The Trump Doctrine

President Trump with Qatari Emir Sheikh
Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (carnegie)

President Trump has upended so many norms and protocols that it's difficult to distinguish those actions that have long-term consequences from those that serve as short-term distractions for his opponents. One such distraction was the gift of a Boeing 747 by Qatar to the Air Force, which made it easy to overlook the President's fleshing out of the "Trump doctrine" in his trip to the Middle East. [bold added]

Mr. Trump is offering a form of foreign-policy realism rooted in good commercial relations and a focus on negotiating peace and stability. He doesn’t much care what kind of government countries run as long as they want good relations with the U.S. He’s looking for deals, even with enemies. He thinks mutual interest in prosperity can overcome even strong ideological differences—and he has no interest in promoting American values, including liberty or democracy.

...He says he wants peace above all else, and the test will be whether his deals with adversarial states are short-term expedients or longer-term strategic victories. His deal with Iran, however it goes, will tell us something about his plans for China as well.

Mr. Trump’s aversion to ideology—to promoting U.S. values—led to the biggest mistake of his trip, which was a needless attack on his predecessors. He praised the sparkling new cities of the Arab countries and claimed they are solely the handiwork of those nations.

American foreign policy has always been marked by the tension between realism and idealism. (An example of the latter is JFK's inaugural address:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.)

President Trump attributes recent U.S. foreign-policy failures to "nation-builders" and "interventionalists." His move toward realism is popular and is likely to last through his term.