Naive, and scary
Donald Trump’s populist vow to put “America First” has been a hit on the hustings, with some Republicans at least. But his take on the wider world, outlined in a major foreign policy speech this week, turns out to be an oddball mix of military braggadocio, wild and woolly thinking, and sheer naivete. That’s a problem. It’s also unsettling from a strictly Canadian point of view. Trump regards North American free trade, a cornerstone of the entire Canada-U.S. relationship and our economy, as a “total disaster.” He seems dismissive of global warming. And Canada would have to double military spending to $40 billion a year to satisfy his demand that freeloading allies pay their way or forfeit American protection.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government can only hope that Democrat Hillary Clinton doesn’t fritter away the lead she has over Trump in polls that look ahead to the Nov. 8 presidential election, now that Trump is closing in on the Republican nomination. Americans, like Canadians in the last election, crave change. Many distrust familiar political faces, and Clinton’s is quite familiar. Still, the prospect of a Trump presidency should give anyone pause.
As he crushed his rivals in primaries this week, Trump derided Clinton, the first serious female presidential candidate, as a weak and crooked politician who has nothing going for her but “the woman’s card.” She would make a “horrible” president, he said. That from a candidate who is notorious for slandering women, Latinos, Muslims and others, and who would bring back waterboarding torture.
If that weren’t bad enough, the serial incoherency of Trump’s world view, outlined in a speech on Wednesday, is chilling.
His “America First” slogan echoes the rallying cry of Nazi-appeasing isolationists in the run-up to the Second World War, yet at the same time Trump claims he would not hesitate to send U.S. forces abroad “to fight to win.”
He claims that “America is going to be a reliable friend and ally” while claiming “we must, as a nation, be more unpredictable.”
He dreams of enlisting Muslim nations to destroy jihadists from Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, while vowing to block Muslims from the U.S.
He rails against “nation-building” but in the same breath promises to focus on “creating stability,” without defining either.
He imagines building a “great, great wall” along the Mexican border, and expects Mexico to foot the bill.
And he contends that the U.S. nuclear arsenal has been allowed to “atrophy” at the very time when Washington is pumping $1trillion into its modernization.
It defies belief that someone so recklessly naive, ignorant and incoherent can come this close to the presidency. But he has. Allies are rattled. The state of the union is not strong.
Republican frontrunner’s foreign policy speech should trouble Americans and Canadians alike