Trumps 24 game plan: Be the dove among the hawks

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The claims are a continuation of a posture Trump sought to project as a 2016 presidential candidate and while in the White House one that his record has occasionally contradicted.

But his renewed focus on international affairs also comes as the Republican primary field is expected to be crowded with potential challengers who are likely to build their own foreign policy bona fides. That includes two former Trump lieutenants: former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and former secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Those close to Trumps campaign operation say he plans to try and paint himself as an anti-war dove among the hawks. They believe doing so will satisfy GOP voters divided over, but growing wary of, continued support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Trump is the president of peace and he’s the first president in two generations who didn’t start a war, whereas if you look at DeSantis’ congressional record, he’s voted for more engagement and more military engagement with other country, said a person close to the Trump campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

Trump is the only person to say there is no more funding for the war in Ukraine. I never heard Nikki Haley say anything like that… Pompeo or Pence? Where do they stand in Ukraine?

Indeed, Haley, Pence and Pompeo have all, to varying degrees, called for the US to fund the Ukrainians and even, at times, criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough.

However, Trumps modernized America First framework has already had profound implications, both for the emerging Republican establishment and neo-conservative foreign policy orthodoxy and for muddling consensus on issues ranging from military intervention to how to deal with tyrannical dictators.

And as several Republican officials noted for this story, last week the conservative and once-hawkish Heritage Foundation distanced itself from its longtime calls for a stable defense budget and said that spending cuts by Pentagon should be at the table as part of the debt limit negotiations.

I think national security will be a more important issue in 2024 than in most recent presidential elections, said Trump’s former national security adviser turned public critic John Bolton, who also considered run to 2024. You may have noticed that there is a Chinese balloon floating over the country right now.

Knowing that his instincts are not as hawkish as some of his potential Republican challengers, Trump and his aides began to draw contrasts and set the parameters of the debate.

On Thursday, Trump said Pompeo had gotten less credit than he deserved for accomplishments while he was secretary of State, a sign that Trump may try to downplay his opponents’ foreign policy experience, despite of being chosen by him. Later in the day, the Trump-supporting super PAC highlighted recent attacks on Haley by right-wing conservative commentators, some of whom called her a warmonger and Neocon Nikki.

Trumps team was also eager to announce a Wall Street Journal op-ed endorsement this week from Sen. JD Vance, the populist Republican from Ohio, who expressed Trump’s inclination against getting into foreign entanglements.

Every Republican running will be opposed to [critical race theory]. Every Republican running will say we need to secure the border and we need to oppose amnesty. Every Republican running is for lower taxes and less regulation, a Vance adviser said of Trump’s foreign policy early play. It makes sense for Trump to drag out the race where his opponents don’t want to.

Trumps team is also looking at foreign policy as an area to make differences with his potential top political opponent, DeSantis, who has gained national attention for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his embrace of the culture wars. but who, as governor, has a limited international track record.

Governors will have a hard time justifying their foreign policies because it’s not in their job description so they need to do something to step up and prove to voters that they can handle all these issues that show their itself on the global stage, said David Urban, a Republican strategist who remains close to many potential 2024 contenders.

[Potential] candidates like Pompeo and Haley and Pence and the [former] the president can say, Here I am sitting with Kim Jong Un, and here is what we did with the Abraham Accords or the USMCA. Everyone has something they can talk about in concrete terms, where the governors can’t and that will be a point of difference among a wide group of them.

There are already signs that DeSantis is making moves to address this likely line of attack. He has had phone calls and meetings with foreign leaders and ambassadors in recent months, including a face-to-face session in Tallahassee last week with Mario Abdo Bentez, the president of Paraguay. Relatives of Paraguay’s first lady Silvana Abdo were killed in the deadly Surfside condominium collapse in 2021.

In December, DeSantis met in his office with Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador to the US, along with Yousef Al Otaiba, the ambassador from the United Arab Emirates. After DeSantis easily won re-election, he met with top officials from Japan, including Koji Tomita, ambassador to the United States, as well as Japanese business leaders.

Florida continues to be an important political and economic partner to many countries around the world, and as foreign officials request meetings with our office, it is appropriate to further develop these relationships, said Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for DeSantis.

Bolton, for his part, said he thought Trump would prove to be weak on foreign policy once it became clear he was not.

He doesn’t have a policy on much of anything, he has Donald Trump, he said. So his ultimate thought is that if he were the president he would solve the Ukraine-Russia dispute within 24 hours. I think people over time and self-identified Republicans just aren’t buying it.

But for now, other likely opponents aren’t taking the bait. DeSantis this week criticized Trump’s digs about the governors’ response to Covid, drawing on his margin of victory in November’s Florida election, but did not seek to defend his record on foreign policy.

A person close to Haley’s political operation, meanwhile, said the former UN ambassador will be proud of her own foreign policy record, one that has involved helping Trump score some of his top successes abroad. These include moving the United States embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, scrapping a nuclear deal with Iran and securing buy-in from China on sanctions against North Korea.

While there are some major chasms between Haley and her former boss, she has defended US support for Ukraine and been a vocal critic of Putin and Moscow during her tenure in the Trump administration, making it unlikely she will run afoul of Trump. , which chose instead to criticize Bidens strategy. Withdrawal of China, Iran and the US from Afghanistan.

That’s not the focus, Haley’s ally said of the contrast with Trump. We are focused on Biden.

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