Trump’s America First Policy: Remarkably Sophisticated

©2016 By ILANA MERCER 

“Unsophisticated rambling,” “simplistic,” “reckless.”

The verdict about Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy, unveiled after his five-for-five victory in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut, was handed down by vested interests: members of the military-media-think tank complex.

People like Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. People Dwight Eisenhower counseled against, in his farewell address to the nation: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Naturally, Albright wants U.S. foreign policy to remain complex, convoluted; based not on bedrock American principles, but on bureaucratically friendly talking points, imbibed in the “best” schools of government, put to practice by the likes of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Like so many D.C. insiders who move seamlessly between government and the flush-with-funds think-tank industry, Albright has worked for CFR. (Yearly revenue: $61.0 million. Mission: Not America First.)

Neo-Wilsonian foreign policy is big business. Wait for the Brookings Institution, RAND Corporation and the Center for American Progress to pile on Trump’s “unsophisticated,” America-centric foreign policy—especially now that the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee has signaled his intention to get the U.S. “out of the nation-building business.”

Like an invasive Kudzu, these anti-American forces are everywhere. What Trump’s advocating translates into a reduced profile for them: less demand for their neo-Wilsonian schemes, promulgated in focused blindness by think tank types and by most tele-tarts.

Reduced demand for American agitation abroad will mean fewer “media references per year,”less “monthly traffic” to monetize on websites, less influence in the halls of power and, ultimately, reduced revenues.

We might even see fewer color-coded revolutions around the world.

Trump’s promised change to American foreign policy can’t sit well with the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Freedom House. These have been described by the press as “Washington-based group[s] that promote democracy and open elections.”

More like Alinskyite agitators.

The IRI and the NDI are excrescences of the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively. As Trump supporters know, on the foreign-policy front, not much distinguishes America’s duopoly. Republicans and Democrats work in tandem, Saul-Alinsky style, to bring about volcanic transformation in societies that desperately need stability. Or as Trump put it, “We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed.”

CNN is right to fret that the Trump foreign policy address delivers “little in the way of a recognizable foreign strategy.”

Fear not, CNN. Trump’s promise to pursue “peace and prosperity, not war”—the candidate’s commitment that, “unlike other candidates, war and aggression will not be [his] first instinct”—is recognizable to those whose loved ones have returned in body bags, from the blighted and benighted territories into which Trump adversaries want to keep tunneling.

Evidently, victims of liberal interventionism and neoconservative global democratic crusades think putting Americans first is a wildly sophisticated idea.

Ordinary, patriotic Americans have been hoodwinked by these sophisticates into sacrificing their children to Madeleine Albright’s Moloch. It would appear these Trump supporters and America’s soldiers no longer wish to throw beautiful young lives to the think-tank industry’s God of War.

“Trump’s foreign policy platform would dismantle the post-World War II architecture so lovingly built up by the War Party and its congressional Myrmidons,” posits Justin Raimondo, editor at Antiwar.com. “This is why he’s made all the right enemies … Trump’s triumph would mark the end of the neocons as a viable political force on the Right.”

Amen Selah. 

It’s by no means axiomatic, moreover, that “defense treaties and overseas bases that emerged after World War II still serve U.S. interests,” confessed policy analyst Rosa Brooks.

As with any bureaucracy, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is good for those it employs; bad for The People who must pay for it and tolerate its self-perpetuating policies and sinecured politicians forever after.

NATO, conceded the Washington Post, was “formed to fight the Soviet Union. … The USSR evaporated a quarter-century ago.” Like a zombie, this segment of the international superstate “has lurched along, taking on new roles. ”

The establishment, Left and Right, equates what governments do with what people need.

Take CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. In ways intellectual, the anchor is impoverished. She is, however, never poor. Amanpour’s net worth is $12.5 Million. She’s lived, loved and worked among the upper echelons her entire life, including in her birth place of Iran. Terribly privileged, Amanpour is more authentically “Shahs of Sunset” than an ordinary American.

The CNN personality has ridiculed Trump’s “poor me America” routine. She disputes his tack about a weakened America whose exploiters should “pony up.” Simply put, said Trump, “Our allies are not paying their fair share.” “We have spent trillions over time … provid[ing] a strong defense for Europe and Asia”:

The countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense, and, if not, the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves. We have no choice.

When Trump challenged America’s continued membership in NATO, shysters like Amanpour, Ted Cruz too, cupped hands to claim the charity of the gullible American people. They “argued” that we need to continue to give over two percent of GDP to keep this welfare-warfare elephantiasis going.

Their error—Amanpour’s error—is to collapse the distinction between America (overall, relatively wealthy) and individual Americans, legions of whom are dirt poor and desperate.

But businessman Trump makes no such mistake. He can’t help but put Americans first.

The Donald’s foreign policy coup de grâce: “Under a Trump Administration, no American citizen will ever again feel that their needs come second to the citizens of foreign countries.”

“Our foreign policy goals must be based on America’s core national security interests,” he asserted, as he “pledged to … focus on stability in the [Middle East and the region], not on nation-building.” Recognizing the differences America has with China and Russia, he also vowed to ‘seek common ground based on shared interests.'”

“My goal is to establish a foreign policy that will endure for several generations centered on prioritizing America first.”

Remarkably, our foreign-policy maze-bright rats see this Trump stance as unsophisticated. To the contrary: Trump’s foreign policy evinces a sophisticated understanding of the role of government in the lives of a free people.

The duty of the “night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory” is primarily to its own. The classical liberal government’s duty is to its own citizens, first. As Americans, we have a solemn, negative, leave-them-alone duty not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty and property.

We have no duty to uphold their rights. Why so? Because (ostensibly) upholding the negative rights of the world’s citizens involves compromising the negative liberties of Americans—inalienable American lives, liberties and livelihoods.

By promising to “never send our finest into battle, unless necessary,” Trump demonstrates a visceral, critical understanding that an American president is obligated to defend—he dare not squander!—the lives of Americans. He thus comes closest to fulfilling the executive duties of an American leader.

©ILANA Mercer
WND, Quarterly Review, 
The Libertarian Alliance &  The Unz Review
April 29, 2016