An earlier version of this article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Friday mornings here.
Hello, friends. It’s almost Inauguration Day. In today’s newsletter, we’ll look beyond Monday’s festivities and consider what Trump’s return to the White House means for U.S. foreign policy.
The big idea
A second try for ‘America First’
Monday marks the dawn of a new day for America. Or so Trump’s allies believe.
When Trump takes the oath of office at noon Monday, it certainly marks a new age of global geopolitics. Trump is already actively engaged in testing alliances and pushing against diplomatic norms.
I was in the room Wednesday for Marco Rubio’s confirmation hearing. Sen. Rubio, Trump’s pick to be secretary of state, should have little problem being confirmed; his bigger challenge, as I wrote this week, will be calibrating his foreign policy positions with Trump’s. But where he and Trump differ on practicalities, they seem to share a uniform worldview: that America is on the decline, the global order is fraying, and America must retake its place at the top.
The “post-war global order” that Rubio described Wednesday was bleak. The world at present, he explained, is being reshaped by forces that will only destabilize the U.S.: mass migration has upended cultural norms; crucial supply chains are controlled by adversaries; our middle class is hollowed out; domestic manufacturing is collapsing.
Trump’s foreign policy — which promises “peace abroad and prosperity at home,” Rubio said — is set to address all of these concerns. Rubio explained: A harsh economic agenda, punctuated by tariffs on goods coming into the country, would level the playing field with global trade partners; shoring up domestic manufacturing would boost the middle class; cracking down on illegal immigration would protect U.S. workers.
“Every dollar we spend,” Rubio explained, “every program we fund, every policy we pursue, must be justified by the answer to one of three questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America prosperous?”
But Trump has been here before. There are reasons to believe his first-term attempts at installing “America First” foreign policy took a toll on everyday Americans. The price of tariffs is often pushed back to consumers. The long-term effects of decreased immigration can spell problems, not prosperity, for an aging and shrinking native-born population. Some of America’s strongest alliances were weakened during Trump’s first term. Why would Trump 2.0 be any different?
Robert O’Brien is certain Trump will be successful. O’Brien had as good a perch as anyone during the first Trump term, serving first as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs and later as Trump’s final national security adviser. He is a staunch Trump ally and a firm believer that “America First” foreign policy leads to peace abroad and prosperity at home. I ask him to explain why.
Our conversation, which took place last week, was edited for clarity and length.
Deseret News: The president-elect’s rhetoric in recent weeks has been interesting. He’s promised “economic force” toward Canada and Mexico and and Greenland; he threatens to tear up USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement). You know President Trump well — what’s the end goal here? Is he trying to set up trade negotiations, or does he really plan to go full speed ahead with tariffs?
Robert O’Brien: I think the president relies on the tariffs for three reasons, and they can all be true at the same time. Certainly they give you leverage because of national security issues. The second reason to have the tariffs is to raise general revenue for the government. And the third big reason is to re-industrialize the United States.
We have a terrible fentanyl problem with Mexico, and the demand is here (in the U.S.). That’s something that the Mexicans didn’t create, but they’re very lax in the enforcement on the border, and they’re allowing these precursors to come in and be mixed and turned into fentanyl in Mexico. China is in a similar situation. You’ll see tariffs being used as a lever to get the Mexicans and Chinese to do more on the fentanyl issues or other national security issues. It’s not just fentanyl, but perhaps immigration or human trafficking.
I think President Trump’s onto something. We’ve got a $700 billion trade deficit with China. Tariffs are a way to increase revenues for the country and certainly pay for some of the tax cuts he wants to get middle-class workers — no tax on tips and no tax on overtime. Some of those can be funded by tariffs.
DN: You’ve said before that Trump “doesn’t love the concept, the idea of America; he loves the American people.” What is Trump’s view of America as a moral leader on the global stage? Does he think America should be a beacon of freedom around the world?
RO: I think he’s different than Ronald Reagan. Trump’s a very practical person. He’s not an ideological person. He looks at results. So if you say, “I love America, but I’m not going to do anything to get the hostages back,” then in his view, you don’t really love America. If you say, “I love America, but open the borders,” then you really don’t love American democracy. He wants to see works rather than statements. And so I think that that’s how he views these trade issues as well.
DN: Tell me about the “madman theory”: this idea that Trump is unpredictable and that adversaries around the globe would be deterred by that. But global leaders now have a four-year sample size of what Trump’s foreign policy looks like. Is that sample size a benefit or a detriment to us?
RO: I think it’s a benefit. First of all, Trump has a much more traditional approach on things than sometimes his rhetoric suggests. We left office with peace and security around the world. We got the Abraham Accords. We got Serbia-Kosovo. We healed the Gulf rift. We were tough on terrorists. We had a victory in the war on terror, defeating the ISIS caliphate and taking out (Abu Bakr al-)Baghdadi.
At the same time, he didn’t start a new war. He didn’t expand an existing war, and is the first president since Jimmy Carter to have that record. So I think people can look at how he did and be comforted.
At the same time, Donald Trump is Donald Trump. There’s always the potential that if you do something that harms America or is something that is untoward towards our country, you’re going to pay a heavy price for that.
DN: So does “madman” just mean that he’s unpredictable? Do you view Trump as a madman?
RO: No, it’s the unpredictability of not knowing what will happen. For example, Vladimir Putin would have never invaded Ukraine under Donald Trump. And people say, “Well, how can you sit there and say that?” Because it didn’t happen. We were there for four years and he didn’t further invade Ukraine. He obviously invaded under (former President Barack) Obama, and had some of that territory, Crimea and part of Donbas. But he never would’ve further invaded Ukraine the way he did under Biden.
If you’re in military affairs or international affairs, the main thing you want to do is complicate the lives of the planners on the other side. And so if you’re a planner for the Russians, there’s just a 5% chance when Trump says, “If you invade Ukraine, there’ll be war” — say you just assign a 5% chance that he’ll send U.S. Marines in and wipe the floor with you. And the Russians saw what we did in Syria, when they attacked one of our foreign operating bases and we killed like 300 Russians very quickly. So if you’re a planner for the Russians, you have to go to Putin say, “well, we don’t think the Americans will send in troops, but there’s a 5% chance that they do, and if they do, they win, we lose, and then we’ll have to escalate to a nuclear standoff.” Whatever you say about Putin, he doesn’t want to die in a nuclear holocaust. That’s very different than Joe Biden, who says if it’s just “a minor incursion,” it’s a very different calculation.
3 things to know
- Several of Trump’s Cabinet picks appeared before Senate committees for confirmation hearings this week. Perhaps the most likely to be confirmed with broad Democratic support, Marco Rubio — Trump’s pick to be secretary of state — held his own on foreign policy and geopolitics during a hearing Wednesday. And Trump’s pick in the most danger — Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth — earned a major victory when Sen. John Curtis said he’s a “yes” Wednesday. We’re still awaiting a hearing for Jamieson Greer, Trump’s pick for USTR, the lone Latter-day Saint in this Cabinet. Read more here.
- President Joe Biden bid adieu to the country Wednesday, delivering his final address from the Oval Office. He expressed gratitude to the country and to his family, but also issued a warning: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.” Read more here.
- Details about Trump’s inauguration ceremony this Monday are taking shape: The CEO of TikTok will be in attendance, while Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum won’t; Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh will administer the oath of office to Vice President-elect JD Vance; Carrie Underwood will perform, and the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square won’t. Read more here.
Weekend reads
Weeks ago, The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins argued that Trump’s “most enduring legacy” may be that he “thoroughly desensitized voters to behavior that, in another era, they would have deemed disqualifying in a president.” That behavior may be seeping into other parts of society, like the corporate world: “I feel liberated” with Trump’s victory, a top banker told Financial Times. Is corporate America going Maga? (Financial Times)
Tom Homan, picked as Trump’s new “border czar,” is telling Republican members of Congress to “to temper their expectations for the incoming administration’s initial deportation operation,” citing limited resources. Trump border czar privately tempers expectations on initial deportation operation (CNN)
Does America need religion? This self-described gay Jewish atheist thinks so: America is divided. Can religion provide a better way? (Jonathan Rauch, Deseret News)