https://www.newsweek.com/what-will-donald-trumps-foreign-policy-opinion-1982406
But one would be a fool to pontificate too much about Trump's plans. In many ways, it's wasted energy. Trump isn't Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, or Joe Biden—he doesn't have a set ideology or a fixed view of how the world should function. His beliefs are situational, flexible, and at times contradictory. He says things on the campaign trail but either disregards them when he's in office or changes his opinion depending on who happens to be in the room with him. Sure, he may have one core position—the U.S. is constantly getting ripped off by everybody—but everything else is really open to interpretation. The guy is an enigma, and he likes it that way.
Look no further than Trump's first term. Trump wasn't fond of NATO, badgered the Europeans to beef up their defense budgets, and essentially described the entire continent as a spoiled child content with hiding underneath the U.S. security umbrella. But his policies didn't match with his rhetoric. Trump kept the U.S. in the transatlantic alliance, allowed that alliance to expand to two new members—Montenegro and North Macedonia—and threatened European governments with unspecified penalties if it locked U.S. defense manufacturers out of any European rearmament scheme. U.S. troop levels in Europe remained constant throughout, and when Trump ordered the withdrawal of almost 10,000 U.S. troops from Germany in 2020, most of them were scheduled to re-deploy to other countries in Europe.
if you go back to 2016, you'll see that I wrote that I thought that Trump never expected to win the election. For him it was about staying in the spotlight following the cancellation of "The Apprentice" and using the campaign to get another reality TV show contract. He was probably the most suprised person out there that he won. So he drifted around during the first 3 years of his term.
ReplyDeleteThis time it's different. He's got one term and he knows it. He is still sore from losing in 2020 so the next 4 years will be about revenge and ensuring his financial stability after he leaves office.
There was a Robert Redford movie called the candidate had the same theme
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