As an adjunct college professor, I was known as an easy grader. I set out some clear, achievable goals for the semester, and if my students checked all the boxes, they’d get an A. I didn’t grade on a curve, so it was theoretically possible for all my students to be above average, although that never happened.
Grading presidents is not so straightforward. The problems they face are usually the ones that previous presidents have failed to solve after four or eight years of trying. Often, they are intractable with options that all carry significant risks. Success may be defined as making progress, not a solution.
Nevertheless, when it comes to foreign policy and national security, President Trump has had some hits, some near misses, and some cases where we don’t know how the movie ends. Let’s start with some hits.
The Abraham Accords. The agreement brokered by the president to restore normal relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, followed by a separate agreement between Israel and Bahrain, was an out-of-the-park home run. As Trump likes to point out, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, a relentless Trump critic, hailed the deal as “a geopolitical earthquake” and agreed with Trump this was a “huge breakthrough.”
“I couldn’t have written it better myself,” Trump told Mark Levin last month. “Tom Friedman gave us great credit.”
Even Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had to admit Trump deserved “a little, but not a whole lot” of credit for the diplomatic breakthrough, which has the potential to break the logjam over peace in the Middle East. And now, it looks like Sudan may be the next country to grant Israel recognition after Trump promised to remove it from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Grade: A
Rebuilding the United States military. Trump often boasts that he rebuilt America’s military, which had been “depleted” by years of congressionally mandated spending caps imposed during the Obama administration. In 2018, Trump signed a compromise budget agreement that provided $700 billion for defense, a $78 billion increase in military spending, agreeing reluctantly to give Democrats a $52 billion hike in domestic programs as part of the deal. He labeled the trade-off “a waste of money” and vowed never to sign another bill like it again. But Trump did sign off on subsequent bipartisan agreements, provided $716 billion and $738 billion, which have gone a long way to restoring readiness.
But this year, due to partisan gridlock and election-year politics, the Pentagon has once again not gotten its money on time, which cuts into its buying power. And projections for defense spending over the next few years are flat, far short of the 3% to 5% growth Defense Secretary Mark Esper says is needed to meet the challenges of great power competition with China and Russia.
Grade: B
Space Force. Mocked as a joke when Trump first announced its creation and derided by the Pentagon as wasteful bureaucracy, the Space Force is now regarded even by some of its early critics as a necessary evolution of America’s armed forces to meet the challenges of Russia and China. The idea of a Space Corps as part of the Air Force, akin to the Marine Corps under the Navy, had been kicking around Capitol Hill for years but never got off the ground in Congress until Trump became its biggest booster. Now about to mark its first anniversary as America’s newest service, the Space Force will be one of Trump’s lasting legacies. He can justifiably claim full credit as the founder of the Space Force.
Grade: A
Ending Endless Wars. Like former President Barack Obama, Trump has pushed to end U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama withdrew troops from Iraq in 2011, only to have to send them back due to the rise of ISIS, while in Afghanistan, Obama declared an end to combat operations in December 2014, only to see a resurgent Taliban threaten the stability of the U.S.-trained and equipped Afghan forces. While Trump, at the urging of his former advisers, initially surged more troops into Afghanistan and authorized more robust rules of engagement, his focus shifted to the goal of withdrawing all troops from both countries by the end of his first term. Trump also wants to bring home troops from Somalia, where several hundred U.S. special operations forces have been assisting local forces in battling al Shabab, a group linked to al Qaeda.
While the military would prefer to keep a small force in all three countries as a way to keep a lid on terrorism, Trump has largely succeeded in moving U.S. troops off the front lines despite failing to bring every last one home from combat zones. The big unknown remains whether the next president will be compelled to send troops back to protect American interests, especially if the current peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government falter.
Grade: B, but incomplete
Arms Control. The Trump administration has taken a tough line on nuclear weapons, withdrawing from the landmark Cold War-era 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which Russia was violating and didn’t apply to China. Then, the U.S. refused to extend the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia, unless Russia agreed to a new framework that might eventually include China, which has been rapidly building up its nuclear arsenal. After months of negotiations, Russia agreed in principle to freeze all of its nuclear warheads in exchange for a one-year extension of New START, which limits the U.S. and Russia to no more than 1,550 deployable strategic nuclear weapons. But the deal does nothing to constrain Russia’s rapidly growing tactical nuclear arsenal, nor does it include China. Arms control is always a work in progress.
Grade: C+, but incomplete
Iran. Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which was negotiated by the U.S. under Obama and signed by six world powers, has put the U.S. at odds with some of its closest allies, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, and has yet to force Tehran to come to the table to negotiate the better deal Trump promised. Now, with the election looming, Iran, as Trump has pointed out, is simply waiting to see if a Biden administration might be willing to rejoin the deal and lift the crippling sanctions imposed by the U.S. under Trump. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been essentially alone in extending an arms embargo against the Iranian regime after failing to win support at the United Nations. And over the last year, tensions with Iran have brought the U.S. to the brink of war more than once, averted only by Trump’s restraint.
Grade: C, but incomplete
North Korea. Perhaps there is no bigger foreign policy disappointment for Trump than his failure to sell North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the idea of trading his nuclear weapons program for the promise of economic development and U.S. security guarantees. Trump, who considers himself a master negotiator, was convinced that by forging a personal connection with the brutal dictator, he could succeed where Obama and former President George W. Bush had failed. While the U.S. intelligence community warned that Kim was unlikely to give up his nukes, which he sees as key to the survival of his regime, Trump took a bold risk by meeting with Kim three times. While the meetings resulted in a lowering of tensions on the Korean Peninsula and a temporary moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, Kim has yet to give up a single warhead, and no new talks are on the horizon.
Grade: C-, but incomplete
Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Examiner’s senior writer on defense and national security. His morning newsletter, “Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense,” is free and available by email subscription at dailyondefense.com.
