Donald Trump has achieved an unlikely redemption: By pursuing a shambolic foreign policy, he has made the bygone days of “regime change” look restrained, strategic, and pragmatic by comparison.
Trump campaigned in 2024 saying he would begin “no new wars,” eschew “regime change” and “nation building,” and generally prioritize domestic policy over foreign affairs. No more Coalition Provisional Authority, as in Iraq. No more extended U.S. military deployments, as in Afghanistan.
But Trump has instead opted for global buccaneering: attacking Islamic terrorists in Nigeria, launching pinprick swipes at Yemen’s Houthis, and seeking a massive, elusive trade deal with China. He has inserted himself as a would-be governing force into lands as diverse as Venezuela, the Gaza Strip, and Greenland. He has done so inconsistently and incoherently, unguided by theory or history, improvising at will, painting with real-estate salesmanship futures that bear little connection to reality and threaten potentially disastrous consequences for America if he fails.
This is much worse as a policy model than “regime change” ever was. At least regime change had some logic behind it: If reforming the behavior of a hostile regime is impossible, replace it with one more friendly and, hopefully, more democratic. Do so when the likely benefits outweigh the likely costs.
Trump’s intervention in Venezuela doesn’t come close to meeting this bar. Both the Biden and the Trump administrations recognized Edmundo González as Venezuela’s legitimate president, the winner of the 2024 election that Nicolás Maduro stole. Removing the usurpers and replacing them with a legitimate, democratically elected government would have been a justifiable choice.
[Read: The Venezuelan opposition’s desperate gamble]
But that’s not what Trump did. He removed Maduro, yes, but he kept the rest of Maduro’s gang, such as Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, in place. Meanwhile, he sidelined the opposition, leaving them without the necessary respect and power to stabilize and ultimately govern. One can certainly debate from case to case what part of any given “regime” must be eliminated, and what is simply the civil bureaucracy that should remain functional. In hindsight, America’s de-Baathification program in Iraq overdid the change. In Venezuela, Trump barely scratched the surface. Additionally, he has posted on Truth Social an image of himself as the acting president of Venezuela and another that showed Venezuela as U.S. territory (and Canada and Greenland, too, for that matter).
None of this provides the stability that Venezuela needs to encourage foreign investment in its oil sector and produce revenues that could revive the economy and thereby facilitate a transition to democratic rule. Investors like to see, among other things, at least a rudimentary rule-of-law society, which doesn’t exist under the present regime. Exxon’s CEO, Darren Woods, who may know more about the oil business than Trump, declared the country “uninvestable.” Some Venezuelan oil previously blocked from export by the U.S. has now been sold, and the proceeds, which were deposited into a Qatari bank account, are now being transferred to Venezuela’s banks. By authorizing the provision of funds to Delcy Rodríguez and her government, Trump’s administration is strengthening Rodríguez’s regime at the opposition’s expense. How can that end well?
Trump has no answer. By contrast, in the Gaza Strip, he has an answer that would make 19th-century imperialists blush. Without any evidence that Hamas is prepared to allow the demilitarization of Gaza, Trump has formed, and plans to chair and essentially control, a “Board of Peace,” currently composed of approximately 20 governments. Most European countries have declined to join (with a few exceptions including Hungary, Belarus, and Bulgaria); Russia may be a member, or maybe not; China has been invited but is checking its dance card; Israel joined but is very unhappy; and Canada has been disinvited. The board is meant to oversee everything in Trump’s faltering Middle East peace plan, following the release of Israeli hostages.
Trump appears to have near-total control over the board’s decisions, which implies a desire to personally rule over Gaza, especially given that the board’s “executive committee” includes his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special envoy to the Middle East, the New York real-estate developer Steve Witkoff. Trump called for initial dues of $1 billion, which, if each new member chipped in, would amount to an impressive, unaccountable slush fund. Without, however, first achieving Hamas’s disarmament and creating some sort of international peacekeeping force to provide security, there will never be a new eastern-Mediterranean Riviera. Nothing about these dreams bears any relationship to Gaza’s current reality.
Trump seems to have even greater ambitions for the board, such as undertaking as yet unspecified good works in Ukraine and Venezuela. The board has the earmarks of a new British East India Company in the making.
And then there is Trump’s Greenland adventure. First he threatened military force to seize Greenland and renew tariff wars against European allies. Then he swiftly reversed field, accepting a still-evolving plan hatched with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to forestall a disastrous split in the Atlantic alliance. Trump’s script matched the nursery rhyme about the Duke of York’s 10,000 men: “He marched them up to the top of the hill / And marched them down again.” As of now, Trump’s ploy is stillborn. His play at regime change against a treaty ally caused deep distress in Europe and undoubtedly weakened NATO significantly. It also delighted the Kremlin, which goes to show how badly mistaken the entire episode was from the get-go.
[Read: The fuck-around-and-find-out presidency]
Iran seems to be one place where Trump is actively considering regime change. In a shift from his first-term views, Trump said expressly, “It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.” He justified this position, ironically, on neoconservative grounds—the brutal repression of Iran’s people—and not on U.S. geostrategic interests in quashing Tehran’s nuclear-weapons program and its support for international terrorism.
But, as usual, he didn’t seem to know what he would be getting into. Based on his Venezuela approach, one might think Trump would consider eliminating the supreme leader and dealing instead with the Revolutionary Guard. But no, for whatever reason, Trump seemed to lean toward real regime change—which is, just coincidentally, the right answer—a complete U-turn from Venezuela. The only consistency is that, here again, Trump has left the opposition twisting in the wind. In January, he exhorted: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING—TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! … HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!” So far, no help has come. Facing massacre by their rulers, protesters have stayed indoors and feel betrayed by Trump.
Around the world, and in America, wonderment at Trump’s infinite variety of “policy” choices is giving way to the realization that Trump doesn’t do “policy.” Or philosophy. Or grand strategy. He does Donald Trump. Among regular Republicans still holding to a Reaganite (or Reagan-Bush) national-security paradigm, vocal dissent—long overdue—is emerging. It needs to grow quickly before Trump’s self-absorption causes even more damage. His incoherence on regime change is only one piece of evidence in the larger picture of his unfitness to be president.
The post A Foreign Policy Worse Than Regime Change appeared first on The Atlantic.
