Latest news with #AmericaFirst
Vox
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Vox
What the '12-day war' teaches us about Trump's foreign policy
is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He's worked at Vox since the site's launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker's Washington, DC, bureau. When President Donald Trump announced late Saturday that he ordered the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, critics on both the left and the right feared a spiral into a wider war. Yet just two days later, Trump announced a ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran that he claimed would end what he called 'the 12-day war' entirely. And though this ceasefire looked quite fragile at first, three days later, it's still holding. There's much we still don't know about whether Trump's strikes were successful in their short-term objective of disabling Iran's nuclear program. And of course, the long-term consequences of the war for Iran and the region are very far from clear. The past week's events did, however, clarify some things about Trump and his approach to foreign policy in his second term. Specifically, though Trump attacked Iran's nuclear program, he quickly pivoted to a ceasefire, suggesting that he's still wary of the hawks' transformational 'regime change' ambitions. He instead prefers to deal with countries' existing leaders at the negotiating table — and views military force as a tool to get himself a better deal. At first, it seemed that Trump had handed hawks on the right a decisive victory. Sweeping aside the concerns of the 'America First' faction that urged restraint and feared entanglement in a new 'forever war,' Trump supported Israel's attack on Iran and then sent US bombers in as well. But what Trump did next is just as revealing. Though the Iranian government was badly weakened, and some hawks were hoping it could be toppled, Trump demurred, dismissing Iran's retaliation against the US Monday as inconsequential and working to put together a ceasefire. That is, he had an opportunity to push onward for regime change in Tehran but turned it down. Then, when it looked like the new ceasefire might not hold, Trump profanely berated both Iran and Israel and particularly urged Israel to scale back a retaliatory mission that was in progress. After Israel complied, Trump did a solid for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a Truth Social post urging Israeli authorities to cancel Netanyahu's corruption trial. Finally, Trump also declared the US strikes a complete success, insisting that Iran's nuclear program has been wiped out and disputing leaked intelligence estimates that say otherwise. He seems uninterested in hawkish arguments that he hasn't finished the job. This week, administration officials have even tried to restart nuclear talks with Iran, unlikely as that may seem. All this suggests that, despite bombing the nuclear sites, Trump has not embraced open-ended war as US foreign policy just yet. He rolled the dice on a risky military operation — but remained intent on avoiding a wider war. He supported Israel — but then, when he wanted the war to stop, called the Israelis out. It also suggests that Trump, unlike the GOP's more hawkish faction, is uninterested in seeking transformational regime change in Iran. Despite a Truth Social post on Sunday (after the strikes and before the ceasefire) in which Trump suggested 'Regime change' might be a possibility, he didn't go through with it. During his first presidential run, Trump trashed George W. Bush's Iraq War as a debacle, and the collapse of Iran's government would likely bring similar turmoil. Rather, Trump would prefer to settle things at the negotiating table, and he continues to view military action like his strikes on Iran as another way to enhance his leverage there. If negotiations aren't going the way he likes, however, dropping bombs is still a card he could play — or at least, that's what he wants his negotiating partner to fear. As I wrote before the US struck Iran, Trump has some wariness toward the hawks, but he's not a dove or a peacenik: If he's persuaded a military action will go well and make him look strong and successful, he's happy to endorse it. It is clear, though, that he continues to be wary of more prolonged wars that could go poorly. So for now at least, Trump appears to lack the appetite for a prolonged, costly, and painful war. He approved the Iran strikes because he thought Iran had been so weakened that he could get away with them, with limited consequences to Americans. But just as soon as he approved them, he hastened to wrap up the conflict.
Vox
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Vox
What the ‘12-day war' teaches us about Trump's foreign policy
is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He's worked at Vox since the site's launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker's Washington, DC, bureau. When President Donald Trump announced late Saturday that he ordered the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, critics on both the left and the right feared a spiral into a wider war. Yet just two days later, Trump announced a ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran that he claimed would end what he called 'the 12-day war' entirely. And though this ceasefire looked quite fragile at first, three days later, it's still holding. There's much we still don't know about whether Trump's strikes were successful in their short-term objective of disabling Iran's nuclear program. And of course, the long-term consequences of the war for Iran and the region are very far from clear. The past week's events did, however, clarify some things about Trump and his approach to foreign policy in his second term. Specifically, though Trump attacked Iran's nuclear program, he quickly pivoted to a ceasefire, suggesting that he's still wary of the hawks' transformational 'regime change' ambitions. He instead prefers to deal with countries' existing leaders at the negotiating table — and views military force as a tool to get himself a better deal. At first, it seemed that Trump had handed hawks on the right a decisive victory. Sweeping aside the concerns of the 'America First' faction that urged restraint and feared entanglement in a new 'forever war,' Trump supported Israel's attack on Iran and then sent US bombers in as well. But what Trump did next is just as revealing. Though the Iranian government was badly weakened, and some hawks were hoping it could be toppled, Trump demurred, dismissing Iran's retaliation against the US Monday as inconsequential and working to put together a ceasefire. That is, he had an opportunity to push onward for regime change in Tehran but turned it down. Then, when it looked like the new ceasefire might not hold, Trump profanely berated both Iran and Israel and particularly urged Israel to scale back a retaliatory mission that was in progress. After Israel complied, Trump did a solid for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a Truth Social post urging Israeli authorities to cancel Netanyahu's corruption trial. Finally, Trump also declared the US strikes a complete success, insisting that Iran's nuclear program has been wiped out and disputing leaked intelligence estimates that say otherwise. He seems uninterested in hawkish arguments that he hasn't finished the job. This week, administration officials have even tried to restart nuclear talks with Iran, unlikely as that may seem. All this suggests that, despite bombing the nuclear sites, Trump has not embraced open-ended war as US foreign policy just yet. He rolled the dice on a risky military operation — but remained intent on avoiding a wider war. He supported Israel — but then, when he wanted the war to stop, called the Israelis out. It also suggests that Trump, unlike the GOP's more hawkish faction, is uninterested in seeking transformational regime change in Iran. Despite a Truth Social post on Sunday (after the strikes and before the ceasefire) in which Trump suggested 'Regime change' might be a possibility, he didn't go through with it. During his first presidential run, Trump trashed George W. Bush's Iraq War as a debacle,' and the collapse of Iran's government would likely bring similar turmoil. Rather, Trump would prefer to settle things at the negotiating table, and he continues to view military action like his strikes on Iran as another way to enhance his leverage there. If negotiations aren't going the way he likes, however, dropping bombs is still a card he could play — or at least, that's what he wants his negotiating partner to fear. As I wrote before the US struck Iran, Trump has some wariness toward the hawks, but he's not a dove or a peacenik: If he's persuaded a military action will go well and make him look strong and successful, he's happy to endorse it. It is clear, though, that he continues to be wary of more prolonged wars that could go poorly. So for now at least, Trump appears to lack the appetite for a prolonged, costly, and painful war. He approved the Iran strikes because he thought Iran had been so weakened that he could get away with them, with limited consequences to Americans. But just as soon as he approved them, he hastened to wrap up the conflict.
Associated Press
15 hours ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Trump Management 101: World leaders adapt to his erratic diplomacy with flattery and patience
LONDON (AP) — If world leaders were teaching a course on how to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump early in his second term, their lesson plan might go like this: Pile on the flattery. Don't chase the policy rabbits he sends running across the world stage. Wait out the threats to see what, specifically, he wants, and when possible, find a way to deliver it. With every Oval Office meeting and summit, the leaders of other countries are settling on tactics and strategy in their pursuit of a working relationship with the emboldened American leader who presides over the world's largest economy and commands its most powerful military. The results were there to see at NATO, where leaders heaped praise on Trump, shortened meetings and removed contentious subjects from the agenda. Given that Trump dominates geopolitics, foreign leaders are learning from each other's experiences dating to Trump's first term, when he reportedly threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance. Among the learnable Trumpisms: He disdains traditional diplomacy. With him, it's ' America first,' it's superlative — and ' it's not even close. ' He goes with his gut, and the world goes along for the ride. They're finding, for example, that the sheer pace of Trump's orders, threats and social posts can send him pinging from the priority of one moment to another. He describes himself as 'flexible' in negotiations, such as those in which he threatened big tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China only to back down during talks. And while Trump claimed credit for the ceasefire in the Iran-Israel war, he also has yet to negotiate ending the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza as promised. Trump's threat this week to levy retaliatory tariffs on Spain, for example, 'is a mystery to everyone,' Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told reporters Thursday during a summit in Brussels. If the tariffs never happen, he said, 'It won't be the first time that things don't turn out as bad as they seem at first glance. Or that he changes his mind. I'm not the kind of leader who jumps every time Mr. Trump says something.' Trump management 101: Discipline vs 'daddy diplomacy' Two summits this month, an ocean apart — the Group of Seven in Canada and NATO in The Netherlands — illustrate contrasting approaches to the American president on the brink of his 6th month back in office. Meeting in mid-June in Alberta, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomed Trump at a press conference by wishing him a happy birthday and adding a smidgen of flattery: 'The G7 is nothing without U.S. leadership and your personal leadership of the United States.' But when Trump turned partisan, Carney cut off the event, saying: 'We actually have to start the meeting.' Trump appeared to nod in agreement. But later, on Monday, June 16, he abruptly departed the summit a day early as the conflict between Israel and Iran intensified. Trump ordered U.S. pilots to drop 30,000-pound bombs early Sunday on two key underground uranium enrichment plants in Iran, and by Wednesday announced on social media 'a Complete and Total ceasefire.' What followed was a 48-hour whirlwind during which Trump veered from elated to indignant to triumphant as his fragile Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement came together, teetered toward collapse and ultimately coalesced. Trump publicly harangued the Israelis and Iranians with a level of pique and profanity that was notable even for him. Chiding the two countries for attacking each other beyond a deadline, he dropped the f-word. Not finished, he then cast doubt on his support for NATO's mutual defense guarantee. Such was the president's mood as he winged toward a meeting of the trans-Atlantic alliance he had disparaged for years. NATO was ready for Trump with a summit set to please him NATO is essentially American, anyway. The Europeans and Canadians cannot function without American heavy lift, air refueling, logistics and more. Most of all, they rely on the United States for its range of nuclear weapons for deterrence. The June 25 summit was whittled down to a few hours, and one Trump-driven subject: Raising the amount of money the member nations spent on defense to lighten the load carried by the United States. Emphatically not on the agenda: Russia's ongoing war with Ukraine. Trump did, however, meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has climbed his own learning curve on Trump management since Trump berated him in the Oval Office in February. The Ukrainian leader has deployed a conciliatory approach and mirrored Trump's transactional style. The goal, widely reported, was to avoid doing anything that might cause Trump to blow up the event or leave. Trump was invited to stay at the royal palace in The Hague and dine with the royal family. It was expected that most members would endorse the plan to raise their spending targets for their one-for-all defense against Russia. The other NATO ambassadors had told Secretary-General Mark Rutte to deploy his Trump-whispering skills. He sent the president a private, presummit text predicting Trump would achieve 'BIG' success there, which Trump posted on his own socials for all to see. At the summit, Rutte likened Trump's role quieting the Iran-Israel war to a 'daddy' interdicting a schoolyard brawl. 'He likes me,' Trump explained. Backlash was stiff. Lithuania's former foreign minister called Rutte's approach 'the gushings of weakness and meekness.' 'The wording appears to have been stolen from the adult entertainment industry,' Gabrielius Landsbergis tweeted. 'It reduces Europe to the state of a beggar — pitiful before our Transatlantic friends and Eastern opponents alike.' It was the latest confirmation that complimenting is a favorite way for leaders to deal with him, if not a popular one in some circles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been using the tactic since at least 2018, when he called Trump 'the greatest friend Israel has ever had,' and even named a settlement in the Golan Heights after him. The late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plied him with multiple rounds of golf. French President Emmanuel Macron invited Trump to be the guest of honor at Bastille Day in 2017, featuring an elaborate military parade. What Trump left behind Rutte found a way to make Trump's demand that member countries spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense work. Their military support to Ukraine could count as a substantial slice of that money. But the agreement left big issues unresolved, including a U.S. troop reduction that is likely to be announced later in the year, and the potential for a resulting security vacuum. Posters on social media referred to NATO as the 'North Atlantic Trump Organization.' 'This summit has all been about managing him, and it's all been about trying to get him to say the right thing in the right moment,' Fiona Hill, a former senior White House national security adviser to three U.S. presidents, including Trump, told the BBC. By the end of the summit, participants were declaring it a success as much for what it prevented as for what was accomplished. Trump showed up. He did not blow it up, leave early or start fights. And critically, NATO survived — indeed, with Trump declaring himself a changed man where the alliance is concerned. And his night in the palace? He said he'd 'slept beautifully.' ___ Associated Press reporters Lorne Cook in Brussels and Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this story.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Says ‘America First' Means Whatever He Wants
President Donald Trump declared that 'America First,' one of the president's favorite slogans, means whatever he says it does. The president was firing back against criticism of America's support for Israel in its conflict against Iran in a Saturday interview with The Atlantic. The interviewer, Michael Scherer, informed Trump that even former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, ordinarily a loudly pro-Trump voice, had raised concerns about his stance. Along those lines, Scherer asked about whether the move runs counter to 'America First.' 'Well, considering that I'm the one that developed 'America First' and considering that the term wasn't used until I came along, I think I'm the one that decides that,' Trump said. 'For those people who say they want peace—you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon,' he added. 'So for all of those wonderful people who don't want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that's not peace.' Israel launched a 'preemptive strike' on Iran's nuclear capabilities Thursday. Iran answered Friday by launching ballistic missiles at Israel. The United States has helped Israel shoot the missiles down but was not involved in the country's offensive. America's support of Israel during the conflict has some in the MAGAworld worried about being sucked into a war. 'Who are the warmongers?' Carlson asked in an X post. 'They would include anyone who's calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran.' Trump batted down the criticism—which he said he wasn't aware of—and emphasized that it is in America's national security interest to oppose Iran's nuclear development, according to The Atlantic. 'Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, very simple,' Trump said. 'Regardless—Israel or not Israel—Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb.' The call ended when Trump excused himself to take a call from Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'Mike, I have to go,' Trump said. 'I am taking a call from Putin.' Hours later, Trump revealed on Truth Social that Putin had called to wish him a happy birthday (the president turned 79 on June 14). Trump said that the hour-long call also touched on the conflict between Israel and Iran, as well as the Ukraine-Russia war, in which Trump has sought to broker peace. 'He feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end,' the president wrote.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mitch McConnell Breaks Cover to Trash ‘Rabid' JD Vance
Mitch McConnell has shrunk from the spotlight since relinquishing the GOP leadership last year—but the weekend's bunker-buster strikes on Iran and Donald Trump's subsequent visit to the NATO summit have pulled the Kentuckian out of his semi-retirement rocking chair and into flamethrower mode. And, right in McConnell's firing line, was President Trump's number two, JD Vance, who was spared little sympathy. '[Trump's] got some pretty rabid isolationists over at DoD—you could argue the vice president is in that group,' McConnell said, skewering Vance in the Politico interview. 'None of those people who've read history.' The Daily Beast has approached Vance for comment but has not received a reply at the time of publication. McConnell's feud with Trump dates back to 2016, when 'McConnell-world' went up against 'Trumpland' for the soul of the GOP. The clash intensified when McConnell publicly certified Joe Biden's 2020 victory and blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 riot, widening the party's divide between institutional conservatism and culture-war populism. Trump, as he so often does, resorted to insults, describing McConnell last year as an 'Old Crow'—a nickname which backfired, with the Kentucky senator proudly turning it into a badge of honor. The octogenarian now chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that doles out defense dollars. From that perch he appears to be mounting a public campaign to drag Donald Trump back toward the interventionist creed of peace through strength that defined the party before media commentators and podcasters like Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and 'America First' hashtags took over. Rather than whisper advice over dinner, McConnell has unleashed floor speeches, committee diatribes, and this 40-minute chat with Politico. The message is constant: replicate the Iran success in Ukraine, out-spend Moscow and Beijing, and don't let Vance or other 'history-light' aides fog up the president's thinking. 'The strongest deterrence is denying an adversary's objectives through military means,' McConnell declared on the Senate floor, adding that preaching at NATO partners means nothing unless Washington fattens its own defense ledger. He praised Trump for goading Europeans into higher budgets but argued that means 'we need to do the same.' 'We need to not just preach to our allies, we need to do the same,' McConnell told Politico, who admitted his view doesn't make him popular in the commander-in-chief's club. 'Most of [Trump's] advisers don't agree with what I'm saying,' McConnell said, conceding he no longer has 'the megaphone' he once did as he enters the final stages of a congressional career that began during Ronald Reagan's second term in January 1985. Instead, he says, he has 'the freedom to do it that I would not have had if I had still been leader.' Health setbacks—flaring childhood polio and hearing loss—may have slowed him physically, but McConnell still rattled off defense-spending as a slice of GDP from Harry Truman to Joe Biden. 'We're now spending less than Jimmy Carter was in his last year,' he said. Would Trump even know that? 'That is why some of us need to argue a different point of view,' McConnell said, noting social media posts are no substitute for hard numbers.
