Arnaud Bertrand on Vance statement on US foreign policy

 

This is without a doubt THE single most fascinating foreign policy statement made by the Trump-Vance ticket, because it's EXACTLY how the West should reform its relationship with the world in this new era: https://t.co/Lt5U9zvcHa

“We have built a foreign policy of hectoring,
(https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1854362568611307537?t=9633oz7H3f9u6UuW99gk3A&s=03)   This is without a doubt THE single most fascinating foreign policy statement made by the Trump-Vance ticket, because it's EXACTLY how the West should reform its relationship with the world in this new era: x.com/clashreport/st…

 

“We have built a foreign policy of hectoring, moralizing, and lecturing countries that don’t want anything to do with it. The Chinese have a foreign policy of building roads and bridges and feeding poor people and I think we should pursue a foreign policy, a diplomacy of respect and a foreign policy that is not rooted in moralizing. It’s rooted in the national interests of this country."

 

Full disclosure: I actually have a very hard time believing that the US will reform in that direction. For one thing Vance said this in April before being named VP and has quite significantly changed his tune since. 

 

Also even if he, or Trump, wanted to effect this change, the entire US foreign policy apparatus is built around "hectoring, moralizing and lecturing". They have scores of agencies and semi-governmental organizations staffed with tens of thousands of people who do just that: the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Freedom House, the US Agency for Global Media, the Asia Foundation, the Inter-American Foundation, etc, etc. They'd need to literally dismantle all of it to move in that direction and change the very DNA of US foreign policy. I doubt they'll even be able or willing to shut down a single one of these agencies, let alone all of them, let alone kill the impetus behind their creation...

 

But at least they show an understanding of the solution, which is more than can be said for any previous administration, so it's already something...

 

It's also of course a lesson for Europe. If America can't do it as I predict, Europe could be a first mover in that direction, which for once would give it an advantage in foreign policy over the US... It would be a nice symbol: Europe, the place where "hectoring, moralizing, and lecturing" comes from in the first place, understanding the errors of its ways and showing the rest of the West that the future of its relationship with the world should be rooted in mutual understanding and respect. 

 

Sadly however, I've got an even harder time believing that Europe can reform in that direction than the US. And the first statements by European leaders after Trump's election unfortunately prove that they're even further away from understanding how to adapt to our new era than the guys across the Atlantic..."