Against all odds, he's fundamentally changing foreign policy (for the better).
Quote:
Why Trump Sort of Reminds Us of Charles De Gaulle
The two are very different, but when we deconstruct his foreign policy, we find a lot of good gut instinct.
By Leon Hadar October 9, 2019
Trump has embraced President Barack Obama's "Don't do stupid ****" foreign policy. Yet he seems to be doing a much better job of implementing that advice by more forcefully resisting the unrelenting pressure from the interventionist "Blob" (knock on wood).
So Trump, who has been ridiculed by members of the so-called intellectual elite as a lightweight, has refused to give a green light to a U.S. military intervention in Syria, rejecting the advice of those who would pursue another regime change there.
It is true that his diplomacy with North Korea and his friendship with its dictator has not brought about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But then no one seriously believed that was going to happen under any scenario. From that perspective, Trump has helped avert a catastrophic war in the area and encouraged reconciliation between the North and the South, which could one day lead to a united Korea that would no longer require U.S. troops to protect it.
It may not be the Grand Strategy that members of Washington's foreign policy establishment are looking for. But Trump's decisions have already set the stage for long-term strategic changes in East Asia, where an evolving Korean nationalism countered by a sense of Japanese nationalism could help create a new and stable regional balance of power that would make direct U.S. military intervention unnecessary.
In the Middle East, by firing John Bolton, expressing a willingness to meet with his Iranian counterpart, and refusing to drag the U.S. into military conflict with Iran in the aftermath of the attacks on the Saudi oil installations, Trump has sent a clear message to the Saudis that they need to pursue a detente with Tehran. The U.S. will not intervene in a war between the Sunnis and the Shiites in the Middle East. Period. And take it from there.
Then there is the message he is sending to a leading player in the Middle East, Turkey, and another regional actor down on the scale, the Kurds, with his recent announcement that he's ending U.S. involvement in Syria. It's not much different than his message to Israel and the Palestinians: hey guys, you need to resolve your differences among yourselves - we can only help. Regional powers like Turkey and Israel - and in the long run, Iran - will be able to maintain spheres of influence in order to protect their security and as part of any evolving balance of power, and minor players, like the Kurds and the Palestinians, will have to accept that.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-trump-sort-of-reminds-us-of-charles-de-gaulle/