Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech
Paul Craig Roberts
Readers and foreign news organizations are asking me the meaning of Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech.
On the surface, his speech is contradictory. Trump says he will rebuild US military might so that America will always be first. Yet Trump emphasizes that “we want to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia and China.”
In a multi-polar world, there is no first country.
Perhaps the “America first” bit is just an effort to ward off neoconservative attacks on his policy of peace. Perhaps Trump means that the US is going to continue to be the top dog, but that the US is going to cease using muscle to make others do what Washington wants.
Trump says that he will put together a fresh team of foreign policy experts, assuming the US has any. Most Americans are full of themselves, and after two decades of neoconservative hubris, finding a fresh team won’t be easy.
Presidents inherit messes that leave them no time to become organized. A president’s appointees have to be confirmed by the Senate, an entity controlled by powerful private interests. Trump will be advised that this and that person cannot be confirmed and that he must send a compromise candidate for Senate confirmation.
Moreover, presidents are outside the loop of black op affairs. A false flag event can be pulled off that sends Trump in the direction desired by the military/security complex or Israel.
In my opinion, should Trump be elected, the importance would be that the electorate would have declared their lack of confidence in the political establishment. Unless Trump can put the establishment into the trash bin of history, he would not be able to accomplish much.
Thus, the result of a Trump failure could be a demoralized electorate that gives up.
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