Posted on Friday, March 7, 2025
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by Outside Contributor
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Whatever your foreign policy views – isolationist or neocon, pacifist or paleocon – ask yourself whose foreign policy proved most successful: Barack Obama’s, Donald Trump’s or Joe Biden’s?
Even those inhabiting the delirious left of the political spectrum must concede on the basis of objective events that America’s enemies remained far more aggressive during the Obama and Biden administrations than during the Trump administration sandwiched in between.
Something that the Trump administration did obviously worked, while something that the Obama and Biden administrations did obviously flopped.
Despite that, the architects of the disastrous Obama and Biden foreign policy teams – the very same people whose strategic and tactical failures facilitated America’s enemies – now consider themselves equipped to smugly malign the new Trump administration’s foreign policy.
Obama and Biden administration alumna Susan Rice, for instance, trotted out before the cameras to label Trump’s policies “ludicrous” and warned of the “extremely dangerous” worldwide repercussions they portend.
It’s as if we didn’t possess four years of Trump foreign policy to compare to twelve years of Obama and Biden foreign policy that she helped devise and execute.
During those eight years of weakness under Obama and four more under Biden, our adversaries grew stronger and more aggressive.
Under Obama Russia seized Crimea, then under Biden it launched the deadliest European war since World War II. That resurgent Russian threat didn’t emerge from a vacuum. Rather, Obama’s “reset” policy cultivated it. Remember the mockery he heaped upon Mitt Romney for labeling Russia America’s top geopolitical foe? Or when he unintentionally assured Dmitri Medvedev on a hot mic that he would possess more “flexibility” to placate Putin after that 2012 election? Well, his administration’s softness toward Russia allowed it a free pass to invade and annex Crimea as well as its brutal intervention in Syria.
Obama’s response? Weak sanctions and empty rhetoric.
Under Trump, no such Russian territorial expansions occurred. He demanded stronger militarization by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), scolded Europeans to end their dependence upon Russian energy and his administration actually armed Ukraine with lethal military aid – something that Obama refused to provide.
Then in 2022, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine confirmed that he considered Biden unable or unwilling to restrain him.
Yet today Obama and Biden alumni possess the audacity to label Trump soft on Putin or Russia? The simple and obvious reality is that Trump deterred Putin, whereas Obama and Biden emboldened him.
Iran offers a similar tale.
Obama’s nuclear accord resulted in Iranian enrichment both monetary and nuclear, including those infamous pallets of $1.7 billion in cash. Trump, in contrast, withdrew from the nuclear agreement and imposed “Maximum Pressure” sanctions that cut off its oil export and financial lifelines. Trump also authorized the deadly strike on terrorist general Qasem Soleimani, which cumulatively cowed Iranian malfeasance.
The Biden administration foolishly resumed the Obama administration’s policies, lifting Trump’s sanctions and allowing oil exports. That in turn replenished Iran’s cash, which it steered toward terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, ultimately resulting in the October 7 attacks on Israel.
Chinese aggression under Obama and Biden exposes a similar failure of foreign policy. During Obama’s tenure it aggressively expanded its South Sea presence, hastened military base construction on disputed islands and manipulated global trade rules to its advantage without substantial consequence from Washington, D.C. Trump adopted a more confrontational approach toward China, combating its trade practices and targeting its espionage and intellectual property (IP) theft.
Under Biden, China once again became more emboldened. One need go no further than to recall its infiltration of U.S. airspace with its spy balloon, which the Biden administration didn’t shoot down until it had cleared American territory and completed its surveillance. It also raised its military menace toward Taiwan and increased harassment of U.S. military assets and other nations in nearby international waters.
Simply put, the Trump administration’s approach of peace through strength resulted in a more pacified globe, while Obama and Biden administration officials who show the temerity to criticize Trump oversaw a deterioration in global stability and peace.
Meanwhile, on a matter relating to U.S. foreign policy, we just witnessed the lowest monthly number of apprehensions at our southern border ever recorded in February. That offers another objective verification of the merits of the Trump administration approach.
Americans themselves understood that the Trump approach kept the world and our allies safer, which partly explains why they returned him to the White House. Obama and Biden alumni can therefore protest on left-wing media, but reasonable people understand that Trump’s record of deterrence and international respect produced better real-world results than their agenda of weakness and appeasement.
Timothy H. Lee is Senior Vice President of legal and public affairs at the Center for Individual Freedom.
Reprinted with Permission from CFIF.org – By Timothy H. Lee
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
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