It’s hard to believe that just five years ago, Americans watched in horror as ISIS gained power and territory in the Middle East and radical Islamist terrorists killed 14 Americans on U.S. soil in San Bernardino, California.
Today, the ISIS caliphate is destroyed. Terrorist leaders Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Qasem Soleimani are dead. And instead of sending American troops to fight in endless wars or giving cash to terrorist sponsors in Iran, the United States is securing peace deals with our real allies across the Middle East, including Israel.
“The facts speak for themselves,” foreign policy expert Harry Kazianis writes. “Trump has successfully aligned U.S. national security strategy with our national interests.”
President Trump is the first American leader since Ronald Reagan not to start a war. Instead, he has rebuilt our military, restored American sovereignty, and renewed the “peace through strength” foreign policy that helped our country win the Cold War.
On issue after issue, President Trump has reversed the disastrous foreign policy of the Obama Administration and put the American people FIRST:
- Under President Obama, budget cuts and “sequestration” gutted our U.S. military. President Trump increased funding for national defense and secured the largest pay raise for our troops in a decade.
- The disastrous Obama Iran nuclear deal gave the world’s number 1 state sponsor of terrorism over $100 billion to fund violence. President Trump withdrew from the one-sided deal and reinstated tough sanctions on Tehran.
- Instead of funding our adversaries and breaking promises to our allies, President Trump has kept his word, including moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem after past presidents of both parties broke their pledges to do so.
- For years, Washington allowed other countries to take advantage of American taxpayers. Under President Trump, between 2016 and 2019, Canada and our European allies added $130 billion to defense budgets to support NATO.
- President Trump has stood up for the people of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua against corrupt, socialist regimes. The Castro dictatorship, for example, will no longer be funded by U.S. dollars like it was under President Obama.
Those changes are just the tip of the iceberg. Before this summer, only two Israel peace deals with its Arab neighbors had been secured over the past 72 years. This year, with support from the Trump Administration, two such historic agreements were announced within one month of each other.
Here in our own hemisphere, the Trump Administration imposed tough sanctions to pressure the illegitimate “regime” of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. President Trump has recognized Juan Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela, rallying an international coalition of 58 countries in his support.
On trade, President Trump’s United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaced the outdated NAFTA, which sent American jobs and manufacturing power overseas.
Perhaps most important among his accomplishments, President Trump reversed Washington’s decades-long, bipartisan refusal to confront China. He successfully used tariffs to persuade China to sign an improved Phase One Trade Agreement, took action to protect Americans from unfair competition and intellectual property theft, and prevented malign actors from gaining access to crucial U.S. information networks.
After the Coronavirus spread from China across the globe, President Trump took quick action to reshore critical supply chains, including those for key medicines.
With a stronger America, our adversaries know their options are limited. In North Korea, President Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign brought Chairman Kim Jong Un to the table. In Russia, the Trump Administration’s sanctions punished oligarchs who profited from destabilizing and malicious activities.
President Trump is protecting American sovereignty and standing up for our Constitutional rights, as well. This June, he authorized economic sanctions against International Criminal Court officials directly engaged with any effort to prosecute U.S. soldiers or other personnel without the consent of the United States.
The American people see these results. According to a Gallup poll conducted this February, Americans are more satisfied with our country’s position in the world today than they have been at any time since 2003. Similarly, a large majority of Americans today think their government is doing a good job keeping them safe from terrorism.
Across the world, terrorists are losing and peace is breaking out. When America is strong, secure, and free, our nation’s future—and our children’s—is that much brighter.