THE ALLIES NEED TOUGH LOVE: While Trump frequently makes comments about how our allies just rip us off, his acolytes insist that America First doesn’t mean America alone; the man on golf cart just has a colorful way of telling the allies that they need to contribute more to their own defense. Tough love, in the long run, is actually in their interests. Does this ring true?
Trump doesn’t just complain about having to pay for the defense of our friends; he plans to impose large tariffs on them, force Ukraine to make a bad deal that they will oppose, and roundly ignore their concerns about climate change. This doesn’t sound like tough love; it sounds like outright hostility to me.
I suspect Trump believes, in the long run, the allies have to fall in line, because they have no other viable options, given their unwillingness to pay for military protection. That isn’t true. China does not present a military threat to the EU, so it could start taking positions on economic issues that are closer to China’s than ours. Japan and South Korea could decide that becoming Chinese vassal states is safer than supporting America. Then what? America First will, in fact, mean America alone.