Unusually for a commentator who leans Left, I find much to support in Trump’s new strategic view. I oppose his social conservatism, his vanity leading to spitefulness and I have doubts about trickle down economics. Certainly America needed to do something about business taxes, but bar charts of Federal government deficits over the last thirty years reveal they are mostly larger when Republicans are in the White House. So I am cautious here, but if he gets his infrastructure plans through Congress then things will really take off.
But it is on the strategic role of the US that I see something I can really buy into. For far too long and especially since the end of the Cold War, far too much of the world has done extravagant or stupid things in the belief that America will get it out of trouble either financially or with its military. This has been a bad period for America and the world at large and has seen a decline in the authority and effectiveness of the West.
Trump’s recognition that there are now three powers competing for influence across the world, America Russia and China, shows a refreshing new realism. The assertion that America’s influence depends upon its strength as an economic power and its homeland prosperity rather than its military, which is there to defend not to bully, is a vast improvement. America does not seek to impose its way of life on others, but it will set an example which others may will want to follow.
Above all Trump believes that every judgment must be made upon the foundation of America First. But he also expects both Russia and China to put their interests first. When necessary he will push back, but where common interest demands cooperation he will be a willing partner. This is a simple doctrine which makes sense, not just to strategists, but to ordinary people too. No wonder Putin and Xi Jinping get on with him. Western leaders will have to start to look after themselves. The EU, the second largest economy in the world, only just behind the US, and the largest single market, especially so.