WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It wasn’t that long ago. President Donald Trump He spoke about building a legacy as a “peacemaker.”
The Trump administration will not only measure success by the battles won. said in his inaugural speech.“But also by the wars we end, and perhaps most importantly, by the wars we will never be involved in.”
But nine months into his second stint in the White House, President Trump is treading the strange path of implementing a foreign policy agenda of “peace through strength,” a phrase he borrowed from his fellow Republican president. ronald reagan He believed that building a strong military and economy was the basis of the Soviet Union’s deterrence.
Trump’s views on the Reagan Doctrine include: Sharper threats, bombing and There’s no shortage of bravado.
It’s too early to tell how history will judge Trump’s version, but Zipper had his doubts, too.
“Around 1983, there would have been a lot of people who would have given President Reagan a failing grade,” said University of Tennessee scholar Andrew Bush, referring to the year in which President Reagan issued his executive order. american invasion of Grenada, Caribbean island. “By the time he resigned in 1989, people would say, ‘Oh, that guy was like the greatest peacemaker of the 20th century in some ways.'”
Achieving peace in the Trump style
Trump’s unique approach to Reaganesque diplomacy was on full display during his presidency. travel to asia This past week.
On his way to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit, President Trump announced on social media: Canceled trade negotiations with Canada and impose an additional 10% tariff on imports of Canadian products. He expressed anger over a television ad paid for by the Canadian province of Ontario. connected audio of President Reagan criticizes tariffs It was broadcast during the World Series.
Later, when President Trump met with the leaders of Malaysia and South Korea, the U.S. Navy took further action. deadly attack A suspect on a drug smuggling ship sailing in the Pacific Ocean.
his government Moved to relocate USS Ford Thousands more sailors are being added from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean near Venezuela, continuing the largest U.S. military buildup in Latin America in more than 50 years.
Trump wasn’t finished.
On Thursday, minutes before a key meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump hinted on social media that he was preparing to end a decades-old U.S. ban. test of a country’s nuclear weapons.
Later, on his way back to Washington, Trump remained silent on whether he really wanted to say whether he was ordering a resumption of nuclear weapons tests (something only North Korea has conducted so far this century) or whether he was calling for the far more routine test of a U.S. system capable of launching nuclear weapons.
he remain opaque On whether they intend to restart underground nuclear explosion tests.
“We’ll find out soon,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Friday, en route to Florida for a weekend stay.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not said what kind of testing the administration plans to do. But he repeats a credo that President Trump borrowed from President Reagan.
“The United States will ensure we have the strongest and most capable nuclear weapons so that we can maintain peace through force,” Hegseth said Friday. “This is what it is. What we talk about in every meeting is peace through strength.”
On Saturday, Trump was at it again.
This time he Warning to Nigeria He said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria, amid increasing accusations that the government was failing to restrain itself. persecution of christians in a West African country.
“If the Nigerian government continues to allow Christians to be murdered, there is a good chance that the United States will immediately withdraw all aid and assistance to Nigeria and move ‘shooting the barrel’ into this now disgraced country to wipe out once and for all the Islamic terrorists responsible for these horrific atrocities,” Trump wrote on social media.
president of nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu He pushed back against Trump, saying the characterization of the country as religiously intolerant did not reflect the reality of the country.
Classic top-to-bottom operation
The loose talk of nuclear testing certainly worried some people, but the reaction appears to have been relatively cautious. After all, Trump made many declarations, only to significantly change his positions later.
For example, in recent weeks he Ukraine must cede land to Russia Some declared that Kiev believed it could regain all the land lost in the war, while others declared that “the fighting should stop at the current lines.”
Administration officials are loathe to question Trump’s tactics, but acknowledge that some may seem contradictory, especially what appear to be spontaneous reversals in Trump’s public statements.
Rather than viewing such a sudden change in course as a flaw, administration officials have privately argued that it gives the United States more leverage and makes adversaries and potential adversaries, as well as allies and partners, more wary of opposing President Trump.
However, policy coherence has long been considered key to national security and international relations, particularly because it provides a concrete basis for international understanding and behavior that other countries consider when making their own decisions.
“This is a product of a lack of process,” said Ian Kelly, a former career diplomat who served as the U.S. ambassador to Georgia during the Trump administration’s first term. “This is a classic top-down operation, and there appears to be no consultation with other stakeholders, particularly Congress, but also with long-time allies.”
Avoid the pitfalls of endless war
President Trump has managed to firmly grasp the title of “peacemaker” despite his administration’s aggressive foreign policy early in his second term.
President Trump touted his decision to order a strike in June as a glorious accomplishment. Iran’s three important nuclear facilities That “killed” the Iranian program, he says. The bombing caused significant damage during the operation, but no American troops were harmed.
President Trump claims the program has been destroyed, but the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said this week that new activity had recently been detected. Iranian nuclear facilities.
Before these attacks, some of Trump’s biggest supporters, including Steve Bannon, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and commentators Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, expressed surprise President Trump is considering military action. They pointed to Trump’s own wariness over the decades of wars fomented by the previous administration.
President Trump’s attacks in the Caribbean appear to have dealt a major blow to Venezuelan drug smugglers and rattled President Nicolás Maduro’s government. Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, said it appears to have “little political cost” for Trump at this point.
But Logan argues that President Trump should be careful as he considers his path forward in Venezuela, avoiding the pitfalls of the “endless wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan that have left an indelible mark on the American psyche. This would be in my own backyard.
“This administration seems to be supporting these short, sharp attacks and saying the problem is completely solved,” Logan said. “I’m worried that what’s going to happen is that it’s going to turn out that none of these problems are actually solved.”
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Finley and Lee reported from Washington.
