Rubio's downsizing of America's global role
Trump's foreign policy is transactional, not isolationist, writes Brantly Womack
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is implementing a fundamental shift in America’s global role. In a recent lengthy interview with Megyn Kelly, Rubio argues that the mission of making America great again does not mean returning the U.S. to the pinnacle of the world order. The effort of trying to be the world’s “parent” has distracted the U.S. from pursuing its own national interests.
As Rubio puts it, other countries have “gotten used to a foreign policy in which you act in the national interest of your country and we [the U.S.] sort of act in the interest of the globe or the global order. But we’re led by a different kind of person now, and under President Trump we’re going to do what you do.” America will henceforth be the eldest sibling among rival sovereign states, not the selfless world parent.
The elimination of American foreign assistance via Elon Musk’s chainsaw surgery on the U.S. Agency for International Development is thus not simply a streamlining or cost-cutting measure; it marks a realignment of national purpose.
Rubio points out that “the U.S. government is not a charity. It spends money on behalf of our national interest.” In the aftermath of World War II, Americans got used to being in charge of the free world’s weal and woe. With the end of the Cold War, the sense of global responsibility was enhanced and enlarged. “Because we were the only power in the world,” Rubio said, “we assumed this responsibility of sort of becoming the global government in many cases, trying to solve every problem.”
Now, Rubio says, the U.S. should act like other countries do: “The way the world has always worked is that the Chinese will do what’s in the best interests of China, the Russians will do what’s in the best interest of Russia, the Chileans are going to do what’s in the best interest of Chile and the United States needs to do what’s in the best interest of the United States. Where our interests align, that’s where you have partnerships and alliances; where our differences are not aligned, that is where the job of diplomacy is to prevent conflict while still furthering our national interests and understanding they’re going to further theirs.”
This is not President Joe Biden’s world of allies versus bad guys. Here it’s all just guys pursuing their own interests in a game of all against all. It is national individualism—maximizing every transaction—not isolationism.
