Trump Is Not a Restrainer
No one that knows the first thing about restrainers thinks that we see Trump as one of our own.
It’s clear that whoever wrote this for The Economist never spoke to or read the work of a single supporter of foreign policy restraint:
Mr Trump bestrides all three groups. Restrainers see him as one of their own [bold mine-DL]. He shares their desire to reduce military commitments, especially in the broader Middle East.
No one that knows the first thing about restrainers thinks that we see Trump as one of our own. Restrainers have gone out of our way to reject any association with Trump, and it has been obvious for at least the last seven years that Trump’s foreign policy is nothing like the one that restrainers support. When he was president, restrainers criticized him all the time because he governed as the sort of militaristic hardliner they oppose. Restrainers don’t claim him, and he doesn’t claim to be one of them.1 The only people that try to shoehorn them together are their enemies.
Several years ago, John Ikenberry and Daniel Deudney wrote a very long polemic in which they tried to link Trump and restrainers together, but it was all nonsense. There simply wasn’t any evidence that restrainers embraced Trump’s agenda, and there was no evidence that Trump had governed as a restrainer. Restrainers rightly consider being lumped together with Trump as an insult, and they know it is intended to be one. We expect to be falsely labeled isolationists by cretins and ideologues, but being linked to Trump is going too far.
There is scant evidence that Trump shares any desires with restrainers, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is the worst example one could possibly choose. On practically every issue, Trump and restrainers were on opposing sides during his presidency. If there was ever any overlap, it was fleeting and amounted to nothing in practice.
Restrainers wanted the U.S. to stop supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and Trump increased that support. We supported Congress’ effort to demand an end to U.S. involvement in the war, and Trump vetoed the war powers resolution. He wanted to bribe Arab authoritarians to recognize Israel, and restrainers opposed the U.S. giving free concessions to bad clients in exchange for nothing. He tore up the nuclear deal that restrainers supported, and he launched a “maximum pressure” campaign that restrainers rejected. Trump ordered the illegal bombings of Syria that restrainers opposed, and he ordered the Soleimani assassination that we considered reckless and illegal. It is hard to think of a single thing that Trump did in the region that restrainers endorsed.
Trump’s enthusiasm for attacking targets in Mexico is another example of how he and restrainers greatly differ. He thinks threatening and using force against cartels is a great idea, and he won’t stop talking about it. Restrainers naturally recoil from something so stupid and destructive. Trump has never been and never will be a restrainer, and we will be the first ones to tell you that.
Trump wouldn’t even know what you’re talking about if you asked him the question, because he gives no more thought to these things than he does to most policy questions.
And he provocatively moved the embassy to Jerusalem. (The only other countries with embassies there are Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea.) Not to mention re-clamping down ridiculously on Cuba; attempting his Guido coup in Venezuela along with sanctions driving millions to despair (and to our border); and hiring the great neo-con swamp creatures from swamp he pledged to drain. For two men who hate each other, Trump and Biden tow us into the same debt-financed abyss.
I occasionally hear someone cloaked in pseudo political expertise accuse Trump of stolid behind-the-scenes calculation because he never started another war (although he never stopped one either). This is the same sort of crackpot reasoning, much in fashion now, that holds that everyone who is not calling for WWIII brinksmanship is an isolationist.