On Wednesday, in front of a polite crowd assembled by the Center for National Interest in Washington, DC, presidential candidate Donald Trump gave a speech ostensibly clarifying his foreign policy. Repeatedly promising to "put America first," Trump assured the audience that, under his leadership, the country's approach to national security would at long last be "coherent," and "based upon American interests and the shared interests of our allies."
But virtually no one who watched the speech emerged with a coherent idea of Trump's foreign policy strategy. Outside of a few kind words from the candidate's staunch supporters, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, there hasn't been a lot of praise for the Trump Doctrine this week, with most editorial writers and foreign policy experts dismissing the speech as "rife with contradictions" and predictably lacking in specifics.
The doctrine itself was hard to pick out. In the speech, Trump was at his most detailed when he promised two NATO summits aimed at "rebalancing of financial commitments." But for other claims, like the promise would "look for talented experts with new approaches," when staffing his administration and "develop, build and purchase the best equipment known to mankind" for the military, details were practically nonexistent. Although maybe whatever the Trump Doctrine is, it's supposed to be vague, since, as Trump himself put it in his speech, "we must as a nation be more unpredictable."
But between the platitudes, there did seem to be signs of an embryonic global strategy. To try to figure out exactly what that strategy might be, we tracked down Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute who specializes in foreign policy and has voiced support for some of Trump's proposals. Our conversation is below, lightly edited for length and clarity.
In the past, you've written pieces that have been supportive of, or at least open to, some of Trump's foreign policy positions. Can you explain what that's about?
I think he has said a lot of intelligent things—not always very nuanced, but conceptually, he's made some very important points on foreign policy. But I don't think the speech laid out the kind of coherent vision he was talking about.
To some degree, I don't expect coherence from him because nothing so far has indicated policy coherence. That's on both domestic and foreign policy. So I don't really expect coherence. It's just that when you announce in your speech "I'm in favor of coherence. I want to give a foreign policy vision," you probably need something more.
The critical thing is, he understands the current system is broken. I think that's the foundation, and he's got that right. The question then is what does he build on top.
You've agreed with Trump's argument that rich allies of the US need to foot the bill for their own defense. Does he mean literally charging allies money for the use of US military defense?
don't like nation building. The Republican Party is growing more protectionist, so those folks are out there. A lot of those people could very well show up and say,"I don't like what he said about economics, or this-or-that, but I can be for somebody who's tough and pro-American but not likely to get us into a bunch of goofy wars in the Middle East."
You don't have to be a Tea Partier or a libertarian to see that as a positive thing. There are folks who might find that an attractive option.
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