Peace Through Strength? Foreign Policy in a Second Trump Term

WSJ Opinion: Free Expression

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What will a second Trump term's foreign policy look like? How will it differ from the first term? On this episode of the Free Expression podcast, former Trump National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien looks at the multiple challenges that Trump would face if he wins the election next month and how his “America First” approach might play out with multiplying tensions around the world. He tells Wall Street Journal Editor at Large Gerry Baker it would “make sense” for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities as it seeks to reduce Teheran’s threat. He also says a deal to settle the Russia-Ukraine war is possible but that the U.S. must show support for Kyiv to bring pressure on Moscow. And he responds to claims in a new book by Bob Woodward that Donald Trump personally sent Vladimir Putin American Covid tests during the pandemic, and that the two world leaders had multiple conversations after the election of Joe Biden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.
0:09.3	Hello and welcome to Free Expression from the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal.
0:12.6	I'm Jerry Baker, editor at large of the journal. If you're not already subscribing to Free Expression,
0:16.8	please sign up at Apple, Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you do, you're listening.
0:20.2	This week, a second Trump administration's foreign policy.
0:24.9	If Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025, he'll inherit a world greatly changed from the one he faced in 2017,
0:32.3	escalating wars in the Middle East and Europe, the rising challenge of China. Americans held hostage, a worldwide
0:38.9	retreat from international economic cooperation. In his first term, Trump pursued an approach
0:44.2	that he liked to call America first, one with historic overtones, promoting U.S. interests
0:49.1	unchacled from any sense of obligation to alliances or global institutions.
0:59.0	He declared a form of economic warfare on China, calling Beijing out for its violations of trading rules and imposing tariffs on Chinese imports.
1:01.9	He was staunchly pro-Israel, while driving negotiations with Arab countries that led to the historic
1:06.5	Abraham Accords.
1:08.1	He was highly critical of NATO to the alarm of some European partners, given
1:12.9	his repeated expressions of admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. But his criticisms did
1:18.0	result in other NATO countries at last agreeing to contribute more to the alliance's defense
1:22.2	capabilities. Well, all that's in the past, but there are echoes of all of that in a possible future Trump administration.
1:28.9	So if he does win election next month, what would Trump administration two foreign policy look like?
1:34.3	Well, this week, I'm pleased to say I'm joined by someone who knows a good deal about that.
1:38.1	Robert O'Brien, who's a national security advisor to President Trump from 2019 to 2021.
1:42.6	Of course, in that role, he played a crucial part in all the big
1:45.5	foreign policy decisions, some of them quite controversial, the last two years of the Trump
	...

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