President Trump’s first-term foreign policy has been marked by strength and fulfilled promises, his second son, Eric Trump, argued at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night. His father “rebuilt the mighty American military,” Eric said, “adding new jets, aircraft carriers. He increased wages for our incredible men and women in uniform. He expanded our military defense budget to $721 billion per year.” Moving beyond financials, Eric continued:
Coming three-quarters of the way through a presidential convention cycle with little foreign policy content from either party, Eric Trump’s remarks were, in that sense, a welcome change. They’re also revealing: of stagnant assumptions in this administration’s approach to foreign affairs, of what the public wants in our foreign policy, and of what could be accomplished in the next four years.
Let’s start with the bad, like Eric Trump’s quantitative account of the administration’s “rebuilding” of the military. It’s true the Trump years have seen a new aircraft carrier christened, new fighter jets commissioned, a bump to the standard annual military wage raise, and an ever-growing Pentagon budget. What he neglected to mention was that growing military spending is not an inherent good. It’s not even an inherent sign of prudence or strength.
Defense resources are not unlimited and require prioritization. Good defense strategy is tailored to core national interests; it would not see Washington playing world police, incessantly intervening in other countries’ internal affairs, constantly spending more on anything and everything we can imagine.
The defining problems of our foreign policy these past 20 years have had nothing to do with an underfunded military. We have done far too much, not too little.
Worse, several items in Eric Trump’s list of accomplishments suggest a failure to move away from Washington’s default, and discredited, interventionist mindset. He cites approvingly the Soleimani assassination (which nearly tipped us into war with Iran), the MOAB strike (symbolic of the Trump administration’s new escalation in Afghanistan), and “peace in the Middle East” (which seems likely to mean the recent U.S.-brokered deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates). Touting these three — one which risked starting yet another Middle East war, one which helped prolong our longest war, and one which has very little to do with vital U.S. interests — is telling, and what it tells isn’t positive.
Yet, other parts of Eric’s comments are more hopeful. They show at least a notion of the public’s interest in moving toward less war and more peace. The question remains, however, whether that notion will be put into action.
This presidency has long been marked by a frustrating incongruity between Trump’s rhetoric about foreign policy and the policy itself. Talk of ending wars is a perpetual favorite, but not a single war has really ended. It is not true, as Eric claimed, that the president has “finally ended” our “never-ending wars.” Troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq are basically the same as when this administration began; promises of total withdrawal in Afghanistan and Syria have yet to be fulfilled; and the president vetoed a bipartisan bill to end the U.S. role in Yemen’s civil war, despite broad popular enthusiasm for exactly that.
Eric’s speech reiterates that this incongruity persists as President Trump seeks reelection. In late June, he proposed off-hand that not “drop[ping] bombs on everybody” could be part of his second-term agenda, and the priorities list he released this week ranks “Stop Endless Wars and Bring Our Troops Home” as its first foreign policy goal.
It’s a goal that would net wide support among the public, no matter who wins in November. It’s also a realistic goal for any president, as the role of commander in chief comes with strict constitutional limits for initiating conflicts but wide latitude for ending wars once begun. Stopping endless wars and bringing our troops home — or, in Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s phrase, “end[ing] forever wars” — is something the president can do in the next four years. Whoever takes office in January should do exactly that.
Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities, contributing editor at the Week, and columnist at Christianity Today.
