The Royal Treatment

I am tired of writing about Donald Trump all the time. It is all so boring and redundant. As if outrageous statements, public policy flip-flops, obvious untruths, market moving tariff announcements, extreme hyperbole, and personal attacks on everybody from heads of state to loopy rockstars and lefty movie stars could be redundant and boring. His latest gambit was a supposedly diplomatic mission to the Middle East that was actually more of a business trip with more than 60 CEOs of US businesses in tow.

President Trump obviously reveled in the royal treatment he received from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (better known as MBS), UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Trump and his MAGA supporters hailed the trip as a great success. The White House proudly announced all the trillions of dollars of investments in the US as a result of this trip with the President announcing a new “golden age of prosperity for generations to come.” Typically, the fanfare of these diplomatic missions is very different than the actual results but by most conventional analyses it was a good successful trip. He also, at the request of MBS, met with the new interim president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and promised to lift the sanctions that had been imposed on the Assad regime for 25 years.

But amidst all the parades, receptions, tours and general hobnobbing with fellow royals, Mr. Trump also found time to make a major foreign policy speech defining the Trump Doctrine. In it he denounced the interventionalists for attempting to impose Western ethical standards in the Middle East and accused the so-called nation-builders, neocons and liberal nonprofits that spent trillions and trillions of dollars still failed to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. “Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies in your own way.”

This is straight out of the National Conservative handbook. There was no mention of the lack of civil rights, the second class status of women, the persecution of minorities or other problems facing the region. It is true that Western values and principles have not been very successful here but as WSJ columnist Gerard Baker notedTrump laid out a foreign policy stressing U.S. economic interests shorn of idealism, joining his vice-president, JD Vance, as a Foreign Policy Realist.

But I am not so sure that realist foreign policy (an American foreign policy purged of its Enlightenment principles and values) is actually that realist. Mr. Trump values wealth and money praising his Mideastern hosts for creating such “safe and orderly societies” with improving quality of life and flourishing economic growth. He praised them and affirmed that “peace, prosperity,, and progress ultimately came from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly, and it's something only you could do. You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way.” But to Mr. Trump the Arabian way was the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a few potentates which seems to be also what he envisions for America.

But Mr. Trump appears to be blind to the fact that wealth and power are not the only motivators of human actions. Other people have different ideas and beliefs of what makes a good life and such ideas and beliefs can be powerful forces for change. Values and beliefs have overthrown many societies, both poor and wealthy. Mr. Trump believes that the lure of wealth and prosperity can overcome war and hostility. He thought he could quickly end the War on Ukraine by dangling peace and prosperity before Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The war continues. Mr. Trump thought that promises of peace and prosperity could convince the Palestinians to give up Gaza and go live elsewhere in safe and orderly societies. Mr. Trump’s foreign policy is not realist but is really only a reflection of his own avaricious proclivities.

President Trump claims he wants a ceasefire in Ukraine to stop the bloodbath of killing on the frontlines (and not the profits generated from his rare earth agreement). But Putin is not motivated by thoughts of wealth and power but a much more powerful urge to recreate the Russian Empire of the Czars. Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance have both said that if there is not much progress toward a ceasefire soon, they (and the US) will walk away. That is what Vladimir Putin is hoping for. Xi Jinping too! A true realist foreign policy should not have our foreign adversaries licking their chops. Foreign policy realism that does not take into account the tremendous power of ideas is fatally flawed.