CSS Essay on US Foreign Policy in Trump’s Era

CSS Essay Outline on US Foreign Policy in Trump’s Era

The new US foreign and domestic policy under the hawkish Trump administration is non-ideological,
results-oriented, and crusading realist perspective premised on power and use of force in international
politics. It espouses that America is better positioned to achieve its national interests in the milieu of
sovereign states. It denigrates the international liberal order and terms it the major source of America’s
problems. He says very audaciously, ‘a world that supports our interests and reflects our values makes
America more secure and prosperous.’ Trump has replicated Winston Churchill’s dictum, ‘Government and
peoples do not always take rational decisions, sometimes they take mad decisions.’

I. US presidential doctrines
II. The Democratic party
III. The Republican party
IV. Obama’s economic liberalization and cooperation
V. Trump’s transactional and inward-looking trajectory
VI. Major pillars of Trump administration’s foreign and
domestic policies

A. Protect the American people, the homeland, and the American way
of Life
1. Strengthening sovereignty- both at home and worldwide the first duty of government- is to
serve the interests of its own people
a. Securing US borders and territory
b. Protecting citizens, and not foreign entities or ideologies
2. Defending against WMD by enhancing missile defense and installing “layered missile
defense system” to strike enemy missiles in every stage of their trajectories- Iran , North
Korea, Russia’s formidable ICBM fleet ,and China’s growing missile arsenal are main areas of
concern
a. Detecting and disrupting weapons of mass destruction
b. Enhancing counter-proliferation measures
c. Targeting WMD terrorists
d. Combating bio-threats and pandemics – detect and contain bio-threats at their source and improve
emergency response
3. Strengthen border control and immigration policy- the borders of the United States must be

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physically secured at the earliest possible time

a. Enhancing border security
b. Enhancing vetting of foreigners entering the country
c. Enforcing immigration laws
d. Bolstering transportation security
e. Ensuring background checks
f. Denying entry to foreigners with hateful, violent ideologies
g. Stopping the visa lottery (diversity visa) program
4. Pursuing threats to their source
a. Defeating jihadist terrorists
b. Disrupting terror plots
c. Taking direct action
d. Eliminating terrorist safe havens
e. Severing sources of strength for terrorists
f. Getting-them-at-their-source strategy-to get other countries and stakeholders to share responsibility
more than they have been, and to combat radicalization and recruitment in communities
5. Dismantling transnational criminal organizations
a. Improving strategic planning and intelligence
b. Defending communities
c. Safeguarding in depth
d. Countering cyber criminals
6. Keeping America safe in the cyber era
a. Protecting America’s electrical grid
b. Identifying and prioritizing risk
c. Building defensible government networks
d. Deterring and disrupting malicious cyber attackers
e. Improving information sharing and sensing
f. Deploying layered-defenses
7. Promoting American resilience-to build a culture of preparedness and improve planning
a. Empowering the American people and their communities
b. Providing a panoply of legal and physical tools for war on the home front
c. Preparing the police for terror war at home, preparing community leaders before disaster strikes
d. Developing citizen-based awareness and action

B. Promote American prosperity

1. America First strategy- rejuvenating the American economy as a national security
2. Rejuvenating the domestic economy
3. Promoting free, fair, and reciprocal economic relationships
4. Leading in research, technology, invention, and innovation

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 CSS Essay on US Foreign Policy in Trump’s Era

5. Promoting and protecting the US national security innovation base

6. Embracing energy dominance- energy dominance is to ensure energy security
7. Maintaining the lead and protecting our national security technology and innovation

C. Preserve peace through strength

1. Peace through strength- popularized by President Reagan – is a foundational core of the
Trump national security strategy
a. Preventing hegemonic powers from becoming peer competitors of the United States
b. Renewing America’s competitive advantages
c. Renewing capabilities (military, the defense industrial base, nuclear forces, space, cyberspace, and
intelligence)
d. Employing better, more innovative, and more integrated and strategic diplomacy and statecraft
2. Space
a. Making outer space an unchallenged area of American influence
b. Promoting space commerce
c. Helping squeeze the Russians out so that private American companies like SpaceX could provide lower-
cost, reliable services to the US military, NASA, and private business
3. Cyberspace
a. Making arrangements such as economic warfare and layered approaches to missile defense to get
inside enemy systems
4. Intelligence
a. Improving understanding and harnessing all information at our disposal
b. Encouraging more risk-taking and competitive analysis
c. Liberating US intelligence collection
d. Undoing recent, harmful intelligence reforms
5. Diplomacy and statecraft- effective diplomacy
a. Tools of national power
b. Competitive diplomacy
c. Competitive analysis in intelligence to bring intelligence professionalism into the State Department
d. Tools of economic diplomacy
e. Economic leverage
f. Reinforcing economic ties with allies and partners
g. Deploying economic pressure on security threats
h. Severing sources of funding for problematic regimes and movements
6. Information statecraft
a. Combining cyber warfare with a form of political warfare by building a capability to wage political
warfare globally

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D. Advance American influence worldwide

1. Nation-building- Making other countries to share the burdens-rejects crusader mentality of
democracy-at-whatever-the-cost in failed states like Afghanistan and dictatorially governed
states
2. US as an inspiration and catalyst for change, but not a driver of change-We will remain a
generous nation, even as we expect others to share responsibility
3. Re-creating the world order in an American image- to eliminate corruption and poverty
4. The US to commit selectively
5. Working with reformers in dictatorial regimes
E. Re-take the international institutions for securing the US’ interests that America created and built
1. Recovering the regional and global organizations
a. World Bank
b. International Monetary Fund
c. Organization of American States
d. The United Nations
2. Give up on the United Nations_Options for the US
a. Holding the UN accountable again
b. Marginalizing it as much as possible
c. Trump taking a more entrepreneurial stance: “to take it back”

VII. Trump’s unilateral actions at global level

A. Withdrawing from Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
B. Quitting Paris Climate Accord
C. Cutting aid to UNESCO
D. Withdrawing from JCPOA
E. Withdrawing from UN Human Rights Council
F. Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
G. Role in Brexit
H. Trumps policy towards Syrian conflict
I. North Korea denuclearization policy

VIII. Trump’s Trade War with China

IX. Is Trump and other leaders like him are threat to

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multilateral world order??

X. Conclusion
“It’s freezing and snowing in New York – we need global warming!”
“I’ve said if Ivanka(his daughter) weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating
her.”(Brazenly Unfiministic and faux pas)
“I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for
that wall. Mark my words.”
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S.
manufacturing non-competitive.”

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