Trump’s foreign policy has undoubtedly made America stronger abroad and turned America from the world’s money bank into a respected power. His administration has renegotiated trade deals that favored America’s adversaries, as well as made new allies, like El Salvador for mutual benefit. At the very least, America is feared once again, just as it was after its ascendancy following the Second World War. Trump has made strides across the globe in shoring up the strength and reliability of our allies and has pushed for peace in the many wars and conflicts that we see today.

In 1956, Britain was decolonizing but still claiming rule over the Suez Canal, but America, under the Presidency of Ike Eisenhower, disagreed. Britain had no legitimate claim to such a vital part of global trade, the US let it be known. Due to this, America asserted itself over the declining British and ensured a century of American dominance to come. Britain lost its holdings and much of its global influence. America became the dominant power in the West, shaping trends and norms, even if other stragglers would try their hand at the task (inevitably, they couldn’t knock #1 down).

Undoubtedly, that story now sounds antiquated- a global empire holding onto imperial ambitions, a change in the order of global dominance, and America getting its way. Since that time, America has tried flexing its diplomatic muscle to create a peaceful settlement between Israel and its neighbors, to no avail. American intervention has turned stable societies into the powder kegs we see sprawling across the Middle East. In the 21st century, America doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to which dictators they decide to support and which they spurn. It’s also the case that there was an intriguing trend in which foreign policy had to be moralistic, along liberal lines, in which American leaders made no effort to improve the world, or the standards of the Country they ruled over. This moralistic foreign policy led to America’s distraction to the biggest foreign threat on the horizon- China. American leaders like Clinton, Bush, and Obama were more concerned about which dictator they ought to support in Africa and the Middle East that they forgot to look at which dictators were arming themselves to compete against America.

Trump’s bold foreign policy agenda is a long-needed course correction for the well-being of this country. Interventionism, as an American agenda, is dead. Bush II believed in American exceptionalism, that a “Freedom Agenda” could ensure Democracy (which, apparently, is the ultimate good) could sprout and grow at gunpoint. He claimed to believe that the “axis of evil” hated America because of its freedom, rather than the troops stationed in the area and the constant threat of American invasion that loomed over the horizon. America had been bombing Iraq since 1991 because of a no-fly zone they implemented in Iraqi airspace, and supposedly, their hatred of America came from an intrinsic aversion to Democracy from their leaders. Lo and behold, the Iraqi people weren’t blinded by any shining cities on a hill, it was the glimmer of bombs whistling to the ground. As Ron Paul famously said in 2007: "They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and free, they come and they attack us because we’re over there."

After Bush, I don’t think the American foreign policy establishment had learned its lesson. They believed in Bush’s mission, but the only difference was that they wanted it to go through official channels and global institutions, like the UN. For example, the military actions in 2011 were led by a global coalition of NATO members who didn’t foresee the turmoil they were about to wreak upon a third-world nation with very little stability to begin with. Somehow, it is expected that after waging war on an ideological enemy, the country will settle as a liberal democracy rather quickly.

Obama tried to straddle idealism and realism, but he was too idealistic to negotiate realistically, and too much of a realist to aim for any particular goal in his foreign policy agenda. For example, he promised to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan but brought the numbers up from 30,000 to 100,000 before his second term. Then, upon lowering the troops to below 30,000, he hadn’t prepared for further Taliban resistance. Moves like these and the “red line” in Syria made foreign leaders skeptical of American dominance, turning America into a joke for the global community.

When it came to China, the foreign policy establishment failed to recognize the growing threat. To his credit, Bush at least viewed China as a “strategic competitor,” in contrast to Bill Clinton’s naïve embrace of Beijing as a potential partner in liberalizing the global order. After 9/11, however, China was sidelined as a foreign policy issue altogether. China was allowed into the World Trade Organization with American support, along with Permanent Normal Trade Relations with every country in the organization. This economic liberalization was supposed to lead to political liberalization, but that never happened. China, rather than coming closer to the United States, became an even stronger adversary. We ceded too much ground to China on the premise that they would, for the first time in history, ally themselves with Western powers like America and the European Union.

Access to global markets has given China an economic advantage over America due to its relaxed labor laws and cheap raw materials. The effect of this was to ensure manufacturing was ripped out of America and sewn into the Chinese economy, propped up by targeted subsidies and manipulation of the Chinese Yuan. The death of American manufacturing in the 2000s is well documented, and not worth repeating here, but let it be known that China killed American communities and towns, and it’s time for retribution.

Chinese military buildup, too, was ignored by the experts. The Chinese government was able to modernize its military without pushback, even as the Pentagon produced the “China Military Power” report in 2001 detailing the threat Beijing posed. The Bush administration preferred to push off any great power politics in favor of pursuing terrorists in the Middle East. Naval and air weaponry were developed for the sake of putting American bases under threat, as well as blocking out American intervention in places like Taiwan and other territorial claims. While there was a shift in America’s outlook on China, that vision was never implemented, and the foreign affairs administration was allowed to stay the course.

China, after the Bush administration, was even more brazen in its affront to American global power. Obama put up little resistance to further military buildup by the Chinese. Even as China asserted itself over the region and showed its ambition for further expansion, Obama thought diplomacy would moderate Beijing’s behavior. A realist, as it so happens, was too idealistic to see how he was being played by the Chinese government. Much like his red line assertion, Obama’s inability to respond to Chinese militarization of the South China Sea with anything more than a diplomatic condemnation encouraged Chinese expansion.

For years, China was expanding without pushback, or even the threat of pushback. There was a trend of anti-China sentiment in American politics since the 2000s, and it finally manifested itself with the Trump Presidency. This has come in the form of a trade war, as well as responding to their military buildup with more than toothless diplomatic pleas. As opposed to mere posturing, Trump strengthened American military presence in the South China Sea, putting pressure on China to halt its expansion and seek to negotiate with America if they did want to expand. Pressure was also put on China to back off from Taiwan. Trump hosted more high-profile visits to the island nation, and increased arms sales there. This would ensure that even without American intervention, China would be forced to think twice about any quick invasions.

This new posture would ensure that China would no longer be allowed to trade with the US without conceding its aggressive ideals. For national security reasons, Chinese technology like semiconductors and computer systems, was either banned or had export controls. The Trump administration recognized that Chinese tech dominance was a national security threat and ensured that America would compete. This is a necessary course correction because the Chinese government would harvest data from companies based in China, and America had to make a conscious effort if it was to match the development being done in a country in which tech companies are all subsidized and partly owned by the Chinese government.

Besides the necessary change of direction in China policy, the Trump administration has instituted a more reciprocal foreign policy that ensures America’s interests are always put first. Our relationship with El Salvador ensures that we don’t have to start massive infrastructure projects for housing illegal immigrants, but can instead send them to some of the best facilities for criminals in the world. This is a foreign policy win. Another win is the fact that Trump is willing to, in the Oval Office, confront the leaders who have been taking advantage of America and our generosity. The first example is Ukraine. While we cannot side with a leader who will not negotiate in good faith, we also cannot allow for Ukraine to bleed us dry and ensure that American intervention slows any peace talks. If Ukraine had no money, it would beg for peace, but Putin wouldn’t accept that. With all the money in the world, it would never want peace. There is a middle ground that must be reached, and seeing as the war is at a stalemate, that middle ground will be hard to find. The Ukrainians are proud people, but we cannot fund stubbornness forever. The second example is what recently happened with the President of South Africa. The human rights abuses being done there have been ignored by the typical foreign policy establishment, so it’s been given a needed spotlight. The genocide of farmers in South Africa has now been both ignored and denied, but Trump has done America proud by standing up to a killer.

Trump’s foreign policy wins have been a step in the right direction, as we have further decoupled ourselves from internationalist organizations, and it’s a trend that has to continue. For years, many on both the right and the left have been crying out for change like this, and it’s a relief to have a man in the White House who’ll listen to us.