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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
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On June 12 2018 01:22 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2018 23:37 Plansix wrote:After one White House adviser said there was "a special place in hell" for foreign leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and another said Trudeau "stabbed us in the back," Canadian leaders offered a measured — even polite — response. "Canada does not believe that ad hominem attacks are a particularly appropriate or useful way to conduct our relations with other countries," said Canadian foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland, according to the Toronto Star. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland: "Canada does not believe that ad hominem attacks are a particularly appropriate or useful way to conduct our relations with other countries." — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 10, 2018 The foreign affairs minister spoke to reporters in Ottawa and offered a markedly different tone from the attacks lobbed at Canada, one of the United States' closest allies, this weekend by President Trump and other members of his administration. Tensions have been building between the two countries for months, as President Trump has targeted Canada as one of the many countries he sees as giving American the short end of the stick in trade deals. Trump announced yesterday he was backing out of a joint statement made by the countries that attended this weekend's G-7 Summit in Canada, after Trudeau gave a press conference in which he said Canada planned to retaliate against the Trump administration's recently-announced tariffs that will commence July 1. "I have made it clear to [President Trump] that it is not something we relish doing, but it is something that we absolutely will do," Trudeau said. "Canadians — we're polite, we're reasonable — but we also will not be pushed around." Larry Kudlow, who is the director of the National Economic Council, appeared Sunday on CNN's State of the Union to defend Trump's decision to back out of the joint communique made at the end of the summit. The statement was a declaration of shared values and goals by the seven countries — the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Japan — that attended. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “stabbed us in the back” #CNNSOTU https://t.co/ASsMQJXmjn https://t.co/cpPfpwfzpz— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 10, 2018 "[Trudeau] really kind of stabbed us in the back," Kudlow said. "He did a whole disservice to the whole G-7." In a tweet posted Saturday evening, Trump said his decision to rescind support for the statement was based on "false statements" made by Trudeau during a press conference he gave, as well as "the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs" on U.S. companies. Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2018 On Fox News Sunday, White House Director of Trade Policy Peter Navarro also defended the president with adversarial language. "There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door," Navarro said. "And that's what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference. That's what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did. And that comes right from Air Force One." Trump left Quebec before the G-7 summit had ended to head to Singapore, ahead of a highly anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a longtime foe of the United States. Kudlow said on CNN that Trump's reaction to Trudeau's comments has been "in large part" because he does not want "any show of weakness" ahead of that meeting. "Kim must not see American weakness," Kudlow said. "[Trudeau] can't put Trump in a position of being weak going into the North Korean talks with Kim. He can't do that." The Star reports that "There is no obvious precedent for White House officials publicly slamming a Canadian prime minister in such personal terms": While other presidents and prime ministers have had testy relations — president Richard Nixon famously used a profane word, behind closed doors, to refer to Trudeau's father Pierre Trudeau, also in the context of trade talks — neither side has demonstrated this level of animosity since John Diefenbaker feuded with John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s. After Kudlow's comments, Trump added to his string of criticisms against Canada in a series of tweets on Sunday night. "Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal," he tweeted. "According to a Canada release, they make almost 100 Billion Dollars in Trade with U.S. (guess they were bragging and got caught!). Minimum is 17B. Tax Dairy from us at 270%. Then Justin acts hurt when called out!" He also asked why he should allow countries to amass "Massive Trade Surpluses, as they have for decades, while our Farmers, Workers & Taxpayers have such a big and unfair price to pay? Not fair to the PEOPLE of America!" He cited "a $800 Billion Trade Deficit" for the U.S., a number he's touted several times. Trump says the U.S. "protects Europe" and "pays close to the entire cost of NATO." The president concluded his tweetstorm by saying, "Sorry, we cannot let our friends, or enemies, take advantage of us on Trade anymore. We must put the American worker first!" Canada is less than thrilled with Trumps constant attacks and misplaced grievance against them. Especially when a lot of his complaints were being haggled out through the TPP. But more importantly, this is the most overt outward aggression against our neighbor in nearly 50 years. Even Nixon could keep this shit behind closed doors. And I saw the first real life impact of the tariffs this weekend. At a baptism we talked with a friend who is a construction foreman. He was telling us that a lot of their clients considering holding near future projects until they see how tariffs impact material costs. He is not a fan of these steel tariffs at all because it making his client’s worried about unknown costs that used to be predictable. This is very true, raising costs are never great but as long as you know them you can make your contract or bid reflect them. The unknown is awful because you can win the bid and lose tons of money. Or way over bid and both lose the bid and have people think you are out to lunch expensive. There are very few Canadians that are pro trump or are not getting more and more frustrated with him. You may see the occasional poster who supports him but the vast majority are getting VERY frustrated. We have a long history of getting a long and despite many people being opposed to free trade on both sides when it was proposed I think now 95% of economists have come to the conclusion that it was a win for both countries. The frustrating thing with Trump is you never know who he is going to turn his rage on next. And whether or not he will do anything or it is just bluster. The lack of certainty is not good for anyone.
There was an article/poll from a week or so ago that I saw but cannot find on the support Trudeau has for his current stance on the trade deals. It was 80+% across the board, from liberal, ndp and conservative supporters.
Popular opinion is strongly on Trudeau's side.
I'm trust that Canada and EU combined will shit on Trump. He literally is trying to crash the world economy on his own.
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Article about the 'Trump doctrine' with foreign policy, if there is any. Senior officials describe it in several ways: 'No Friends No Enemies' , 'Permanent destabilization creates American advantage' and last but not least: 'We're America, Bitch'
Who would have known Matt Stone and Trey Parker of Southpark fame would turn out to be such influential policy makers. First 'Blame Canada' now this...
Though to be honest the first two are more saddening. There seems to be no intent left to be friendly with allied countries anymore. Shared values are dead. I wonder what they see to gain with this. Do they really believe it will make the US stronger if they stand alone? Isn't part of the US world power the access to a large amount of military bases in allied countries? Or do they mean advantage in that if every country dislikes the US, it will be an easier climate to implement a far-reaching nationalist agenda?
I guess it was already known that Trump adheres to no values, but to see it in action as an administration with officials flaming allied countries, without cause other than destabilization, is still very difficult.
The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.
Full:
+ Show Spoiler +A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’
The president believes that the United States owes nothing to anyone—especially its allies.
Many of Donald Trump’s critics find it difficult to ascribe to a president they consider to be both subliterate and historically insensate a foreign-policy doctrine that approaches coherence. A Trump Doctrine would require evidence of Trump Thought, and proof of such thinking, the argument goes, is scant. This view is informed in part by feelings of condescension, but it is not meritless. Barack Obama, whose foreign-policy doctrine I studied in depth, was cerebral to a fault; the man who succeeded him is perhaps the most glandular president in American history. Unlike Obama, Trump possesses no ability to explain anything resembling a foreign-policy philosophy. But this does not mean that he is without ideas.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve asked a number of people close to the president to provide me with short descriptions of what might constitute the Trump Doctrine. I’ve been trying, as part of a larger project, to understand the revolutionary nature of Trump’s approach to world affairs. This task became even more interesting over the weekend, when Trump made his most ambitious move yet to dismantle the U.S.-led Western alliance; it becomes more interesting still as Trump launches, without preparation or baseline knowledge, a complicated nuclear negotiation with a fanatical and bizarre regime that quite possibly has his number.
Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.”
Wright was prophetic. Trump’s actions these past weeks, and my conversations with administration officials and friends and associates of Trump, suggest that the president will be acting on his beliefs in a more urgent, and focused, way than he did in the first year of his presidency, and that the pace of potentially cataclysmic disruption will quicken in the coming days. And so, understanding Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine is more urgent than ever.
The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.”
“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege. To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of foreign and national-security policy, “We’re America, Bitch” would be understood as self-isolating, and self-sabotaging.
I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot?
But what is mainly interesting about “We’re America, Bitch” is its delusional quality. Donald Trump is pursuing policies that undermine the Western alliance, empower Russia and China, and demoralize freedom-seeking people around the world. The United States could be made weaker—perhaps permanently—by the implementation of the Trump Doctrine.
The administration officials, and friends of Trump, I’ve spoken with in recent days believe the opposite: that Trump is rebuilding American power after an eight-year period of willful dissipation. “People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.”
source
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Sessions is changing the rules for asylum seekers saying gang violence is no longer a valid reason for asylum. This Sessions using his power to allow him to deport more people quickly. He is on a singular path deport as many people crossing the border for whatever reason, even if going home me means those people and their families die.
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On June 12 2018 05:39 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1006267120638922752Sessions is changing the rules for asylum seekers saying gang violence is no longer a valid reason for asylum. This Sessions using his power to allow him to deport more people quickly. He is on a singular path deport as many people crossing the border for whatever reason, even if going home me means those people and their families die.
Humanitarian concerns aside, this seems quite unsurprising.
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On June 12 2018 05:46 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2018 05:39 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1006267120638922752Sessions is changing the rules for asylum seekers saying gang violence is no longer a valid reason for asylum. This Sessions using his power to allow him to deport more people quickly. He is on a singular path deport as many people crossing the border for whatever reason, even if going home me means those people and their families die. Humanitarian concerns aside, this seems quite unsurprising.
This on top of the charging everyone who crosses the border with a crime, even if they are seeking asylum, pushing the immigration courts to move at a break neck pace and the general behavior of ICE all adds up to a system that is going to make mistakes, hurt people and loses track of them. US citizens, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants will all suffer.
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On June 12 2018 05:53 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2018 05:46 iamthedave wrote:On June 12 2018 05:39 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1006267120638922752Sessions is changing the rules for asylum seekers saying gang violence is no longer a valid reason for asylum. This Sessions using his power to allow him to deport more people quickly. He is on a singular path deport as many people crossing the border for whatever reason, even if going home me means those people and their families die. Humanitarian concerns aside, this seems quite unsurprising. This on top of the charging everyone who crosses the border with a crime, even if they are seeking asylum, pushing the immigration courts to move at a break neck pace and the general behavior of ICE all adds up to a system that is going to make mistakes, hurt people and loses track of them. US citizens, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants will all suffer.
So far as I can tell, this is pretty much what Trump's voters wanted. So they're coming out of this with a grin on their face, even if they have no concept of the damage they're causing. The important question is whether the rest of the US is going to respond when it's time for elections. And if there's even anybody we can vote in who will do something about it.
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It's definitely already affecting people with these tarifs. I have a friend who's dad is a big contractor, and has had his projects delayed due to clients pausing to see how much material will cost with new tarifs, and if it's worth even moving forward anymore. Mind you, my friends dad is a trump supporter, who believes Trump isn't hurting his business, although half of his clients paused work.... They're blind.
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On June 12 2018 06:01 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2018 05:53 Plansix wrote:On June 12 2018 05:46 iamthedave wrote:On June 12 2018 05:39 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1006267120638922752Sessions is changing the rules for asylum seekers saying gang violence is no longer a valid reason for asylum. This Sessions using his power to allow him to deport more people quickly. He is on a singular path deport as many people crossing the border for whatever reason, even if going home me means those people and their families die. Humanitarian concerns aside, this seems quite unsurprising. This on top of the charging everyone who crosses the border with a crime, even if they are seeking asylum, pushing the immigration courts to move at a break neck pace and the general behavior of ICE all adds up to a system that is going to make mistakes, hurt people and loses track of them. US citizens, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants will all suffer. So far as I can tell, this is pretty much what Trump's voters wanted. So they're coming out of this with a grin on their face, even if they have no concept of the damage they're causing. The important question is whether the rest of the US is going to respond when it's time for elections. And if there's even anybody we can vote in who will do something about it.
Remember though, the Republican party is pro-life, and strongly endorses the idea that All Lives Matter. /s
I don't want to say Orwellian doublethink, but to square what Republican officials like to present themselves as (pro life, all lives matter, rule of law, etc.) with what Republican officials actually do requires something that really is best described as Orwellian doublethink.
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On June 12 2018 06:45 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2018 06:01 NewSunshine wrote:On June 12 2018 05:53 Plansix wrote:On June 12 2018 05:46 iamthedave wrote:On June 12 2018 05:39 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1006267120638922752Sessions is changing the rules for asylum seekers saying gang violence is no longer a valid reason for asylum. This Sessions using his power to allow him to deport more people quickly. He is on a singular path deport as many people crossing the border for whatever reason, even if going home me means those people and their families die. Humanitarian concerns aside, this seems quite unsurprising. This on top of the charging everyone who crosses the border with a crime, even if they are seeking asylum, pushing the immigration courts to move at a break neck pace and the general behavior of ICE all adds up to a system that is going to make mistakes, hurt people and loses track of them. US citizens, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants will all suffer. So far as I can tell, this is pretty much what Trump's voters wanted. So they're coming out of this with a grin on their face, even if they have no concept of the damage they're causing. The important question is whether the rest of the US is going to respond when it's time for elections. And if there's even anybody we can vote in who will do something about it. Remember though, the Republican party is pro-life, and strongly endorses the idea that All Lives Matter. /s I don't want to say Orwellian doublethink, but to square what Republican officials like to present themselves as (pro life, all lives matter, rule of law, etc.) with what Republican officials actually do requires something that really is best described as Orwellian doublethink.
Unborn lives matter. What happens afterwards they're somewhat less concerned about. Unless they're born rich.
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The main problem with for the illegal immigrant population is that they can't vote and the people fighting for them don't rally voters. But the group that wants them deported and the border on full lockdown votes every god damn election. There will never be immigration reform until it becomes a serious issue for Democrats that drives people to the polls. Given the behavior of ICE, that might start to happen in some minorities communities. But we will have to wait a while to find out.
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On June 12 2018 07:00 Plansix wrote:
The main problem with for the illegal immigrant population is that they can't vote and the people fighting for them don't rally voters. But the group that wants them deported and the border on full lockdown votes every god damn election. There will never be immigration reform until it becomes a serious issue for Democrats that drives people to the polls. Given the behavior of ICE, that might start to happen in some minorities communities. But we will have to wait a while to find out.
Should they have instead rallied to vote for the person who said we need to send kids back to warzones to "send a message" to their parents?
Treating immigrants/refugees terribly has bipartisan support. Hell Democrats are telling people to vote for someone who supported Trump's immigration plan.
There are people who care deeply about this stuff and would go to the polls, they just have no one to vote for and a Democrat party that wants to keep it that way.
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On June 12 2018 05:38 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Article about the 'Trump doctrine' with foreign policy, if there is any. Senior officials describe it in several ways: 'No Friends No Enemies' , 'Permanent destabilization creates American advantage' and last but not least: 'We're America, Bitch'
Who would have known Matt Stone and Trey Parker of Southpark fame would turn out to be such influential policy makers. First 'Blame Canada' now this... Though to be honest the first two are more saddening. There seems to be no intent left to be friendly with allied countries anymore. Shared values are dead. I wonder what they see to gain with this. Do they really believe it will make the US stronger if they stand alone? Isn't part of the US world power the access to a large amount of military bases in allied countries? Or do they mean advantage in that if every country dislikes the US, it will be an easier climate to implement a far-reaching nationalist agenda? I guess it was already known that Trump adheres to no values, but to see it in action as an administration with officials flaming allied countries, without cause other than destabilization, is still very difficult. Show nested quote +The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it. Full: + Show Spoiler +A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’
The president believes that the United States owes nothing to anyone—especially its allies.
Many of Donald Trump’s critics find it difficult to ascribe to a president they consider to be both subliterate and historically insensate a foreign-policy doctrine that approaches coherence. A Trump Doctrine would require evidence of Trump Thought, and proof of such thinking, the argument goes, is scant. This view is informed in part by feelings of condescension, but it is not meritless. Barack Obama, whose foreign-policy doctrine I studied in depth, was cerebral to a fault; the man who succeeded him is perhaps the most glandular president in American history. Unlike Obama, Trump possesses no ability to explain anything resembling a foreign-policy philosophy. But this does not mean that he is without ideas.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve asked a number of people close to the president to provide me with short descriptions of what might constitute the Trump Doctrine. I’ve been trying, as part of a larger project, to understand the revolutionary nature of Trump’s approach to world affairs. This task became even more interesting over the weekend, when Trump made his most ambitious move yet to dismantle the U.S.-led Western alliance; it becomes more interesting still as Trump launches, without preparation or baseline knowledge, a complicated nuclear negotiation with a fanatical and bizarre regime that quite possibly has his number.
Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.”
Wright was prophetic. Trump’s actions these past weeks, and my conversations with administration officials and friends and associates of Trump, suggest that the president will be acting on his beliefs in a more urgent, and focused, way than he did in the first year of his presidency, and that the pace of potentially cataclysmic disruption will quicken in the coming days. And so, understanding Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine is more urgent than ever.
The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.”
“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege. To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of foreign and national-security policy, “We’re America, Bitch” would be understood as self-isolating, and self-sabotaging.
I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot?
But what is mainly interesting about “We’re America, Bitch” is its delusional quality. Donald Trump is pursuing policies that undermine the Western alliance, empower Russia and China, and demoralize freedom-seeking people around the world. The United States could be made weaker—perhaps permanently—by the implementation of the Trump Doctrine.
The administration officials, and friends of Trump, I’ve spoken with in recent days believe the opposite: that Trump is rebuilding American power after an eight-year period of willful dissipation. “People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.”
This was a decent article. Good read. Or I should say a thought-provoking read.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
This is a pretty mainline justification. Obama went on apology tours expressing his regrets of past American actions and attitudes. Mitt Romney, to his credit, made reference to them in his campaign against Obama. Well, some of us are tired about our presidents going abroad to speak of everything America's done that he thinks is blameworthy to conduct foreign policies. To quote another,
Yes, President Obama again found a way to blame the United States for another country’s problems, while visiting that country. He started taking “apology tours” early on in his administration, and he apparently means to keep the tradition going till the end. With the president’s visit to Havana, Cuba, that tour has come full circle. In response to a question about Cuba’s human rights policies during a joint news conference, Cuban President Raul Castro criticized the United States for what he asserted was America’s violation of human rights. Mr. Castro engaged in a form of moral equivalency when he asserted that the denial of health care and education for all and “equal pay” for women was somehow similar to the jailing of political dissidents. Mr. Castro claimed Cuba pays women the same as men. Yes, and it is called equally shared poverty, which is a good definition of the communist form of government and its economic policies.
In response to this smear, President Obama said, “I personally would not disagree with him.” Score another propaganda victory for communist Cuba.
“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian.
If anybody needs a reminder to why Trump was elected, please refer to the author feeling the need to include that the phrase "We're America, Bitch" is an example of "casual misogyny."
I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot?
This is such an epic hedge. After attempting an epic take-down of everything America in American foreign policy under Trump, he yields that it's just a difference in it's applicability in this case.
He says "self-confidence." It's really "America's foreign policy goals should serve America's interests." The thought is that we've lost sight of that in all our diplomacy. Incidental benefit to the United States is not a sufficient ground to give approval to alliances, trades, military partnerships, and the rest. NATO was a good example. We're helped in restraining a geopolitical rival, Russia. That does not justify indefinite continuance despite allies not contributing even the guideline 2% GDP. It show that acting in collective self-interest is slang for America acting in a greater collective's self interest.
This is mostly xDaunt's area of expertise in arguing, but I'll try my hand. Trump is an overreaction to a general fault in foreign policy circles. America acting in its self interest, even as it includes helping allies since it helps us, has been les majeste in elite circles for some time now. America is "supposed" to instead act according to the agreed upon ethics and morals of the international community. This occurs alongside members of the international community acting in their own self-interest, but providing lame excuses to why it's really their ethical and moral duty to act in the way they do. Elites smile and nod, knowing exactly the game that's being played. Trump mobilized a section of voters a little pissed off at America-last foreign policy, and in true Trumpian fashion has been very imperfectly executing their demands. His trade policy does not serve an America-first foreign policy, and needlessly pisses off allies. His current approach to the Iran deal does. Last year's approach to North Korea (rocket man) does (we're in the middle of talks right now, so no clue currently). Requesting more sharing of cost in NATO does. Corporation tax cuts, in so far as they encourage a competitive tax environment among foreign countries, does. His approach to Israel, a steadfast American ally, does advance American interests. Basically, 'We're America, bitch" only holds power as far as other nations/the international community presume they can treat America and her interests as a bitch.
The solution is admitting just how much Americans want their foreign policy to serve America. Show tariffs hurt our economy. Show we can partner with allies on many aspects of common interest, while also standing up to them in sane, polite ways when they pursue courses that hurt our domestic and foreign interests. Stand up to them when they demean our ally Israel and befriend the terrorist regime Hamas. Then who the hell has patience for Trump's insanity? There's then no point in having the bull in the china shop that America-firsts his way about in a destructive fashion, doing more to piss off other nations unnecessarily than project clear vision and goals.
Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.”
Trump's always whined about unfair trade deals in Buchanan-like fashion. To that extent, he has a comprehensible worldview on trade. But Trump on foreign policy is an exercise in trusting his gut instinct to guide him in what's best for America. It's a poor guide. I hope his advisers are able to teach Trump what's a good deal and what's a bad deal at the North Korean summit. The best example that this might occur is that Trump agreed to meet with North Korea after very publicly calling the meeting off.
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On June 12 2018 07:33 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2018 05:38 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Article about the 'Trump doctrine' with foreign policy, if there is any. Senior officials describe it in several ways: 'No Friends No Enemies' , 'Permanent destabilization creates American advantage' and last but not least: 'We're America, Bitch'
Who would have known Matt Stone and Trey Parker of Southpark fame would turn out to be such influential policy makers. First 'Blame Canada' now this... Though to be honest the first two are more saddening. There seems to be no intent left to be friendly with allied countries anymore. Shared values are dead. I wonder what they see to gain with this. Do they really believe it will make the US stronger if they stand alone? Isn't part of the US world power the access to a large amount of military bases in allied countries? Or do they mean advantage in that if every country dislikes the US, it will be an easier climate to implement a far-reaching nationalist agenda? I guess it was already known that Trump adheres to no values, but to see it in action as an administration with officials flaming allied countries, without cause other than destabilization, is still very difficult. The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it. Full: + Show Spoiler +A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’
The president believes that the United States owes nothing to anyone—especially its allies.
Many of Donald Trump’s critics find it difficult to ascribe to a president they consider to be both subliterate and historically insensate a foreign-policy doctrine that approaches coherence. A Trump Doctrine would require evidence of Trump Thought, and proof of such thinking, the argument goes, is scant. This view is informed in part by feelings of condescension, but it is not meritless. Barack Obama, whose foreign-policy doctrine I studied in depth, was cerebral to a fault; the man who succeeded him is perhaps the most glandular president in American history. Unlike Obama, Trump possesses no ability to explain anything resembling a foreign-policy philosophy. But this does not mean that he is without ideas.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve asked a number of people close to the president to provide me with short descriptions of what might constitute the Trump Doctrine. I’ve been trying, as part of a larger project, to understand the revolutionary nature of Trump’s approach to world affairs. This task became even more interesting over the weekend, when Trump made his most ambitious move yet to dismantle the U.S.-led Western alliance; it becomes more interesting still as Trump launches, without preparation or baseline knowledge, a complicated nuclear negotiation with a fanatical and bizarre regime that quite possibly has his number.
Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.”
Wright was prophetic. Trump’s actions these past weeks, and my conversations with administration officials and friends and associates of Trump, suggest that the president will be acting on his beliefs in a more urgent, and focused, way than he did in the first year of his presidency, and that the pace of potentially cataclysmic disruption will quicken in the coming days. And so, understanding Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine is more urgent than ever.
The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.”
“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege. To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of foreign and national-security policy, “We’re America, Bitch” would be understood as self-isolating, and self-sabotaging.
I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot?
But what is mainly interesting about “We’re America, Bitch” is its delusional quality. Donald Trump is pursuing policies that undermine the Western alliance, empower Russia and China, and demoralize freedom-seeking people around the world. The United States could be made weaker—perhaps permanently—by the implementation of the Trump Doctrine.
The administration officials, and friends of Trump, I’ve spoken with in recent days believe the opposite: that Trump is rebuilding American power after an eight-year period of willful dissipation. “People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.” This was a decent article. Good read. Or I should say a thought-provoking read. Show nested quote +I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!” This is a pretty mainline justification. Obama went on apology tours expressing his regrets of past American actions and attitudes. Mitt Romney, to his credit, made reference to them in his campaign against Obama. Well, some of us are tired about our presidents going abroad to speak of everything America's done that he thinks is blameworthy to conduct foreign policies. To quote another, Show nested quote +Yes, President Obama again found a way to blame the United States for another country’s problems, while visiting that country. He started taking “apology tours” early on in his administration, and he apparently means to keep the tradition going till the end. Show nested quote +With the president’s visit to Havana, Cuba, that tour has come full circle. In response to a question about Cuba’s human rights policies during a joint news conference, Cuban President Raul Castro criticized the United States for what he asserted was America’s violation of human rights. Mr. Castro engaged in a form of moral equivalency when he asserted that the denial of health care and education for all and “equal pay” for women was somehow similar to the jailing of political dissidents. Mr. Castro claimed Cuba pays women the same as men. Yes, and it is called equally shared poverty, which is a good definition of the communist form of government and its economic policies.
In response to this smear, President Obama said, “I personally would not disagree with him.” Score another propaganda victory for communist Cuba.
Show nested quote +“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. If anybody needs a reminder to why Trump was elected, please refer to the author feeling the need to include that the phrase "We're America, Bitch" is an example of "casual misogyny." Show nested quote +I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot? This is such an epic hedge. After attempting an epic take-down of everything America in American foreign policy under Trump, he yields that it's just a difference in it's applicability in this case. He says "self-confidence." It's really "America's foreign policy goals should serve America's interests." The thought is that we've lost sight of that in all our diplomacy. Incidental benefit to the United States is not a sufficient ground to give approval to alliances, trades, military partnerships, and the rest. NATO was a good example. We're helped in restraining a geopolitical rival, Russia. That does not justify indefinite continuance despite allies not contributing even the guideline 2% GDP. It show that acting in collective self-interest is slang for America acting in a greater collective's self interest. This is mostly xDaunt's area of expertise in arguing, but I'll try my hand. Trump is an overreaction to a general fault in foreign policy circles. America acting in its self interest, even as it includes helping allies since it helps us, has been les majeste in elite circles for some time now. America is "supposed" to instead act according to the agreed upon ethics and morals of the international community. This occurs alongside members of the international community acting in their own self-interest, but providing lame excuses to why it's really their ethical and moral duty to act in the way they do. Elites smile and nod, knowing exactly the game that's being played. Trump mobilized a section of voters a little pissed off at America-last foreign policy, and in true Trumpian fashion has been very imperfectly executing their demands. His trade policy does not serve an America-first foreign policy, and needlessly pisses off allies. His current approach to the Iran deal does. Last year's approach to North Korea (rocket man) does (we're in the middle of talks right now, so no clue currently). Requesting more sharing of cost in NATO does. Corporation tax cuts, in so far as they encourage a competitive tax environment among foreign countries, does. His approach to Israel, a steadfast American ally, does advance American interests. Basically, 'We're America, bitch" only holds power as far as other nations/the international community presume they can treat America and her interests as a bitch. The solution is admitting just how much Americans want their foreign policy to serve America. Show tariffs hurt our economy. Show we can partner with allies on many aspects of common interest, while also standing up to them in sane, polite ways when they pursue courses that hurt our domestic and foreign interests. Stand up to them when they demean our ally Israel and befriend the terrorist regime Hamas. Then who the hell has patience for Trump's insanity? There's then no point in having the bull in the china shop that America-firsts his way about in a destructive fashion, doing more to piss off other nations unnecessarily than project clear vision and goals.
Show nested quote +Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.” Trump's always whined about unfair trade deals in Buchanan-like fashion. To that extent, he has a comprehensible worldview on trade. But Trump on foreign policy is an exercise in trusting his gut instinct to guide him in what's best for America. It's a poor guide. I hope his advisers are able to teach Trump what's a good deal and what's a bad deal at the North Korean summit. The best example that this might occur is that Trump agreed to meet with North Korea after very publicly calling the meeting off.
I don't have much to complain about in this lot.
I think the problem arises from America formerly claiming to be the leader of the free world. That's where being expected to abide by the agreed-upon standards of international ethics comes in. You could say America was the west's President, in a way.
So long as you, and Americans as a whole, are fine with ceding that position and lowering down to being just another nation slugging it out, then that's cool.
The problem arises when America/Americans/Trump expect American exceptionalism to be honored by anyone that isn't American at the end of all this. Because absolutely, I'm not going to complain about America serving its own interests first. You can argue about whether all of this is good for America long-term. Potentially damaging long-standing diplomatic treaties both economic and military for no apparent gain strikes me as dangerous for no real reason. But maybe the risk is worth it. Fine.
But the end of this whole period of politics seems inevitably to be the rise of China and America's fall, maybe even the fall of the West as the dominant political entity on the world stage. Because once China is ascendant, we're all going to end up following its lead. Maybe the US won't. But it'll turn into a lonely world if it's just the US, Britain and Russia while everyone else is forming some sort of economic pact with China and the tiger economies due to the US's policy of 'FUCK EVERYONE ELSE'.
Which is admittedly succinct, but not the most welcoming.
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On June 11 2018 11:51 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2018 03:59 BigFan wrote:
I'm glad that Trudeau is sticking with it rather than bending over. The statements made by Trump's advisor are freaking ridiculous and stupid as hell. They actually expect Canada to just take the tariffs and be quiet? Won't happen. What's interesting is that this is precisely the position of Europe and Canada on many issues. The United States should just take Germany and other European countries not living up to their NATO treaty obligations and be quiet. The United States should just take tariffs and other uncompetitive trade policies from Canada and Germany etc. and be quiet. I have yet to actually see an argument that the trade policies Trump complains about aren't unfair, instead it is just outrage that he would even dare express displeasure with them. The double standard is quite impressive. The simple fact is that weak countries (in relation to the United States) have been acting for decades in certain areas of relations like they are strong countries. Their entitled leaders have reacted quite hysterically to the government of the United States, the stronger country, being unwilling unwilling at the moment to let that continue, and showing willingness to use its superior strength to change the situation. I certainly understand their position, they've had a very good deal from the United States, generally speaking, since the war. If I were them I wouldn't want things to change. But they are making a rather large miscalculation if they think their current course will succeed.
yep, that's true. I guess i'm aware that people find the phrase "trade war" exciting but the sanctions & tariffs are meant to spur discussion & get the economy moving in a certain direction, hopefully a positive direction. The economy isn't a science necessarily, so sometimes it isn't entirely clear what is going to galvanize economic development & get people off of their heels & on to their feet. The EU alliance has been moribund for years but they are "settled" economically & are on reasonably firm ground in terms of their standards of living & so forth. I suppose the EU could be more assertive in their foreign policy but probably don't want to become too "militant" so they probably won't.
I believe that the purpose of the tariffs was that people would become more patriotic with their purchases of consumer goods, & companies would choose their clients, including their favorites & excluding everyone who isn't one of their favorites. That stirs up some nationalist fervor & people now feel a little more connected to their homelands. Trump does know his stuff on the business side and does target "enemies of the US". The real story going on is that "THE ECONOMY" is a mystery to most people except business people who do that sort of thing for a living (& probably don't want to share that information with the world at large) & it isn't clear what levers have what aeffects sometimes. Generally the president is trying to encourage business people to do work but isn't allowed to get too involved in the business world directly due to his position as head of the free world. A successful example of government intervention in the economy that did work in the past is a US gov't-funded tutoring program for "at-risk" schools in south Phoenix near ASU that raised youth test scores by 15%. That program lasted for a duration of two years.
I don't forsee a lot of progress being made at the US - NK trade talks. Rather I see sort of a reinforcement of the status quo and possibly some sort of token de-escalation & de-nuclearization effort that probably doesn't amount to much. That's a bummer. The Camp David Accords which were ratified in 1978 by Jimmy Carter were a watershed moment in the politics of that conflict-riddled neighborhood called the middle east, although they probably didn't have that much impact on US politics beyond a few newspaper articles & changing some signs around town. I hope that these US-NK accords are in that basic frame, but with a more lasting impact.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/north-korea-summit-do-not-expect-good-deal/
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On June 12 2018 08:27 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2018 07:33 Danglars wrote:On June 12 2018 05:38 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Article about the 'Trump doctrine' with foreign policy, if there is any. Senior officials describe it in several ways: 'No Friends No Enemies' , 'Permanent destabilization creates American advantage' and last but not least: 'We're America, Bitch'
Who would have known Matt Stone and Trey Parker of Southpark fame would turn out to be such influential policy makers. First 'Blame Canada' now this... Though to be honest the first two are more saddening. There seems to be no intent left to be friendly with allied countries anymore. Shared values are dead. I wonder what they see to gain with this. Do they really believe it will make the US stronger if they stand alone? Isn't part of the US world power the access to a large amount of military bases in allied countries? Or do they mean advantage in that if every country dislikes the US, it will be an easier climate to implement a far-reaching nationalist agenda? I guess it was already known that Trump adheres to no values, but to see it in action as an administration with officials flaming allied countries, without cause other than destabilization, is still very difficult. The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it. Full: + Show Spoiler +A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’
The president believes that the United States owes nothing to anyone—especially its allies.
Many of Donald Trump’s critics find it difficult to ascribe to a president they consider to be both subliterate and historically insensate a foreign-policy doctrine that approaches coherence. A Trump Doctrine would require evidence of Trump Thought, and proof of such thinking, the argument goes, is scant. This view is informed in part by feelings of condescension, but it is not meritless. Barack Obama, whose foreign-policy doctrine I studied in depth, was cerebral to a fault; the man who succeeded him is perhaps the most glandular president in American history. Unlike Obama, Trump possesses no ability to explain anything resembling a foreign-policy philosophy. But this does not mean that he is without ideas.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve asked a number of people close to the president to provide me with short descriptions of what might constitute the Trump Doctrine. I’ve been trying, as part of a larger project, to understand the revolutionary nature of Trump’s approach to world affairs. This task became even more interesting over the weekend, when Trump made his most ambitious move yet to dismantle the U.S.-led Western alliance; it becomes more interesting still as Trump launches, without preparation or baseline knowledge, a complicated nuclear negotiation with a fanatical and bizarre regime that quite possibly has his number.
Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.”
Wright was prophetic. Trump’s actions these past weeks, and my conversations with administration officials and friends and associates of Trump, suggest that the president will be acting on his beliefs in a more urgent, and focused, way than he did in the first year of his presidency, and that the pace of potentially cataclysmic disruption will quicken in the coming days. And so, understanding Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine is more urgent than ever.
The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.”
“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege. To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of foreign and national-security policy, “We’re America, Bitch” would be understood as self-isolating, and self-sabotaging.
I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot?
But what is mainly interesting about “We’re America, Bitch” is its delusional quality. Donald Trump is pursuing policies that undermine the Western alliance, empower Russia and China, and demoralize freedom-seeking people around the world. The United States could be made weaker—perhaps permanently—by the implementation of the Trump Doctrine.
The administration officials, and friends of Trump, I’ve spoken with in recent days believe the opposite: that Trump is rebuilding American power after an eight-year period of willful dissipation. “People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.” This was a decent article. Good read. Or I should say a thought-provoking read. I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!” This is a pretty mainline justification. Obama went on apology tours expressing his regrets of past American actions and attitudes. Mitt Romney, to his credit, made reference to them in his campaign against Obama. Well, some of us are tired about our presidents going abroad to speak of everything America's done that he thinks is blameworthy to conduct foreign policies. To quote another, Yes, President Obama again found a way to blame the United States for another country’s problems, while visiting that country. He started taking “apology tours” early on in his administration, and he apparently means to keep the tradition going till the end. With the president’s visit to Havana, Cuba, that tour has come full circle. In response to a question about Cuba’s human rights policies during a joint news conference, Cuban President Raul Castro criticized the United States for what he asserted was America’s violation of human rights. Mr. Castro engaged in a form of moral equivalency when he asserted that the denial of health care and education for all and “equal pay” for women was somehow similar to the jailing of political dissidents. Mr. Castro claimed Cuba pays women the same as men. Yes, and it is called equally shared poverty, which is a good definition of the communist form of government and its economic policies.
In response to this smear, President Obama said, “I personally would not disagree with him.” Score another propaganda victory for communist Cuba.
“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. If anybody needs a reminder to why Trump was elected, please refer to the author feeling the need to include that the phrase "We're America, Bitch" is an example of "casual misogyny." I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot? This is such an epic hedge. After attempting an epic take-down of everything America in American foreign policy under Trump, he yields that it's just a difference in it's applicability in this case. He says "self-confidence." It's really "America's foreign policy goals should serve America's interests." The thought is that we've lost sight of that in all our diplomacy. Incidental benefit to the United States is not a sufficient ground to give approval to alliances, trades, military partnerships, and the rest. NATO was a good example. We're helped in restraining a geopolitical rival, Russia. That does not justify indefinite continuance despite allies not contributing even the guideline 2% GDP. It show that acting in collective self-interest is slang for America acting in a greater collective's self interest. This is mostly xDaunt's area of expertise in arguing, but I'll try my hand. Trump is an overreaction to a general fault in foreign policy circles. America acting in its self interest, even as it includes helping allies since it helps us, has been les majeste in elite circles for some time now. America is "supposed" to instead act according to the agreed upon ethics and morals of the international community. This occurs alongside members of the international community acting in their own self-interest, but providing lame excuses to why it's really their ethical and moral duty to act in the way they do. Elites smile and nod, knowing exactly the game that's being played. Trump mobilized a section of voters a little pissed off at America-last foreign policy, and in true Trumpian fashion has been very imperfectly executing their demands. His trade policy does not serve an America-first foreign policy, and needlessly pisses off allies. His current approach to the Iran deal does. Last year's approach to North Korea (rocket man) does (we're in the middle of talks right now, so no clue currently). Requesting more sharing of cost in NATO does. Corporation tax cuts, in so far as they encourage a competitive tax environment among foreign countries, does. His approach to Israel, a steadfast American ally, does advance American interests. Basically, 'We're America, bitch" only holds power as far as other nations/the international community presume they can treat America and her interests as a bitch. The solution is admitting just how much Americans want their foreign policy to serve America. Show tariffs hurt our economy. Show we can partner with allies on many aspects of common interest, while also standing up to them in sane, polite ways when they pursue courses that hurt our domestic and foreign interests. Stand up to them when they demean our ally Israel and befriend the terrorist regime Hamas. Then who the hell has patience for Trump's insanity? There's then no point in having the bull in the china shop that America-firsts his way about in a destructive fashion, doing more to piss off other nations unnecessarily than project clear vision and goals.
Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.” Trump's always whined about unfair trade deals in Buchanan-like fashion. To that extent, he has a comprehensible worldview on trade. But Trump on foreign policy is an exercise in trusting his gut instinct to guide him in what's best for America. It's a poor guide. I hope his advisers are able to teach Trump what's a good deal and what's a bad deal at the North Korean summit. The best example that this might occur is that Trump agreed to meet with North Korea after very publicly calling the meeting off. I don't have much to complain about in this lot. I think the problem arises from America formerly claiming to be the leader of the free world. That's where being expected to abide by the agreed-upon standards of international ethics comes in. You could say America was the west's President, in a way. So long as you, and Americans as a whole, are fine with ceding that position and lowering down to being just another nation slugging it out, then that's cool. The problem arises when America/Americans/Trump expect American exceptionalism to be honored by anyone that isn't American at the end of all this. Because absolutely, I'm not going to complain about America serving its own interests first. You can argue about whether all of this is good for America long-term. Potentially damaging long-standing diplomatic treaties both economic and military for no apparent gain strikes me as dangerous for no real reason. But maybe the risk is worth it. Fine. But the end of this whole period of politics seems inevitably to be the rise of China and America's fall, maybe even the fall of the West as the dominant political entity on the world stage. Because once China is ascendant, we're all going to end up following its lead. Maybe the US won't. But it'll turn into a lonely world if it's just the US, Britain and Russia while everyone else is forming some sort of economic pact with China and the tiger economies due to the US's policy of 'FUCK EVERYONE ELSE'. Which is admittedly succinct, but not the most welcoming.
The argument sort of falls apart however when Trump seems to be doing things that hurt Americans without any pay off. Attack g our trading patterns over a trade deficit is a big problem, especially when he is going after Canada. Because we have a trade surplus with them.
This is America first through the lens of someone who doesn’t understand trade or basic economics.
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On June 12 2018 08:27 iamthedave wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 12 2018 07:33 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2018 05:38 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Article about the 'Trump doctrine' with foreign policy, if there is any. Senior officials describe it in several ways: 'No Friends No Enemies' , 'Permanent destabilization creates American advantage' and last but not least: 'We're America, Bitch'
Who would have known Matt Stone and Trey Parker of Southpark fame would turn out to be such influential policy makers. First 'Blame Canada' now this... Though to be honest the first two are more saddening. There seems to be no intent left to be friendly with allied countries anymore. Shared values are dead. I wonder what they see to gain with this. Do they really believe it will make the US stronger if they stand alone? Isn't part of the US world power the access to a large amount of military bases in allied countries? Or do they mean advantage in that if every country dislikes the US, it will be an easier climate to implement a far-reaching nationalist agenda? I guess it was already known that Trump adheres to no values, but to see it in action as an administration with officials flaming allied countries, without cause other than destabilization, is still very difficult. The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it. Full: + Show Spoiler +A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’
The president believes that the United States owes nothing to anyone—especially its allies.
Many of Donald Trump’s critics find it difficult to ascribe to a president they consider to be both subliterate and historically insensate a foreign-policy doctrine that approaches coherence. A Trump Doctrine would require evidence of Trump Thought, and proof of such thinking, the argument goes, is scant. This view is informed in part by feelings of condescension, but it is not meritless. Barack Obama, whose foreign-policy doctrine I studied in depth, was cerebral to a fault; the man who succeeded him is perhaps the most glandular president in American history. Unlike Obama, Trump possesses no ability to explain anything resembling a foreign-policy philosophy. But this does not mean that he is without ideas.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve asked a number of people close to the president to provide me with short descriptions of what might constitute the Trump Doctrine. I’ve been trying, as part of a larger project, to understand the revolutionary nature of Trump’s approach to world affairs. This task became even more interesting over the weekend, when Trump made his most ambitious move yet to dismantle the U.S.-led Western alliance; it becomes more interesting still as Trump launches, without preparation or baseline knowledge, a complicated nuclear negotiation with a fanatical and bizarre regime that quite possibly has his number.
Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.”
Wright was prophetic. Trump’s actions these past weeks, and my conversations with administration officials and friends and associates of Trump, suggest that the president will be acting on his beliefs in a more urgent, and focused, way than he did in the first year of his presidency, and that the pace of potentially cataclysmic disruption will quicken in the coming days. And so, understanding Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine is more urgent than ever.
The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.
The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”
The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”
It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.
I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”
“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.”
“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege. To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of foreign and national-security policy, “We’re America, Bitch” would be understood as self-isolating, and self-sabotaging.
I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot?
But what is mainly interesting about “We’re America, Bitch” is its delusional quality. Donald Trump is pursuing policies that undermine the Western alliance, empower Russia and China, and demoralize freedom-seeking people around the world. The United States could be made weaker—perhaps permanently—by the implementation of the Trump Doctrine.
The administration officials, and friends of Trump, I’ve spoken with in recent days believe the opposite: that Trump is rebuilding American power after an eight-year period of willful dissipation. “People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.” This was a decent article. Good read. Or I should say a thought-provoking read. Show nested quote +I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!” This is a pretty mainline justification. Obama went on apology tours expressing his regrets of past American actions and attitudes. Mitt Romney, to his credit, made reference to them in his campaign against Obama. Well, some of us are tired about our presidents going abroad to speak of everything America's done that he thinks is blameworthy to conduct foreign policies. To quote another, Show nested quote +Yes, President Obama again found a way to blame the United States for another country’s problems, while visiting that country. He started taking “apology tours” early on in his administration, and he apparently means to keep the tradition going till the end. Show nested quote +With the president’s visit to Havana, Cuba, that tour has come full circle. In response to a question about Cuba’s human rights policies during a joint news conference, Cuban President Raul Castro criticized the United States for what he asserted was America’s violation of human rights. Mr. Castro engaged in a form of moral equivalency when he asserted that the denial of health care and education for all and “equal pay” for women was somehow similar to the jailing of political dissidents. Mr. Castro claimed Cuba pays women the same as men. Yes, and it is called equally shared poverty, which is a good definition of the communist form of government and its economic policies.
In response to this smear, President Obama said, “I personally would not disagree with him.” Score another propaganda victory for communist Cuba.
Show nested quote +“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. If anybody needs a reminder to why Trump was elected, please refer to the author feeling the need to include that the phrase "We're America, Bitch" is an example of "casual misogyny." Show nested quote +I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot? This is such an epic hedge. After attempting an epic take-down of everything America in American foreign policy under Trump, he yields that it's just a difference in it's applicability in this case. He says "self-confidence." It's really "America's foreign policy goals should serve America's interests." The thought is that we've lost sight of that in all our diplomacy. Incidental benefit to the United States is not a sufficient ground to give approval to alliances, trades, military partnerships, and the rest. NATO was a good example. We're helped in restraining a geopolitical rival, Russia. That does not justify indefinite continuance despite allies not contributing even the guideline 2% GDP. It show that acting in collective self-interest is slang for America acting in a greater collective's self interest. This is mostly xDaunt's area of expertise in arguing, but I'll try my hand. Trump is an overreaction to a general fault in foreign policy circles. America acting in its self interest, even as it includes helping allies since it helps us, has been les majeste in elite circles for some time now. America is "supposed" to instead act according to the agreed upon ethics and morals of the international community. This occurs alongside members of the international community acting in their own self-interest, but providing lame excuses to why it's really their ethical and moral duty to act in the way they do. Elites smile and nod, knowing exactly the game that's being played. Trump mobilized a section of voters a little pissed off at America-last foreign policy, and in true Trumpian fashion has been very imperfectly executing their demands. His trade policy does not serve an America-first foreign policy, and needlessly pisses off allies. His current approach to the Iran deal does. Last year's approach to North Korea (rocket man) does (we're in the middle of talks right now, so no clue currently). Requesting more sharing of cost in NATO does. Corporation tax cuts, in so far as they encourage a competitive tax environment among foreign countries, does. His approach to Israel, a steadfast American ally, does advance American interests. Basically, 'We're America, bitch" only holds power as far as other nations/the international community presume they can treat America and her interests as a bitch. The solution is admitting just how much Americans want their foreign policy to serve America. Show tariffs hurt our economy. Show we can partner with allies on many aspects of common interest, while also standing up to them in sane, polite ways when they pursue courses that hurt our domestic and foreign interests. Stand up to them when they demean our ally Israel and befriend the terrorist regime Hamas. Then who the hell has patience for Trump's insanity? There's then no point in having the bull in the china shop that America-firsts his way about in a destructive fashion, doing more to piss off other nations unnecessarily than project clear vision and goals.
Show nested quote +Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.” Trump's always whined about unfair trade deals in Buchanan-like fashion. To that extent, he has a comprehensible worldview on trade. But Trump on foreign policy is an exercise in trusting his gut instinct to guide him in what's best for America. It's a poor guide. I hope his advisers are able to teach Trump what's a good deal and what's a bad deal at the North Korean summit. The best example that this might occur is that Trump agreed to meet with North Korea after very publicly calling the meeting off. I don't have much to complain about in this lot. I think the problem arises from America formerly claiming to be the leader of the free world. That's where being expected to abide by the agreed-upon standards of international ethics comes in. You could say America was the west's President, in a way. So long as you, and Americans as a whole, are fine with ceding that position and lowering down to being just another nation slugging it out, then that's cool. The problem arises when America/Americans/Trump expect American exceptionalism to be honored by anyone that isn't American at the end of all this. Because absolutely, I'm not going to complain about America serving its own interests first. You can argue about whether all of this is good for America long-term. Potentially damaging long-standing diplomatic treaties both economic and military for no apparent gain strikes me as dangerous for no real reason. But maybe the risk is worth it. Fine. But the end of this whole period of politics seems inevitably to be the rise of China and America's fall, maybe even the fall of the West as the dominant political entity on the world stage. Because once China is ascendant, we're all going to end up following its lead. Maybe the US won't. But it'll turn into a lonely world if it's just the US, Britain and Russia while everyone else is forming some sort of economic pact with China and the tiger economies due to the US's policy of 'FUCK EVERYONE ELSE'. Which is admittedly succinct, but not the most welcoming.
This I call a bait and switch. The bait is that America is surrendering being the west's president, and is now just another nation slugging it out. That's a fine view to advance. It might be right and wrong and I might take issue of what are the pertinent definitions. The switch is that somebody "expect[s] American exceptionalism to be honored by anyone that isn't American at the end of all this." That's just a pure propaganda line spoken by somebody that isn't willing to admit it. America doesn't seek validation for any part of what might be called exceptionalism ... it simply can believe or not believe it about itself depending on numerous factors. It's just bland anti-Americanism cloaked very poorly in an unfinished thought that America needs to be considered exceptional by others.
You're all welcome to follow China's lead. They're doing a wonderful job with their political repression under the new social credit system. But they're an economic powerhouse at the moment and you should feel free to forge closer economic and political ties with them compared to with America. You're similarly fine defining European values to mean support for Hamas terrorists instead of Israel, or plans to put Iran on the path to the bomb. It's just going to be part of your "international" consensuses, and not include us anymore. For background:
European Union bureaucrats love to speak of “European values,” and their media allies on both sides of the Atlantic take it for granted that the EU stands for all that is good and just on the international scene. For a certain type of journalist or NGO worker, if the EU does or says something, that act or statement must be admirable by dint of the fact that it originated in Brussels. Yet too often, the EU stands for diplomacy for its own sake, process for its own sake, bureaucracy for its own sake–even when insisting on diplomacy, process, and bureaucracy for their own sake ends up empowering murderous enemies of European values.
Nowhere is this dynamic more visible than in the bloc’s hysteric response to President Trump’s decisions to withdraw Washington from the flawed Iran deal and move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. In a statement posted to her blog, EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini made it clear that she views America and Israel as the Middle East’s real troublemakers. The blog post was notable for the cold tone Mogherini took with Washington. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime and Hamas, those unshakable friends of European values, came out unscathed.
Here’s Mogherini on her efforts to save the Iran deal:
On Tuesday I gathered in Brussels the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom – the three European countries that negotiated the deal together with the US, Russia and China. We decided to start working on a package of measures to protect the deal, to make sure that Iranian citizens can enjoy the benefits of it, and to safeguard our economic interests. Our goal is to maintain and deepen our economic ties–including with new projects, starting with energy and transport–while defending and incentivising small and medium enterprises investing in Iran . . . There is a metaphor [sic] that came up several times over the last few days: the deal is like a patient in intensive care, and our shared goal is to restore it to health as soon as possible.
As for the Jerusalem move and the other crises in the region, Mogherini said:
Once again the European Union is the reliable partner, and it is indispensable in such a moment of instability for the Middle East. We continue to go through dramatic events: from the clashes on the border between Israel and Syria, to the unspeakable suffering of the Yemeni people, to tens of deaths in Gaza after the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem . . . As the European Union, we won’t stop working to find a political solution to all these crises: there is no other way to reach a just and lasting peace.
From the mullahs’ nuclear-weapons program to Hamas’s calculated campaign to rush the barrier fence with Israel to the Iranian-led insurgency in Yemen, Mogherini and the EU see only diplomatic challenges to overcome. And the answer is always, always to convene a gabfest in Basel, Lausanne, Vienna or some other plush Continental city, where civilizational clashes and historic animosities and sharp moral contrasts can be dissolved in technical solutions.
The EU Picks Iran and Hamas
Countries in your neck of the world can stand well enough on your own two feet and economies to make decisions in favor of Russia and China and concoct deals with Palestine and Iran. I'll see how it all works out for you guys in terms of preserving European values and niceties of world diplomacy.
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United States42004 Posts
The EU is picking the same deal the US state department picked Danglars. The deal that got Iran to end their nuclear program. Two years ago the US invited the EU to the table and asked them to pledge to do this shit, you can't be angry at them for doing it and insist that it's some kind of betrayal of American allegiance.
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What you folks call 'NATO treaty obligations' I assume is referring to the 2% military spending per GDP, which is specifically described by 2 words in the actual treaties - "recommendation" and "guideline". Now I'd understand the position of Trump & his followers on this if they wanted to reduce the military spending of the US and keep NATO's deterrent at the same level, but no, they want to maintain or increase their own spending and increase every ally's spending on it, even though the deterrent is clearly working as no member is under military threat at home. And that last bit is the reason European parties can't sell this to their population.
Let's be perfectly clear, the US does not spend so much on military because their allies don't, they would do it regardless because a chunk of their voters find it appealing to be the strongest military power.
As for unfair trade policies towards the US, you'll find that no one else has played a larger role in the creation of the WTO, its rules, and its dispute settlement.
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_by_country_e.htm
The US has issued 117 trade-related complaints against other countries through that, and have received 144 complaints from other countries. The EU has issued 99 complaints and received 84. The idea that the US has been this fair player in trade bullied by weaker countries is absolute horseshit. The US has not been shying away from testing the limits of what is fair trade or from using the tools they've created to protect their trade interests.
Bypassing that system that has been so beneficial to them to set tariffs on politically targeted materials, which we've already seen the effects of during the Bush admin, is anything but logical if the goal were to 'get the economy going'.
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EPT
