The Trump 2 presidency has proven to be much more foreign policy oriented than most Americans expected with America re-emerging as the pre-eminent economic and political force in the world.
In a whirlwind, the president put Colombia’s communist leader in his place. When challenged about accepting deported Colombians who were in the U.S. illegally, Trump levied the threat of massive economic sanctions causing the Colombian government to back down within hours. Troublemaking Venezuela immediately found that they could accept back deported members of the violent gang they sent across our border under Biden’s disastrous open borders policy immediately following this short showdown.
After the threat of tariffs that would cripple the Mexican economy, Mexico City has promised to put 10,000 troops on their northern border and help with a drug cartel crackdown. Similarly, Canada has promised to better monitor their southern border to stem the flow of dangerous illegal invaders and fentanyl into America.
And in the first showdown with China, Panama has promised to end its partnership with the Communist Party of China through their “Belt and Road” initiative, choosing alliance with the United States and at least partially securing the vital Panama Canal passageway between the Gulf of America and the Pacific Ocean.
Even the discussion about Greenland matters in this context as the forgotten North American island is both rich with rare earth minerals, and essential to defending U.S. interests in the Arctic and North Atlantic Ocean. What most do not know is that China has been mining in Greenland and has established a dangerous foothold on this geo-politically important Danish holding.
When you look at foreign policy through an America First lens, you defend the homeland first. Under Biden, most of South and Central America including Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile was taken over by government’s antagonistic to the United States, largely with Chinese support.
This explains why President Trump has dusted off the Monroe Doctrine and begun to aggressively secure alliances that keep enemies off our borders with a mind toward eventually pushing China out of the western Hemisphere.
What many Americans do not realize is that our nation is effectively one big island itself, separated by the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans from land invasion. This security along with the banding together of the thirteen colonies into one country, the Louisiana Purchase and the Manifest Destiny policy which envisioned and achieved a coast-to-coast America, protected our nation to grow free from constant land wars that beleaguered Europe throughout history.
Obviously, the Civil War was an unavoidable land war to settle the power struggle between the states revolving around slavery expanding the “all men are created equal” DNA of America to include all races.
President Abraham Lincoln did not just unify the nation through war but also envisioned the uniting of America from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the building of the transcontinental railroad. Completed in 1869, four years after his assassination, the linking of east and west connected far off California and Nevada with the rest of the country economically and set the stage for the establishment of states west of the Mississippi River.
The freedom from war and relative stability that followed fostered the development of an industrial, mineral and energy base making America the beacon of freedom and opportunity to the world.
This North America and Caribbean basin First foreign policy that President Trump has embarked upon looks at the whole world through this historic lens, prioritizing the world closest to our shores.
It is a form of international community policing where you focus upon your own and adjacent neighborhoods first before seeking to clean up areas that affect you less.
Now this isn’t dismissing the problems with China, Ukraine/Russia, the Middle East and elsewhere, it is merely recognizing that tending to America’s neighborhood with the impacts of dramatic drops in illegal immigration and a diminution of threats that can strike the homeland rapidly due to the proximity of their origin.
President Trump has demonstrated that he is also able to walk and chew gum at the same time when it comes to other world-wide hotspots he inherited. Trump played a major role in getting Hamas-held American and Israeli hostages released, reclassified the Houthi’s in Yemen as a terrorist organization and hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his first foreign leader to visit, have meetings and dine at the White House in his second term.
Netanyahu’s first in the world visit is an obvious break from the prior administration’s virtual shunning of Israel’s leader, and it makes sense.
Two of Trump I’s achievements were moving the U.S. embassy to Israel to Jerusalem and along with Netanyahu laying the groundwork for an alliance of Muslim states with Israel around joint economic and national security interests, breaking the stranglehold the created Palestinian issue had on regional peace.
Through establishing the Abraham Accords alliances, the President and Prime Minister created a new pathway to peace in the Middle East based upon mutual regional and economic interests, and rekindling that momentum is clearly very high on the Trump II agenda.
And by the time this gets printed, undoubtedly other actions will jump into the forefront, because in Trump II things move at the speed of Silicon Valley rather than the slow meanderings of the past.
Beyond the speed though is the Trump II North America First foreign policy demonstrates that rather than being buffeted around by world events, there is perhaps for the first time since Ronald Reagan, a gameplan where America leads and sets the agenda accomplishing our interests, and in doing so furthering the interests of the free world.
Fifteen days in, the world has shifted, America is back, confident and a little bit pissed off. The sleeping superpower has awakened from its four-year slumber.
The author is president of Americans for Limited Government
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