An adviser to Donald Trump is concerned that the president is becoming too focused on foreign policy and neglecting issues closer to home.
Those close to Trump, who has long championed an “America First” agenda, fear that his desperate push to be recognized for ending conflicts abroad is overshadowing domestic concerns more important to voters.
“Voters reward winners, and Trump is a winner,” an unnamed Trump adviser told Axios. “But I’d be lying if I said none of us wish he would talk a little more about the economy and things back home.”
Trump made no secret of his desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize while taking credit for resolving several international conflicts, as well as ones he made up. The president received praise for brokering a ceasefire deal in Gaza and securing the release of Israeli and Palestinian hostages, but missed out on this year’s Nobel honor to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
Over the past week, Trump has visited Israel and Egypt as part of his Gaza ceasefire victory lap; met with Argentina’s President Javier Milei in Washington, D.C., to discuss the U.S.’s proposed $40 billion bailout of the country; confirmed CIA covert operations in Venezuela; and held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone.
He also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday and in the coming weeks will jet off to South Korea to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid a renewed trade war, and possibly travel to Budapest for another meeting with Putin.
Trump’s aggressive foreign policy push comes as the U.S. grapples with a government shutdown and the dispute over healthcare costs, while Americans struggle with rising food prices, inflation, and the fallout from the president’s sweeping tariff plans.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a MAGA loyalist who has become increasingly critical of Trump and GOP leadership, blasted the president’s second-term foreign policy focus as a betrayal of his “America First” message.
“It’s a revolving door at the White House of foreign leaders when Americans are, you know, screaming from their lungs,” Greene told Axios. “If me saying those things is considered breaking with my party, then what is the Republican Party? I thought we were America First.”
Greene took particular umbrage at the multibillion-dollar bailout of Argentina, calling it an example of “America Last” and arguing that it leaves U.S. farmers “on the verge of bankruptcy.”
Elsewhere, a former Trump administration official from his first term suggested there is a typically vain reason behind the president’s diplomatic blitz.
“No matter what he says, Trump is still thinking about a Nobel Prize. Being Time magazine’s Man of the Year still matters to him,” the source told Axios.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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