Trump's 'Donroe Doctrine' on Foreign Policy
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What is the new direction of Trump's foreign policy?
Our colleague Greg Ip, chief economics commentator, is a bit of a history buff. And over the weekend, as President Donald Trump talked about why the U.S. captured Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro, something in particular stood out to him.
For as long as you and I can remember, when presidents went into another country, they always had high-minded reasons, you know. Oh, we need to restore democracy. He's threatening his neighbors.
No one, friend or foe, should doubt our desire for peace.
When George H.W. Bush freed Kuwait from Iraq in 1991.
And no one should underestimate our determination to confront aggression.
When George W. Bush went into Iraq in 2003, they explicitly disavowed any interest in taking Iraq's oil.
We have no ambition in Iraq except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.
In contrast, Trump has made it clear that a big motivation for carrying out his operation in Venezuela is because of a desire for a highly prized commodity.
The oil companies are going to go in. They're going to spend money. We're going to take back the oil that, frankly, we should have taken back a long time ago.
The Trump administration says its primary reason for arresting Maduro was his involvement in drug trafficking. In court earlier this week, Maduro pleaded not guilty. But Gregg says the U.S. action in Venezuela, and the way Trump has been talking about it, represent a generational shift in the way American presidents think about foreign policy.
How has U.S. foreign policy evolved since World War II?
In his view, American greatness does not flow so much from values such as the promotion of democracy and freedom. It flows from more tangible things like military power, economic strength, and territory. And he is making it clear that when you are deciding whether to invade another country, those sorts of economic interests, including your control of their precious resources, those aren't some tertiary factor. They are front and center.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Tuesday, January 6th. Coming up on the show, Trump's new foreign policy doctrine.
All right, so Trump is charting this new course for American foreign policy that's very different from his predecessors. Before we talk exactly about what that is and what it means, I want to start with the status quo. It seemed like the primary force that drove American foreign policy since World War II was the spreading of democracy, exercising soft power. Can you describe what that looked like?
You have to sort of like divide US foreign policy in the post-war period into two phases, the Cold War and the post-Cold War period. So during the Cold War period, the North Star was push back communism. And the United States did a lot of, you know, unsavory things in the pursuit of pushing back communism. We fomented a coup d'etat in Iran.
Three days of bloody rioting culminating in a military coup from which the one-time dictator of Iran fled for his life. in Guatemala. The tiny Caribbean coffee republic of Guatemala suffers its 60th political upheaval in 20 years.
We pushed out duly elected people like the president of Chile because they were too close to the communists and the Russians.
And then, after the Cold War ended and the US emerged as the global superpower, its foreign policy began to evolve.
It was less about containing the Soviet Union, which no longer existed. It was more about spreading democracy and also keeping the world stable and free of the influence of rogue states like Iran and North Korea. It was primarily an ideologically driven approach to foreign policy, where the goal was to make the world, as America saw it, safer for the things that Americans valued like democracy and freedom.
So now, as you said, President Trump seems to be pivoting the strategy to more actively pursuing resources. So starting with the beginning of his second term, can you sort of walk us through where we've seen that play out?
Sure. Well, a very good example would be in the original peace negotiations with Ukraine, right?
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the new direction of Trump's foreign policy?
0:02–1:37
2
How has U.S. foreign policy evolved since World War II?
1:37–5:38
3
What is the significance of the Donroe Doctrine?
5:38–7:03
4
How does Trump's approach differ from previous presidents?
7:03–10:38
5
What are the potential benefits of the Donroe Doctrine for the U.S.?
10:38–14:12
6
What risks does the Donroe Doctrine pose for U.S. foreign relations?
14:12–17:45