America First — or American Empire? Trump’s aggressive global moves signal a new doctrine

President Donald Trump spent years campaigning against the failures of American foreign policy — but not necessarily against American power itself.

Which is why Trump’s bold global moves suggest a doctrine that rejects nation-building and ideological crusades in favor of something far simpler: an America First approach to global dominance.

“It’s only March, but already it’s proven to be a pretty remarkably action-packed year. You know, just three days in, Trump successfully plucks up Nicolas Maduro from his bed in Venezuela, extradites him back to the United States, where he’s facing numerous felony charges stemming from involvement in narco-terrorism,” John Doyle explains.

“Then, the end of February, Trump launches Operation Epic Fury, of course, a military campaign to destroy Iran’s offensive capabilities,” he continues.

“On Tuesday, though, the U.S. and Ecuador launched a joint military operation against narcoterrorists in the South American country,” he adds.

But it appears that Trump is only getting started.

“A lot of analysts, I’ve been seeing this, are saying that Trump is perhaps planning an intervention in Cuba. ... In his second term, he’s floated the idea of, you know, a friendly takeover. We can guess how friendly such a takeover would actually be. But Trump’s clearly trying to frame Cuba as a failing state, which it is,” Doyle says.

And while many Americans are skeptical of Trump’s recent actions, particularly Operation Epic Fury, Doyle points out that Trump is “doing what he thinks is best for America, not what’s best for abstractions like liberal democracy, not what’s best for transgender people in Timbuktu, what is best for America.”

“He does think in terms of empire. All of his criticism about American Empire has not been so much on the empire itself, but more on the people managing it. What does he say? ‘Our leaders are stupid,’” Doyle explains.

“His problem with us going into Iraq was not that we went into Iraq necessarily, but that we went in to pursue a nation-building project, and we didn’t even take the oil. He said this as it was going on. He said this on the debate stage in 2016. This is pretty consistent for Donald Trump,” he says.

“And, of course, it’s true that Trump won the election in 2016 by denouncing, again, certain aspects of the American Empire — you know, our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan. But it is incorrect ultimately to characterize Trump as opposed to empire itself,” he continues.

“In fact, if anything, the American Empire is actually doing a lot better with Trump at the helm,” he adds.

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