Trump's Second Term: Foreign Policy

 Trump's Second Term: Foreign Policy

Eric Striker

Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign revived his 2016 outsider crusade against the Washington’s military adventures. In his latest run, the president-elect struck a remarkably sober tone on the many conflicts that have erupted in the last few years — which Jewish think-tanks calmly dismiss as baseless vote-getting — though he provided scant details on how he would approach Ukraine and the Middle East. The realities of America’s current geopolitical predicament were muffled under his questionable mantra that “no new wars” were prosecuted when he was in office.

Buffing Trump’s everything-to-everyone shtick were a series of former left-wing anti-war influencers, such as Jimmy Dore, Dave Smith, and Tulsi Gabbard, who have in recent years hitched themselves to the MAGA wagon, citing the movements supposed non-interventionism as their reason. Perhaps Trump’s most audacious deception was his campaign’s outreach to the Arab community, led by the gay Zionist Ric Grennell, which successfully capitalized on their anger over Israel’s rampage in Gaza and Lebanon.

Voters who took a chance on Trump are instantly expressing buyer’s remorse before he’s even been sworn in. The 47th president’s new foreign policy team is composed of a rogue’s gallery of Washington’s most ardent and bloodthirsty neo-conservative Zionists. Figures such as Marco Rubio, Mike Walz, Elise Stefanik, Pete Hegseth, Mike Huckabee and Brian Hook have well-documented views on Iran, Russia and China that are arguably more bellicose and loudly unhinged than even the infamous Bush administration.

There is still a degree of unpredictability in how Trump’s administration will move on the world stage, primarily in style rather than substance, especially since obvious solutions other than diplomacy are not present. However, we have enough information to hypothesize on what will come next based off of the interests financing Trump and internal discussions publicized by the media.

Shifting The Blame For Israeli Barbarism To White Christians

There’s no question that the world is experiencing a wave of anti-Semitism not seen since the 1930s. Outrage over the Jewish state’s almost unprecedented atrocities — livestreamed in gruesome detail to billions of phones and computers around the world — has spurred a visceral universal disgust towards the Jewish people that transcends traditional left-right, racial, and religious divides.

These feelings of indignation have escaped the Middle East and touched the Jewish diaspora, which overwhelmingly supports Israel despite generally operating as the spear tip of liberal and progressive causes in Western nations.

The war transpiring under a Democratic administration and the steep reputational price the American empire has been willing to pay to let Israel operate without any red lines has discredited theories by left-wing figures such as Noam Chomsky that Israel is an attack dog of US imperialism politically bolstered by Evangelical Christian Republican voters, rather than Jewish billionaire money. Polarized Trump fans, who are assumed to be Israel’s natural Gentile support base in America, have not been eager to rally behind Joe Biden on this issue. The high visibility of liberal Zionist figures like Jacob Lew, Amos Hochstein and Antony Blinken — who has taken extreme and illegal measures to undercut his own State Department employees to protect Israel from any consequences — has forced a highly exposed global Jewry to own the openly Jewish supremacist Israeli governing coalition and embrace its naked criminality without any plausible deniability or fronts.

Trump’s new administration is conspicuously free of Jews, yet these personalities have well-earned reputations of being paid off stooges for AIPAC who specializing in following instructions written for them by the Jewish lobby, as Trump himself once stressed about his new Secretary of State Rubio. These nominees were personally selected by Jewish billionaire Howard Lutnick, a little-known figure who has largely lingered in the shadows in Trumpworld. Lutnick is candid about his sole priority in Trump’s orbit: securing the geopolitical interests of Israel.

Familiar Fox News performers like Pete Hegseth, appointed to lead the Pentagon, are well-known promoters of Evangelical Zionism. Hegseth has claimed to adhere to the bizarre “third temple prophecy,” which calls for the destruction of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. Hegseth’s record of making wild and horrific threats towards foreign nations are too many to cite, such as his televised appeal for the United States to bomb Iranian cultural sites.

Former Governor Mike Huckabee, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel, is another unusual choice. Huckabee will be the first non-Jewish person politically appointed to fill this role since the Nixon administration.

The lack of Jews allocated to go before the world and justify the next and possibly more brutal phase of Israeli genocide will likely polarize the Gaza issue back to its usual left versus right divide, as well as provide at least some reputational relief to the global Jewish community. This will allow Jewish operatives on the left, who are struggling to prevent anti-Zionist discourse from veering into broader conversations about Jewish power, to spin their familiar narrative about doomsday prophecy believing white Christians directing reluctant Jews for their own benefit. When all is said and done, white Christian Americans could end up as a scapegoated screen for Israel’s actions if a drastic escalation, such as a full Palestinian expulsion, occurs.

End Saudi-Iranian Rapprochement

One of the biggest surprises of the past four years was the Saudi-Iranian peace deal brokered by China in 2023. This diplomatic breakthrough has largely ended the Sunni-Shia sectarian warfare that has killed millions and plagued the Middle East for decades, as well as helped derail the first Trump administration’s project to create a Gulf Arab military alliance to contain Iran on Israel’s behalf.

This detente has rapidly evolved into what looks like the beginning of an alliance. In recent days, Saudi Arabia has publicly accused Israel of genocide, condemned Israeli bombing of Lebanon, and increased its military cooperation with Iran.

Trump has repeatedly stated that his administration will seek to bring the Saudis back to the negotiating table on the Abraham Accords, which would normalize Saudi relations with Israel in exchange for extensive US military support and investment.

The new president’s Middle East envoy, Jewish real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, has no diplomatic or political experience. One Times of Israel profile describes Witkoff as a “conduit to the Jewish business community,” suggesting that Trump’s team may be reduced to an offer to bribe the Saudi royals into formalizing ties with Israel. Hideously corrupt displays, such as the multi-billion dollar Saudi real estate deal previously brokered by Abraham Accords point man Jared Kushner, serve as a precedent for what Trump and Witkoff have in store.

Yet it remains to be seen if the Saudis will play ball this time around. During Trump’s first presidency, his team goaded the Saudis into a war with the Houthis in Yemen that ended with the Gulf kingdom’s humiliating defeat.

The Saudi Kingdom’s hand was burned by the Iranian stove after a brazen drone strike by the Houthis on Saudi oil refineries believed to have been conducted with Iranian weapons and logistical support. Additionally, the war in Gaza has made engagement with Israel political and potentially physical suicide for Arab leaders, as Saudi king Mohammed bin Salman implied to Blinken.

It is unlikely the Saudis will consider Trump’s offer to become Israel’s Muslim bodyguard without significant security guarantees, massive weapon’s transfers, and a US provided nuclear program. The prospect of handing a regime that has previously funded terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda the infrastructure to build nuclear weapons is alarming, but the Trump administration has previously shown willingness to throw caution to the wind and began moving in this very direction in 2019.

Russia and the Ukraine War

Trump has stated on the campaign trail that he would immediately bring an end to the Ukraine war once in office, without elaborating further.

Trump’s foreign affairs team is composed of some of the most hardline anti-Russian politicians in America, which has soothed some of the concerns from Ukraine’s liberal establishment.

What will transpire is not clear. Trump insiders are concerned with Russia’s growing support for Iran, which has caught Washington and Israel off balance and spurred discussion of giving Russia whatever it wants in Ukraine in order to pry them out of the Middle East.

One Trump peace plan leaked to the media would grant Russia much of its territorial demands, defer Ukrainian membership in NATO, and establish a demilitarized zone patrolled by European NATO forces.

The plan is absurd. Vladimir Putin’s stated reason for entering the Ukraine, aside from the oppression of ethnic Russians in the country’s east, is that he does not want NATO forces on his border. At best, Putin will insist on a neutral United Nations peacekeeping force on the border, if that.

Furthermore, Trump’s plan to force Germany and the European Union to finance the estimated $486 billion reconstruction of Ukraine would be tantamount to looting a Europe barely staving off economic catastrophe as is.

A more plausible scenario is that the Trump administration will kick domestic energy production into overdrive in hopes of tanking global oil prices, which would harm the Russian (and Iranian and Venezuelan) economy. But this ambitious plan is not as feasible as it sounds. A war on oil prices would likely require the Saudis to ramp up oil production — a mission Biden failed to accomplish.

Another scenario is that Trump will try to force the Russians into negotiating before all their objectives are achieved by providing Ukraine with long range weapons that can strike within Russian territory. The Ukrainian military, which is suffering massive desertion, a high median age, and manpower problems, has come under increasing pressure from American politicians to lower its conscription age to 18, something the Trump administration could persuade Kiev to agree to in exchange for weapons that can hit Moscow. Such a stunt would is within Trump’s arsenal of bad ideas, but in practice would amount to pouring gasoline on a fire and triggering an unpredictable response.

Judging from his public statement’s, Trump wants to bluff the Russians with the threat of nuclear weapons. It is doubtful that this will work, as Putin has already stated a willingness to use his own.

A full Ukrainian capitulation is also on the table. Russia has been aiding Iran’s space program, which Israeli intelligence believes is a cover for Iran’s Russian-advised ICBM program. Ultimately, Russia can bring Washington to its knees by providing or threatening to provide high tech weapons transfers to Iran that could shift the Middle Eastern strategic edge in the Islamic Republic’s favor.

Indo-Pacific

Trump’s new cabinet will include some of the fiercest China hawks in the country, but the fundamentals may restrain them.

The trade war mounted by the Trump administration during his first term caught Beijing off-guard, but since this provocation the Chinese government has reduced its reliance on exports to the United States through its “dual circulation” program, as well as started retaliating against American companies.

It remains to be seen if Trump will make good on his promise to place tariffs on all imported goods. Wall Street analysts believe Trump wasn’t serious about this proposal. Under such a scenario, America’s weak industrial base will struggle to replace tariffed imports and prices for many goods, both basic and technical, would soar.

An emergent challenge for America’s project in Asia is the resolution of the long-standing Indian-Chinese border dispute last month. China’s unexpected diplomatic breakthrough with India is a setback to “The Quad” — an attempt to unite Japan, Australia and India in a NATO-like anti-China military alliance.

Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Walz, who is uniquely situated as both a “China hawk” as well as a member of the House India Caucus, will undoubtedly seek to use his abilities to try and reignite tensions between the two nuclear powers.

On Taiwan, president-elect Trump is already in talks with the Taiwanese government to sell them $15 billion dollars in American weapons. This shocking deal, if successful, could heighten the possibility of a war in the South China Sea.

Middle East

Trump’s stated foreign policy priority is the defense and advancement of Israeli interests.

Following a phone call with Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu told the press that the two leaders see “eye-to-eye” on Iran. Netanyahu is convinced that a direct strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is feasible as long as the United States fully supports them if a war breaks out.

The likelihood of American involvement in a conventional war are highest in the Middle East. Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, a bellicose Zionist in his own right, has taken to the media to warn that the new president will be completely unrestrained on Iran in his second term. Former Trump cabinet officials have gone public with accusations that the president sought to directly attack Iran during his term’s lame duck session but was narrowly prevented from doing so by his advisors.

Experts believe Trump will first seek to soften the Iranian regime up by bringing back his maximum pressure sanctions to collapse the Islamic Republic’s economy. John Ratcliffe, Trump’s new CIA director, is singularly fixated on regime change in Iran. Ratcliffe will use every intelligence tool at his disposal to foment civil war and terrorist attacks within Iranian territory in hopes of overthrowing the Iranian state.

A potential counterweight is the fact that the landscape in 2024 is not the same as the one in 2016. If left without diplomatic recourse, Iran is expected to build and publicly test a nuclear weapon and get Chinese and Russian diplomatic cover to do so. While there is a chance to reduce Russian support for Iran in exchange for massive concessions on Ukraine, China has emerged as an important Iranian ally. Meeting Iran’s pro-American president Masoud Pezeshkian half-way and brokering a new nuclear agreement with the intent of pulling Iran away from Russia to destroy them later would be the prudent Zionist foreign policy approach, but the general thrust of Trump’s new administration does not seem to value patience.

In Gaza, Trump’s circle of advisors support the full expulsion of the Palestinian population and the annexation of both Gaza and the West Bank. Where these ethnically cleansed Palestinians will go remains a mystery, as Arab countries have already resisted attempts by the Biden administration and international finance to resettle them in their nations. Israeli officials have previously called on Palestinians to be expelled to Europe. Would a reckless, single-issue Trump administration consider it?

It should be noted that Biden has by and large continued Trump’s genocidal policies towards the Palestinians, even as he publicly condemned Netanyahu or made bogus election year threats to stop transferring arms to Israel. The difference may lie in Trump officials mismanaging the status quo, or target nations taking more aggressive measures due to the perception of an increased threat from the new president’s team of celebrity Zionist warmongers, such as Hegseth.

Europe

President Trump appears to have a general disdain for the European Union, a supposed US ally.

Aside from the wild and presumptuous plan stiffing Western Europe with the bill for Ukraine’s reconstruction, the US is expected to redouble its demand that Europe begin remilitarizing out of their own pockets. If Trump’s tariff program comes to fruition, Europe will simultaneously face economic decimation. Europe’s welfare states will likely suffer cuts in order to bolster projected increases in military spending no matter what.

Not gaining much attention is the expectations of an eager embrace of Turkey under Trump. Last spring, the Atlantic Council called on Europe to integrate itself with Turkey further in order to secure the Central Asian Middle Corridor — a new “Silk Road” circumventing Russian trade routes which China and Iran are both seeking to claim for BRICS — for the Atlanticist powers instead. This idea seems like it would be a geopolitical outcome intuitively popular in Trump’s circle.

Shortly after Trump’s election, Turkish president Recep Erdogan gave a speech to the European Political Community summit in Budapest demanding that Turkey be allowed into the European Union, a project that the EU has stalled for decades. If Turkey were to be granted EU membership, 85 million cultural and ethnic non-Europeans would instantly be given the right to flood Europe. Turkey, whose military is the second largest in NATO, has been making diplomatic overtures to BRICS, which observers believe is a negotiating tactic to force the country’s consideration for EU ascension.

Europe’s vassal like acquiescence to Washington has placed it in a war footing towards Russia, the continent’s historical protector against Near Eastern invasion, and in an alliance with Turkey, which in the 19th and 20th century killed millions of white Christians. Rather than express contrition for Turkey’s historic crimes against Europe, Erdogan is a proud advocate of Neo-Ottomanism and routinely threatens Greece with military invasion, while also being responsible for sending millions of refugees into Europe in the last two decades as a political weapon.

For Trump and company, increasing Turkey’s presence in Europe could serve as a practical solution to a lot of the problems plaguing NATO that prevent America from moving more troops to the Middle East and Pacific: weak and small militaries, inability to plausibly threaten Russia, and low civic commitment to the physical defense of Western liberal ideologies.

Depending on how faithful Trump is to his promises, his new administration could force everyday Europeans to reconsider their humiliating relationship with the United States, a view held by the rising East German wing of the Alternativ Fur Deutschland party, even if the thoroughly Atlanticist but weakening deep states of Germany and France seek to continue it.

Source: The Unz Review