours.”
In
the intervening years, he found new targets but he never let go of his
antagonism toward the Japanese. On the campaign trail recently, he took
the unusual step of promising to renegotiate the 1960 U.S.-Japan Treaty.
“If somebody attacks Japan,” he said, “we have to immediately go and
start World War III, OK? If we get attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help
us. Somehow, that doesn’t sound so fair. Does that sound good?”
He has also criticized other allies. In 2013, he said,
“How long will we go on defending South Korea from North Korea without
payment? When will they start to pay us?” He has made the point again on
the campaign trail. In an interview with NBC, he said,
“We have 28,000 soldiers on the line in South Korea between the madman
and them. We get practically nothing compared to the cost of this.”
Trump
doesn’t let Europe off the hook, either. Several years ago, he wrote,
“Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars
annually. The cost of stationing NATO troops in Europe is enormous. And
these are clearly funds that can be put to better use.” On the campaign
trail, he complained that Germany is not carrying more of the burden of
NATO and asked why the United States should lead on European security.
The
truth is very different. America’s allies do pay for a proportion of
U.S. bases. But they do not pay the full cost. This is largely because
those alliances also work to America’s benefit by providing it with
prepositioned forces and regional stability. It would actually cost more
to station troops in the United States and have to deploy them overseas
in a crisis. But this rings hollow for Trump because he is not
convinced that the United States should be doing it at all.