Even Hillary Clinton admits Trump’s foreign policy is working
Well, here’s something you don’t see every day. President Trump’s foreign policy is getting high marks from an unusual grader — Hillary Clinton.
Indeed, the former first lady, secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate is typically no fan of The Donald; she’s called him an illegitimate president, a threat to our democracy, a Russian stooge, and every other smear in the book.
But even Clinton admits Trump is doing a pretty good job strengthening the U.S. relationship with European allies while getting more out of them in terms of NATO defense and their financial contributions. Watch Clinton speaking with liberal Fox News commentator Jessica Tarlov:
“I actually was encouraged by the events of the last several months,” said the former secretary of State. “The NATO commitment by individual member states to increase their defense spending, it’s something that prior administrations have certainly sought, and I think it’s great that we’re seeing these commitment they now have to follow through on.”
Clinton continues: “There is beginning to be a better understanding, both by the president and the people around him, as well as by the leaders of our European allies, that there can be common ground amongst us. The kind of dismissiveness of that we saw in the first Trump administration has been replaced by a much more obvious working relationship, to the good of European security, transatlantic security, and hopefully Ukrainian security.”
That’s high praise from a Democratic political figure who previously accused Trump of being totally beholden to Vladmir Putin and Russia, and of working to subvert the NATO alliance, and of being an isolationist — all notions that are explicitly disproven by Trump’s diplomatic efforts to engage the West in the project of mediating peace between Russia and Ukraine.
And, actually, it’s not just Russia and Ukraine. Trump is working to achieve peace all over the globe — something that has attracted the notice of moderate liberal commentator Bill Maher. Let’s watch:
“If you’re the kind of person who can find some good in anybody, this would be the good in Donald Trump. He really does not like war. Thailand and Cambodia were firing at each other, Rwanda and the Congo — most people don’t even know about these — India and Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, he got involved in all of them.”
All we are saying is give peace a chance! That’s what I believe in, it’s what Donald Trump seems to believe in, and it’s what America First really means.
War should be a last resort. Diplomacy can accomplish more than sanctions or airstrikes or, god forbid, boots on the grounds. Letting countries trade with each other and benefit from each other’s resources is a surer way to get our allies and our enemies to serve our interests than twisting their arms with force. We don’t need to ask the American people to send their hard-earned tax dollars overseas in some naive hope that it will make foreign peoples friendlier to us, nor should we bomb them into somehow loving America. Neither of those strategies — liberal interventionism and neoconservatism — work for us.
What does work is libertarianism, or you can call it military noninterventionism, or foreign policy populism, or just call it America First. It’s what the people want, and it’s what they’re currently getting, and even Hillary Clinton has to admit, it’s sort of working.
Robby Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary.