OPINION:
It is not uncommon for presidents, especially as their tenure progresses, to spend more time on foreign policy than on domestic policy. Who can blame them? If you had to choose between spending your limited time here on earth dealing with bureaucrats and freshman congressmen or having pleasant meetings and meals with kings, queens and assorted influential, well-educated and charming people, who in the world would choose to hang around with the bureaucrats?
Foreign policy also typically doesn’t involve numerous pesky laws and lawyers. It is simply you and another head of state negotiating a deal. Perhaps more importantly, presidents who get involved in shooting wars (either starting or ending them) have a chance to look more presidential.
There are plenty of examples. Immediately after winning his own term as president in a landslide, Lyndon B. Johnson maneuvered the United States into a war with Vietnam, a war during which he selected bombing targets. President Jimmy Carter was monomaniacally focused on an accord between Israel and Egypt rather than on addressing the inflation that was destroying the American economy. He eventually got his deal, and it turned out well for everyone involved, except, of course, for Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated. (His exceptional attentiveness to the interests of Israel and Egypt didn’t get him any love from American voters, though.)
Or consider President George H.W. Bush, who waited patiently for eight years as vice president. When he got his chance, he decided to put together a coalition of the willing and send the armed forces to retake Kuwait from Iraq, even though most Americans could not find either nation on a map and couldn’t care less about them. You know who did care about American troops in the Middle East? Osama bin Laden, who, as a result of the Persian Gulf War, became an enemy of the United States. We know how that turned out.
The current president, as he sometimes does, is taking the examples of his predecessors and turning the volume to 10. He seems serenely indifferent to the government shutdown or funding lapse of whatever as he pursues his varied foreign policy objectives. Last week, it was the Middle East. Next week, it is China and North Korea.
The problem with it is that Americans don’t really care about foreign policy. Nor should they. The current exchange of homicides between Israel and Hamas is unfortunate, but it seems routine and very distant to the workaday problems of folks in Middle America. Is there any particular reason we should really care about which Slavs rule over Ukraine, which was, until about 10 minutes ago, part of Mother Russia? Not to be difficult, but Ukraine is not our ally; we have no obligation to it whatsoever.
China is a different matter entirely, but it isn’t easy to imagine that the Chinese will be diverted by diplomacy. Communist China engages in genocide and slavery; it is unlikely to be moved by attractive and well-presented appeals. In President Trump’s first term, a trade deal with China was ultimately announced but never fully implemented. The communists on the mainland are happy to talk, but they are still going to do things like enslave Uyghurs and imprison Jimmy Lai.
The irreducible reality is that the president was elected to stop the slow-motion invasion at our southern border and to make the economy work. He has done both very well so far. No one really voted for him so he could spread peace throughout the Middle East (although he has twice threatened to destroy Hamas, so no telling what might happen) or arm Ukraine or figure out a way to draw Venezuela into an actual shooting war.
At some point, Mr. Trump will reappear in Washington as the deus ex machina who will impose order and end the government shutdown drama. Meanwhile, all those who voted to make America first again wait patiently while wondering when making America great again turned into a traveling road show.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.