![]() ![]() ![]() Rather, Nye said Trump appears to be taking a case-by-case approach to foreign policy decisions. “He moves back and forth on ideological positions,” he said. Joseph Nye, an expert on US foreign policy at Harvard University, said while it’s still too early to judge Trump’s ideological moorings on foreign policy, so far “there’s enormous inconsistency.” The decision flew not only in the face of his desire to keep the US laser-focused on ISIS, but also against his desire to work with Russia, the primary sponsor of the Syrian regime, to target ISIS and tackle a range of diplomatic issues. But a chemical weapons attack on civilians by Assad prompted Trump to strike a Syrian air base with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles. He pledged during the campaign to focus on the fight against ISIS in Syria without getting bogged down in the country’s civil war by targeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That was a core complaint of conservative members of Congress who argued that Trump failed to dive into their policy concerns as he sought to win them over during the initial health care reform push, instead encouraging them to vote for the bill for politics’ sake.īut it’s on foreign policy where Trump has been most scattershot. “He believes he can approach every problem like a real estate deal and I think that was one of the shocking things for him.” “There’s no discernible ideological consistency to what he’s doing,” Wilson said. After 100 days, they remain convinced Trump has no ideological – let alone conservative – core.īeyond “impulsivity” and “deal-making,” the Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a vocal Trump critic, argued there is no ideology driving Trump’s presidency – and it has hurt him as he’s approached a Republican caucus rife with key conservative players. “The word compromise is not a bad word to me,” Trump said during his presidential campaign.īut many of those who cried out that Trump lacked the conservative bona fides to lead the Republican Party have not let up. I think he’s someone that approaches policy issues and says, ‘What’s going to work? What’s going to work for the American people?’ ” Schlapp said.Īnd Trump made clear during the campaign that that is how he would operate.Īssailed by his campaign rivals for lacking an ideological core, Trump responded by holding up his pragmatism and lack of ideological grounding as an asset. “I just don’t think he’s someone that approaches things by saying what ‘s our philosophical basis. Schlapp insisted Trump is guided by a core set of principles – for example, that US economic interests and national security interests are interconnected – but conceded that Trump is not ideologically driven. Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, said he would call Trump a “practical conservative.” “Philosophically, he is an entrepreneur,” Gingrich added. “And he operates within that model all the time.” “Anti-left, anti-PC, anti-stupidity and very passionately American,” Gingrich said. Trump has touted himself as a conservative time and again, but he’s often taken action to support conservative causes more out of political obligation than deep-rooted belief.īut after 100 days of Trump, Republicans also can’t seem to agree what Trumpism means and what ideology he is most closely aligned with.įormer House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an ally of Trump’s, rattled off a list of positions he felt best described Trump’s ideology when asked. “I’m a nationalist and a globalist,” he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview on Thursday. It was a moment that highlighted the ideological inconsistencies within the rungs of his top advisers – a mix of nationalists and globalists, conservatives and moderates – and the influence of those advisers on a president who prides himself on pragmatism more than ideology.īut rather than shirking away from the contradictions, Trump is embracing them. Trump has yet to formally launch the process to restart talks with Canada and Mexico over NAFTA and presented this week with the option of making a bold declaration of his intention to withdraw from the trade deal altogether, Trump retreated. He’s broken with the anti-interventionist views of his campaign by launching a strike against the Syrian regime while affirming that he doesn’t see a role for the US in Libya.Īnd while he’s taken a series of executive actions to implement the populist trade agenda at the core of his campaign, he’s held back on delivering the biggest blows to the free trade economy he has so vigorously demonized – from taking major action against Chinese trade abuses to renegotiating or withdrawing from NAFTA. On the world stage, Trump’s foreign policy actions have been inconsistent.
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