Emmanuel Macron, the liberal president of France, declared in 2019 that NATO was experiencing "brain death." Barack Obama urged more than once that NATO members ought to pay their fair share. Yet neither of these leaders were accused of being Russian agents or bringing doom upon the West. Only Donald Trump can be accused of such, according to the double standards of progressive media and politicians.
In the years since Trump left office, the Biden administration has brought on a debacle in Afghanistan, abandoned American citizens and allies, waged a war on energy to the benefit of Russia, introduced woke and progressive ideas causing artificial social conflicts, weakened U.S. standing in the international community, and might well have encouraged the conflicts we see around the world.
Given this context, President Trump's reelection is no threat to the West. On the contrary, it has the potential to strengthen it.
How can increasing NATO contributions—as Trump has sought to do—mean weakening it? If Trump were doing Russia or China favors, surely he would encourage member states not to pay for their defense. Many U.S. citizens, and especially conservatives, are concerned that there is little accountability and transparency with the money spent by the United States abroad. Trump is echoing this concern, sometimes harshly, because previous calls have gone unheard.
Of course, the 45th president and his base know that the American retreat from the global stage after World War I contributed to a more complex and less stable international environment. Today, such an isolationist stance would mean a diminished and worse-off U.S., and a more dominant China. America First does not mean America alone, as Trump said in 2018.
This outlook extends beyond defense. For years, politicians in the European Union shut down nuclear power plants (which produce clean, low-cost, safe energy), closed coal plants, and banned natural-gas exploration, hurting the supply side in the name of so-called green energy. This open war on traditional energy sources, without renewable alternatives to meet demand, has made the EU dependent on Russia and other non-ally countries for energy. President Trump was the first to warn that this reliance on Russia would backfire. He made the U.S. energy independent and pushed for the EU to turn away from Russia and towards allies to provide energy supplies.
In addition, Trump's administration issued hundreds of sanctions and designations from 2017 through 2020 on Russia-linked individuals and entities, of which about half were related to Ukraine. Even President Obama's Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said President Trump's administration has been the toughest on Russia.
In 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned Russia's illegal actions in Crimea and its continued aggression against Ukraine. Throughout Trump's term, the administration imposed sanctions in response to Russia's continued aggression in Ukraine, to human rights abuses, to the Salisbury attack, to actions in Syria and Venezuela, and to other forms of aggression such as cyberattacks. President Trump also placed strong sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Trump clearly believes that a strong domestic situation can strengthen the position of a country in the international community, giving it more leverage and bargaining power, and deterring the actions of adversaries. History shows that the four-year period from 2017 to 2021 was in fact quite peaceful.
During his first four years, Trump's foreign policy accomplishments included peace agreements in the Middle East between Israel and Arab countries. Trump successfully fought back against the Islamic State. His maximum pressure policy against Iran proved successful, and he placed sanctions on communist regimes.
It was Trump that brought to everyone's attention the threat posed by China and raised the possibility of decoupling. On this issue, there is common ground between the U.S. and the EU to collaborate further, with everyone doing more economically, geopolitically, and culturally, especially by moving away from socialist policies and towards capitalism and free markets.
Of course, more should be done in a second Trump term to prevent woke and progressive emissaries from the United States from enacting their own agendas. The bureaucracy should not make decisions on behalf of the U.S. president, undercutting his priorities, as occurred many times in Trump's first term. A second Trump administration should focus on improving relations with allies who stand by the U.S. and share the same interests, against those countries that play both sides with geopolitical adversaries, especially in delicate regions, and that advance socialism.
Naturally, it must be acknowledged that the excesses of American foreign policy have contributed to a distrust and skepticism for international engagement amongst the American people. It falls upon conservative leaders to reconcile the need for U.S. leadership on the world stage with the requests of the American people for prudence, transparency, accountability, and better economic and social policies within the country.
President Trump did it in his first term. He has the ability once again to show the world that the United States and its allies have the strength to keep at bay geopolitical adversaries, while strengthening the country at home through tax cuts, deregulation, supply-side policies, border protection, and law and order. Trump can and should encourage Europe to follow the same path. Just as President Ronald Reagan, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II kept the balance of power in the West by pursuing a common goal with similar policies, so can a new coalition strengthen both sides of the Atlantic.
There is great potential to restore lost prestige to the West, to preserve values that are now under attack, and to bring prosperity to American and European citizens through the right policies. This will restrain the aggressive aspirations of geopolitical rivals that do not want a western-based world order. President Trump can be the leader to achieve this—he should be given the chance to make his case and continue what he started.
Nikola Kedhi is an economic expert and financial consultant, a coauthor of the Constitution of the Center-Right Values and a contributor to several media outlets in the US, UK, and Europe. Kedhi's articles reflect solely his own opinions.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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