Trump Upturns American Foreign Policy
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Stephen Wertheim on how America First went from rhetoric to policy.
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Trump Upturns American Foreign Policy w/ Stephen Wertheim | Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
On this episode of the Time of Monsters, Jeet Heer is joined by Stephen Wertheim to discuss how 'America First' went from rhetoric to policy.
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During his first term in office, Donald Trump often talked about his radical America First agenda but in practice his foreign policy was that of a conventional Republican hawk. Just five weeks into his second term, there has been a marked shift. As Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recently noted in The Guardian, Trump 2.0 is marked by a turn toward a foreign policy that is much more focused on the Western Hemisphere and away from Europe and more geared toward tariffs as a weapon of economic warfare. In other words, Trump has now found advisers who are willing to implement the core strategy of America First in a real way.
This shift has frightened many American allies, particularly the NATO countries and Mexico. Yet mixed with Trump’s advocacy of a new Manifest Destiny have been welcome indications that his administration will be more open to negotiating with Russia, Iran and perhaps even China.
To make sense Trump’s conflicting foreign policy messages and actions, I was happy to talk to Stephen Wertheim, who shares my belief that we need to distinguish between Trump’s rhetoric and his actions.
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Donald Trump during a news conference with Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, not pictured, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday, February 24.
(Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images)During his first term in office, Donald Trump often talked about his radical America First agenda, but in practice his foreign policy was that of a conventional Republican hawk. Just five weeks into his second term, there has been a marked shift. As Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recently noted in The Guardian, Trump 2.0 is marked by a turn toward a foreign policy that is much more focused on the Western Hemisphere and away from Europe and more geared toward tariffs as a weapon of economic warfare. In other words, Trump has now found advisers who are willing to implement the core strategy of America First in a real way.
This shift has frightened many American allies, particularly the NATO countries and Mexico. Yet mixed with Trump’s advocacy of a new Manifest Destiny have been welcome indications that his administration will be more open to negotiating with Russia, Iran and perhaps even China.
To make sense Trump’s conflicting foreign policy messages and actions, I was happy to talk to Stephen Wertheim, who shares my belief that we need to distinguish between Trump’s rhetoric and his actions.
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The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Palestine and the Iran War w/ Yousef Munayyer | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
As negotiations proceed in ending the Iran War, the question of the relationship between the US
and Israel becomes more salient. I spoke with Middle East expert Yousef Munayyer on the
agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose interest in a securing his country’s
hegemony in the region is now in conflict with efforts to end the war.
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