US President Donald Trump welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he arrives for a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on Saturday. Photo / Tom Brenner, AFP
It’s been a confusing couple of months for Republicans who saw United States President Donald Trump as a clean break from the Reagan-Bush foreign policy ethos their party had followed for decades.
Trump’s message was simple. Gone were the days of maintaining a strong international presence and using military force as a way to bend other nations to the will of the US.
From now on, the country would focus on itself - it would put, as the President has so often said, “America first”.
Lawmakers in the GOP’s isolationist wing thought they had a kindred spirit after Trump’s first term and celebrated his return to the White House. But things have changed.
In the past few months, Trump has ordered an attack on Iranian nuclear sites.
His Administration has conducted at least six attacks against boats carrying suspected drug traffickers off the Venezuelan coast; survivors from one were recently taken into custody.
The President said he signed off on covert CIA operations inside Venezuela.
And he briefly mused about a massive ramp-up in military support for Ukraine.
All of that has fractured Congress’ “America first” Republicans.
Many of these Republicans came of age politically after the debacles of the Iraq War.
They voiced opposition to the sweeping intelligence tactics deployed during the George W. Bush administration.
Some grew sceptical of reflexive support for Israel.
And in the past few years, they led the effort to block funding for Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s 2022 invasion.
“I tend to be more reticent about involving ourselves in foreign wars … so the message during the campaign resonated with me,” said Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming), who has always been more in the isolationist wing.
Now, however, Lummis says her views have evolved.
Her stance is representative of a group of “America first” Republicans who say that Trump’s recent decisions have changed their views on foreign policy - and that they support all of Trump’s actions.
“I agree with every single thing he’s saying,” Lummis said.
A small contingent of “America first” lawmakers have maintained their isolationist ideology and are willing to speak out against Trump’s new interventionism, particularly when it comes to questioning the legality of his actions with regard to the strikes on alleged drug traffickers.
“You can’t just blow-up boats of people who you don’t even know their name,” Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) told reporters last week.
“In fact, y’all should be asking the White House, ‘What are their names and what is the proof that they were involved in this crime?’
“They’re accused of something, we basically are summarily executing people who are accused of something. It’s a terrible idea.”
Most of the others in the “America first” camp fall somewhere in between the two extremes.
They say that while they support some of the Administration’s actions, they’d like more insight into what it is doing.
Many in this final group have come to believe that Trump doesn’t really have his own ideology regarding foreign policy.
“Are some of the tactics surprising? Yeah, probably. But on the other hand, I mean, that’s kind of … ” Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said, stopping and pausing to carefully choose his words.
“I think that’s not necessarily a bug, it’s a feature of this president. Which is that he’s not tied to, he’s not ideological. He’s not tied to a particular - he wants an outcome.”
The Republicans who never bought into Trump’s isolationist views believe that Trump is much more flexible in his foreign policy than he suggested in his political campaigns, and that he allows his advisers to push different viewpoints.
At any given moment one adviser or another has the edge, according to these Republicans.
They say that, for now, advisers aligned with traditional GOP foreign policy, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have been winning out over those that want to pull America back from global dealings.
“Look, there’s some people in the party that believe one way and others believe another. It’s up to the president of the United States to make these decisions. And he’s doing it,” said Senator James Risch (R-Idaho), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“But he’s not going straight down the line on either side. He’s listening to people from both sides.”
That’s left the more isolationist lawmakers trying to sort through Trump’s moves to figure out where they now stand.
“We could go case by case, and I probably have different views depending on the case,” Hawley said.
He praised what he called the “green light” approach of giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu free rein to ramp up attacks in Gaza in order to apply pressure on Hamas to reach a ceasefire deal that included the release of hostages.
Hawley is in a wait-and-see mode regarding Trump’s tough talk on Russia, including a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was based on Ukraine’s request for Tomahawk missiles.
Zelenskyy left that session without a commitment for the weapons. Trump also said recently that he will have another summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I’m not a huge fan of open-ended commitments to Ukraine,” Hawley said. “But you know, is that what we’re doing or are we just trying to bring Russia to the table?”
He does not like the US$20 billion bailout that Trump granted to Argentina, which Hawley considers bad policy. Democrats are revelling in it, attacking it as the antithesis of “America first.”
“I’m not a huge fan of bailouts. Let’s see where that ends up. My gut reaction is always be sceptical,” Hawley said.
Paul gave a more unequivocal denunciation of the Argentine bailout, citing the massive federal deficit.
“We’re US$2 trillion short this year, and the idea of sending US$20b to another country when we’re short, when we’re facing a government shutdown, because we don’t have the resources for the people in our country, I think it’s a bad idea.”
Lummis and many others who previously embraced the “America first” movement said they will support whatever Trump decides to do - at least as long as things keep going well.
“I wanted to be less present on the world stage because Biden’s policies were bad and weren’t making matters good. And the difference is Trump is making things better,” she said.
Lummis said she was extremely supportive of the idea of sending US operatives into Venezuela.
“They’re going to attack the ground game in Venezuela with regard to cartels moving drugs into the US. And so he’s notching some important key wins.
“And I think it’s affecting the way that he’s using peace through strength.”
That phrase - “peace through strength” - is striking.
It’s a philosophy Ronald Reagan touted in the 1980s that involved a massive build-up of the defence-industrial complex and flexing military muscle abroad, exactly the sort of stuff that goes against normal Maga instincts.
“This does seem to be a deviation from a pure ‘America first’ foreign policy,” Senator Todd Young (R-Indiana) said.
A self-described “prudent internationalist” from the more traditional GOP wing, Young cited an unlikely inspiration for some of Trump’s foreign policy vision: Barack Obama.
As president, Obama was often cautious, declining to attack Syria after it crossed his “red line”, but also prone to big gambles such as ordering the attack that took out Osama bin Laden.
Obama’s advisers adopted a crude inside joke to explain their thinking that Young referenced.
“Is it in some respects,” Young said, “an echo of a previous president who described his foreign policy as don’t do stupid [stuff]?”
Wherever they fall on the foreign policy spectrum, Republican senators seem to be of the view that Trump’s approach defies classification.
Risch burst out with a laugh when asked to define a “Trump doctrine”.
“You lost me on ‘doctrine.’ Sorry, can’t help you,” he said.
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