His team of cronies includes establishment hawks and cranky outsiders more likely to lead to global anarchy than world peace.
Donald Trump became president in both 2016 and 2024 largely because he ran away as an outsider with anti-war leanings who opposed a two-party political establishment discredited by perpetual wars. But Trump’s first term in office showed just how shallow his anti-war commitments were, as he repeatedly gave important posts to establishment hawks like John Bolton, John Kelly, HR McMaster and Nikki Haley, while undoing Barack Obama’s legacy of diplomatic relations with Iran and Cuba. Trump actual foreign policy consisted mainly of continuing perpetual wars, engaging in a nuclear standoff with North Korea, applying maximum pressure on Iran (and derailing the Obama nuclear deal), and withdrawing from long-standing arms control agreements with Russia.
Although Trump has not started any new wars, he has engaged in long-range bombing more quickly than even Obama. Far from being an “isolationist” (a nonsensical charge by establishment figures tied to outdated World War II and Cold War frameworks), Trump current philosophy it was “more friends, less trouble.” That is, Trump was willing to project violence abroad (including, in the case of North Korea, threats of preemptive nuclear war), but was careful to put his boots on the ground.
Given his record, Trump should not have been able to sell himself in 2024 as a peaceful candidate. The fact that he did so is based in part on Trump’s astonishing arrogance, but also on Joe Biden’s questionable foreign policy. A staunch establishment internationalist, Biden held the preservation of America’s global hegemony as a guiding principle, which meant he was unwilling to negotiate an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine or in any meaningful way to restrain Israel in its savage and nihilistic massacre of the Palestinian people and neighboring countries. Given spiraling conflicts in both Europe and the Middle East, coupled with Biden’s continued confrontational stance toward China, the war-weary public once again sought an anti-establishment alternative.
Cynical and cunning, Trump answered the call by arguing that his “America First” foreign policy was an anti-war alternative. He argued that “During my administration we had peace in the Middle East and we will have peace again very soon!” In his victory speech, Trump said“I’m not going to start wars, I’m going to stop wars.”
The left must demand that Trump fulfill this promise. But we should also be skeptical that Trump’s second term will be more anti-war than his first. There is no reason to believe that Trump or his foreign policy team have the skills or desire to pursue a truly non-interventionist foreign policy, one that would collapse the American empire, use diplomacy to engage with rivals, and divert resources from a bloated country. the military budget for domestic repairs and international climate action.
One reason to be wary of Trump’s foreign policy is that his team of advisers is a mixed bag of establishment hawks and cranky America-first outsiders. Foreign policy establishment (including Democratic Party hawks) is reportedly excited about the nominations of Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Congressman Mike Waltz as National Security Adviser. On the contrary, the establishment has was destroyed by some of Trump’s wild card nominations — notably Fox News host Pete Hegsett as secretary of defense and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. Hegseth is not so much a hawk as a militaristic nihilist, who in 2017 performed preemptive nuclear strike on North Korea.
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Gabbard is a more alien and intriguing figure. Although she is ultra-hawkish on the Middle East, she is also a proponent of diplomatic engagement with Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine. She deserved it abuse by the institution (including Democrats like Hillary Clinton) who have smeared Gabbard as a Russian asset. Trump’s second-in-command turned chancellor Elon Musk has been tasked with gutting the federal bureaucracy, but he also has some unconventional foreign policy ideas: The New York Times reports that Musk met with Iranian diplomats to ease tensions between the US and the Islamic Republic (Iran is said to categorically denies).
We should welcome any attempts at diplomacy by Gabbard and Musk. There are some very smart Trump supporters who argue that Trump will actually ditch his more hawkish advisers and implement an “America First” foreign policy that strongly rejects Joe Biden’s reckless interventionism and sponsorship of multiple wars. It was quite an argument skillfully done recently in Foreign affairs Dan Caldwell, public policy advisor at Defense Priorities, and Reid Smith, vice president of foreign policy at Stand Together.
Caldwell and Smith argue that “The Republican Party must embrace Trump’s ‘art of the deal’ approach to foreign policy.” Trump has expressed a desire to negotiate with US adversaries such as China, Iran, North Korea and Russia to reduce tensions and avoid new conflicts.
Unfortunately, these idealistic sentiments deserve an ironic response from Jake Barnes in Ernest Hemingway’s book The sun also rises: “Isn’t it beautiful to think like that.” We should be grateful that conservatives like Caldwell and Smith embrace foreign policy restraint. It predicts a future where the left and the right can work towards the bipartisan downfall of the American empire. But it should happen under another presidency. Nothing in Trump’s track record should lead us to believe that his convulsive anti-war tendencies will lead to real restraint.
Instead, we should be concerned about the incoherence of Trump’s Cabinet picks. The guiding principle of his secretions is not hawkishness or restraint, but mischief. Trump is not assembling a team of rivals, but a team of close ones, united by submission to his whims. Like Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton notes“Their bond is one of loyalty to Trump, not loyalty. Loyalty is good, but fidelity is a medieval idea of submission. He just wants yes men and yes women.
A foreign policy team that blows in whatever direction Trump’s fleeting whims point to will be unstable by definition. Trump may be reluctant to send American soldiers to die in wars, but he is otherwise more than happy to use American power — including the threat of nuclear annihilation — to bully foreign adversaries. Also, Trump does not have good negotiations with his opponents. Even if the war in Ukraine ends in a negotiated settlement, hawks in the Trump administration will likely use the freed-up resources to tighten the screws on Cuba, Venezuela, China, and Mexico. This is not a real anti-war leader, but the American empire in a new guise. The most likely path for a second Trump administration is not America First, but Chaos First.
We cannot retreat
We now face a second Trump presidency.
There is nothing to lose. We must use our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger to oppose the dangerous policies that Donald Trump is unleashing on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as principled and honest journalists and authors.
Today we are also preparing for the future struggle. It will require a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis and humane resistance. We are faced with the passage of Project 2025, a far-right Supreme Court, political authoritarianism, rising inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis and conflicts abroad. Nation will expose and propose, develop investigative reporting and act together as a community to preserve hope and opportunity. NationThe work will continue — as it has in good times and bad — to develop alternative ideas and visions, deepen our mission of truth-telling and in-depth reporting, and expand solidarity in a divided nation.
Armed with 160 years of courageous independent journalism, our mandate remains the same today as it was when the Abolitionists were founded Nation— to defend the principles of democracy and freedom, to serve as a beacon in the darkest days of resistance, and to see and fight for a bright future.
The day is dark, the forces are building tenaciously, but it’s too late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is just the time when artists go to work. No time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we make language. This is how civilizations heal.”
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
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