Trump's Foreign Policy

I used to think Trump was a clown, a buffoon, a corrupt businessman who didn't know anything about American politics, whether domestic or international.

Then I watched the following policy speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q_s6cXSv_8


And I discovered that the Media portrayal of Trump in regards to Foreign Policy - he would be the first to use a nuke, that world war 3 would start under him - was false.

Trump, for all his faults, has a better Foreign Policy than Hillary Clinton's.


Hillary Clinton has followed the neo-con handbook. Her vote in favour of the Iraq War was not followed by apology or sincere change of policy - rather, she only continued to please her donors in voting for the ousting of Egypt's Mubarak - who had signed a declaration of peace with Israel - and Clinton replaced him with Muslim Brotherhood Morsi.

Clinton did not stop there. She continued her failed policy by ousting Gidaffi in Libya and replacing him with - well, militias squabbling with each other. They are still squabbling.

And she is not stopping. She wants to remove President Assad from Syria - which would be her worst foreign policy decision to date.

Yes, worse than voting for the Iraq War. I said it.
(Refer to earlier post for more details.)

Trump says he wishes to "get out of the nation-building business" and "focus on stability." (By the way, in his foreign policy speech, he did not mention nukes once. Not once! Ergh, American Media...)

Trump has tapped into what the American people want: an end to endless wars. But he recognises that in order to create lasting peace in an area as volatile as the Middle-East, strong men are a better alternative to terrorists. Regarding Assad, Trump said, "Maybe Assad is a bad guy, but there might be worse guys after him... We don't even know who we're funding."

Meaning that step 1 in Trump's Foreign Policy is the handing over of terrorism in Syria to Russia and President Assad - who is the head of the internationally recognised government anyway. Such a move benefits the Middle-East, benefits the Syrian people, benefits relations between America and Russia and benefits Israel. I will unpack each of these below:

1) Benefits the Middle-East. The destabilization of Syria with the removal of Assad would destroy much heritage and culture of the Middle-East. Together with Egypt and Iraq, Syria is one of the countries which is most recognised for its culture and heritage in the Middle-East. An escalation in violence and killing caused by the removal of Assad would destroy a sizeable amount of heritage in Syria and the Middle-East.

2) Benefits the Syrian people. Most Syrians live in Assad's territory - they're not fleeing Assad - they're fleeing Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The Syrians that are disgruntled and not content with Assad are mainly from the villages and countryside of Syria - these are a minority fighting the majority (except they have American/Western backing.) Most people would benefit more from an Assad victory than from his removal: Alawites, Druze, Christians and upper-class Sunnis would all stand to benefit.

3) Benefits relations between America and Russia. American-Russian relations are at their worst post-Cold War. American pressure easing in Syria would undoubtedly give Putin the space he needs to show the world that he wishes to accomplish good in Syria and fight terrorism. Putin would also give America more concessions in other areas if his top Middle-East ally were left alone.

4) Benefits Israel. There are those in Israel that believe getting rid of Assad would benefit Israel - Hillary Clinton is one such as this. I disagree for a reason I have stated earlier: at the moment, Israel's main enemies are Shi'ite Muslims, not Sunni Muslims. The majority of Muslims in the Middle-East - and in the world - are Sunni. If the Assad Government is removed - a Shi'ite power that has maintained a peaceful border with Israel - then Sunnis would undoubtedly turn their attention to Israel themselves and make this peaceful border not so peaceful. This "sleeping giant" of Sunnis turning to fight Israel has been asleep since the beginning of the Iraq War - Israel would be wise to keep it asleep.


Trump may also install a dictator in Afghanistan. At the moment, the Taliban controls a sizeable amount of territory in Afghanistan - they are stronger than they have been in a number of years - and America cannot defeat them with their current strategy. With "getting out of the nation-building business" and "focusing on stability," the logical conclusion for Trump regarding Afghanistan would be to push for a Sunni dictator to take control. This would destroy the Taliban for sure; it would also stabilize a country which has seen nothing but war for the past 15 years. It would provide a balwark for Iranian influence, much as Saddam Hussein did in Iraq prior to the Iraq War.

Afghanistan may be the country Trump gets out of more successfully than Obama did from Iraq.


It may be possible as well that Trump would increase relations with Iraq and decrease relations with Saudi Arabia. He has said jokingly, "We gotta take their [Iraqi] oil" - but what he is referring to is keeping Iraq's oil out of the hands of American companies - companies selling the oil elsewhere - and increasing oil trade between Iraq and America.

Iraq would likely stabilize under a new level of relations with America and the economic boost associated with it. Whether Iraq breaks in 2 or not would be irrelevant - America has established trade with Gulf countries whether part of Saudi Arabia or not; there is no reason to suggest they would not do the same with both mainland and Kurdish Iraq.

America not boosting the oil industry in both Iran and Saudi Arabia would dampen terrorist efforts enormously, as both have been funding terrorism extensively.

This would likely have an impact on the Saudi-American war on Houthis in Yemen. While pro-Iranian, the Houthis may be able to be pushed into closer relations with Iraq over Iran, through which Trump may give them the green light to control all of Yemen and expel Al-Qaeda from Yemen for good.

With Libya, Trump would likely wait for the country to deteriorate extensively before intervening again there. This is a sad reality for Libyans: Americans are war-weary.

Trump is a better solution than Clinton. I can provide more links below if requested.