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Process Trumps Doctrine
But perhaps most detrimental to Trump’s “America First” vision is the fact that the Trump doctrine has taken a backseat to the Trump process.
For starters, Trump
does not seem entirely wedded to his own “America First” doctrine. Despite the manifestly ideological nature of the Trump campaign, to most observers it looks like Trump — for
good or
ill — simply does not yet have well-formed opinions about how to confront the many foreign policy challenges the United States faces. As president, Trump thus appears to be ideologically unmoored, priding himself on “
flexibility,” and eager to abandon ideas that helped get him elected if they seem to hamper effective governance. The result has been a series of flip-flops on matters of policy without a hint of hesitation or shame.
The lack of ideological principle translates to a lack of strategic deliberation. Trump’s missile strikes on Syria and his saber rattling on North Korea both smack of a desire to look tough, but neither are part of a serious broader strategy. The Syria strikes will not mitigate the humanitarian suffering there and were not even intended to affect the balance of power in the civil war. And the threats of preventive war on North Korea won’t compel Pyongyang to denuclearize. In the absence of an overarching ideological or strategic approach, short-term tactical considerations tailored to achieve quick but small wins rule the day.
The “America First” program remains at the mercy of Trump’s personality and governing style. On this score, a review of his first 100 days in office makes clear that Trump injects an element of unpredictability to the entire foreign policy enterprise. Trump’s tendency to comment on breaking news and to create foreign policy
on the fly via Twitter, often without warning his senior advisors first, not only worries old foreign policy hands but raises the chances that Trump will call an audible rather than stick to the “America First” playbook. Perhaps the only consistent theme in Trump’s approach is the desire to
bolster hi
s domestic legitimacy and shore up American prestige abroad. Those motivations, we note, have so far pushed Trump toward greater foreign policy activism, not “America First” isolationism.
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