Donald Trump's bleak, incoherent foreign-policy strategy

The new National Security Strategy is the fullest statement of what "America First" means in foreign policy.

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In some parts of the world, in particular, President Donald Trump expects countries to behave as willing allies. In most others, they are to submit to America’s economic and military will.

In some parts of the world, in particular in Asia, Mr Trump expects countries to behave as willing allies. In most others, they are to submit meekly to America’s economic and military will.

In one place, the NSS rejects the interventionist idea of urging countries to adopt “democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories”. That suits Russia, China and the monarchies of the Middle East. Yet in Europe, where MAGA worries about wokeism, migration and the dominance of liberal values, the NSS bluntly declares that “our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory”.

When the NSS applies this formula to the world, region by region, the full consequences of this shift start to become clear.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the section covering the western hemisphere. “We want to ensure that the western hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States”, it reads. Governments in the Americas will be enlisted to control migration and curb drug flows. They are expected to grant America control of key assets, resources and strategic locations, or at least a veto over “hostile foreign” ownership of them - a clear warning to refuse Chinese investments that offer a sway over ports or such assets as the Panama Canal. Where law enforcement has failed to halt drug smuggling, America will use armed forces, the NSS warns.

This swaggering right of intervention is called a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. That is a deliberate tribute to the “Roosevelt Corollary”, President Theodore Roosevelt’s assertion of gendarme-like enforcement rights over the western hemisphere in 1904.