When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he upended the Republican Party’s status quo by campaigning against the Iraq War and the hawkish foreign policy that had defined the GOP for decades. His slogan was “America First,” and his speeches were loaded with Jacksonian rhetoric, though flexible on the details.
Trump did point to some specifics on the campaign trail, such as ending the 19-year-and-counting war in Afghanistan and forcing our “free-riding” allies in NATO to pay their “fair share” of defense spending. But his overall “America First” message was defined by generality. And the president’s coalition of advisers has at times featured foreign policy voices as disparate as the ultra-hawkish John Bolton and the anti-interventionist stalwart Sen. Rand Paul.
So, while it does seem that the “America First” sentiment is here to stay in the GOP, what exactly that will look like is up for debate. To get a better picture of where “America First” is as this presidential term draws to a close, the Washington Examiner interviewed former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell.
Prior to working in the Trump administration, Grenell served as State Department spokesman to the United Nations under President George W. Bush and as a foreign policy adviser for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. This conversation has been edited for clarity.
WASHINGTON EXAMINER MAGAZINE: Could you discuss the highlights of your tenure as U.S. ambassador to Germany?
RICHARD GRENELL: I don’t want to be caught trying to summarize two years … [but] going to Germany was an important decision because what candidate Trump had been talking about, mostly, was really making multilateral institutions more accountable. He spoke a lot about NATO and the need for NATO members to work together to update what NATO was all about — the purpose of NATO. And to make their commitments real.
I had spent eight years at the United Nations, and I realized … that America needs European allies. We need a strong trans-Atlantic alliance. But innate in that assumption is that the trans-Atlantic alliance is Western-facing. And I think that multiple administrations before President Trump had ignored that assumption and allowed our multilateral institutions to drift away from capitalism and Western ideals. Some of them became mush — very expensive mush.
So, I believed in the Trump doctrine of pushing our solid, U.S./Western policy and finding allies to support that — not allowing our allies to water our policy down.
WEX: Can you speak to what “America First” foreign policy means to you? And what will it look like as a defining feature of the GOP even beyond Trump?
GRENELL: “America First” means that we decide what’s best for America and that becomes our policy. It’s that simple.
And, by the way, 193 members of the United Nations all do that. Everybody decides what’s best for their country and [makes] that their policy. There’s this idea from Joe Biden that we’re supposed to get in a room of 14 other countries at the U.N. Security Council and our policy is whatever 15 countries believe is the consensus. Therefore, our policy gets vetoed by 14 other countries and gets watered down.
When we work with the Europeans, the idea is that we’re supposed to give up on what we believe is our policy and somehow meet in the middle. That is not diplomacy. If diplomacy was just about figuring out what our position was and what their position was and meeting in the middle, then it would be the easiest job in the world — mathematicians could do it.
That’s not what we do. When we go to the U.N. or other multilateral institutions, we fight. We fight hard for our policy, because we believe our policy is what makes our people stronger.
So, “America First” is the idea that we decide what our policy is, we articulate our policy, and then we look for others to join us and push that policy forward. Joe Biden’s vision of America is we put forward our policy and then water it down to consensus after a whole bunch of other countries veto it. Then we have a policy that’s not the best for the American people.
WEX: What are the two or three most pressing, key issues on the foreign policy/national security front that Republicans will need to address in the next 10 years?
GRENELL: I would say China, Iran, and multilateral institutions that are becoming mush.
WEX: What is the framework that you think the GOP needs to take to those issues?
GRENELL: Well, first of all, the one criterion for our foreign policy should always be what’s best for Americans — for our security and our prosperity. Then, we articulate that policy and work hard to have that policy implemented by finding, or reimagining or recreating or reorganizing, multilateral, regional groupings.
WEX: Speaking again about your time as U.S. ambassador to Germany, what was the genesis of you and the Trump administration launching an international campaign to decriminalize homosexuality?
GRENELL: Well, it was through multiple conversations with the State Department, the National Security Council, and the White House [that we saw] the need to have this policy articulated more strongly and given more resources.
We’ve long had a debate at the State Department — remember, I’ve been at the State Department for 11 years, so I know [it] very well — and the broader diplomatic community on whether or not Americans, and I would even go so far as to say Westerners, should be articulating a decriminalization [of homosexuality] policy, a pro-LGBT policy, or any type of policy that welcomes gays and lesbians. The concern from the diplomatic community and many inside the State Department is that when a Westerner or an American articulates those policies in hostile countries, that it is interpreted as a Western ideal.
What they’re arguing is that many people in hostile countries, the 69 countries that criminalize homosexuality, believe that being gay is something that the Americans brought into their country. So, the [argument] is Americans and Westerners [should] not be in the lead articulating the decriminalization policy because it plays into the idea that we are bringing homosexuality into that country.
That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
Because if we have a group of people who believe being gay is an American phenomenon, then we must confront that piece of fake news — and confront it hard. Because it’s not true. There are gay people born in every country every day. The idea that somehow we’ve exported homosexuality is something that I think our diplomatic community should confront — and confront loudly.
WEX: To follow up on the international campaign, what were the specific mechanisms by which you promoted the decriminalization of homosexuality? And did the initiative achieve any results yet that you can point to and say, “We helped cause that?”
GRENELL: First, let’s take the second point. Yes, there are many things that have been accomplished. I’m certainly not going to talk about any of those, because we’re still trying to get these countries to decriminalize. It would be foolish for anyone to say, “Hey, we’re making progress here,” and point to specifics and then fire up the opposition. That’s not the way that we’re ever going to move the needle.
WEX: But there is progress happening behind the scenes?
GRENELL: I wouldn’t say behind the scenes. I would say it’s right out in front of you if you look … There are reports constantly. But make no mistake — just because the State Department is not packaging [specific developments] as a win doesn’t mean we haven’t worked very hard for a number of these situations to come to fruition. Only in politics are you supposed to package things and take credit for something.
Look, I have been overwhelmed. I would say I get more than 50 direct messages, texts, emails, or phone messages a day from gays and lesbians outside of the United States in many hostile countries — or in countries that have decriminalized homosexuality but still need to take steps to make it safer.
Our campaign is just focused on the decriminalization aspect, and so, therefore, there’s only a target list of 69 countries that criminalize homosexuality. In the very beginning days, getting some Eastern European countries, for instance, to really participate with us was difficult because they would say, “Well, we have decriminalized homosexuality. In our country, it’s still not very good and safe to be gay, we’ve still got work to do.” And I was left to say that, make no mistake, this is a long road for many countries, and some countries need to take step two, while some countries need to take step 12. But this campaign is focused on countries that need to take step one: decriminalize homosexuality … in the law.
I think many times people confuse what the campaign is all about, and they believe that we’re supposed to be changing hearts and minds. I argue pretty regularly that there are lots of organizations and multilateral institutions that are charged with making progress on finding ways to have a larger rainbow table or pride parade. That’s not what we’re doing: We’ve attempted to keep the group very large working to take step one — and let other groups work on taking steps two through 99.
Brad Polumbo is a conservative journalist and Washington Examiner contributor.
