A
recent survey of U.S. foreign policy reveals a major change: For the
first time in nearly five decades, a majority of Republicans say the
United States should stay out of, rather than play an active role in,
world affairs. The Chicago Council Survey,
conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, found that the
shift was led primarily by so-called Trump Republicans—the 47 percent of
Republicans who held a very favorable view of Donald Trump.
Debates about America’s role in the world are hardly new; nor is the
argument that Washington would be better off focusing on domestic
issues. What seems new, however, is the concentration of people who hold
those views not only in one party, but specifically within the
pro-Trump wing of the GOP.
“It’s very important to understand that what’s happening is not some
kind of secular change, or that America’s becoming more isolationist as a
whole,” said Ivo Daalder, the CEO of the Chicago Council on Global
Affairs, speaking on FP Live.
“There is one major political force in this country, led by a singular
individual, who has been able to mobilize a movement. Not that that
sentiment didn’t exist, but it wasn’t this salient, and it wasn’t used
as a means to mobilize political power. It is now—and that’s why it’s
getting more attention.”
Daalder, who is also a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, explained why
he felt Washington needed to overcome the Trump Republican consensus
about not giving to Ukraine. “The United States needs to stand up,
because we’re the only ones standing in the way of Ukraine losing—and it
can lose the war. That would be a strategic disaster not just for
Ukraine, not just for Europe, but frankly, for the United States. We’ve
been here before. Big wars in Europe don’t end with the United States
staying at home but with the United States getting involved in those big
wars itself. That’s what happened in World War I. It’s what happened in
World War II. What we want to do is to prevent World War III.”