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Inside the GOP’s Foreign Policy

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What would a second Trump term mean for U.S. foreign policy? Who has the former president’s ear on world affairs?

FP columnist Matthew Kroenig has given these questions a lot of thought in his new book, We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy & the New Cold War, co-written with Dan Negrea and with a foreword from former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Kroenig joined FP Live to elaborate on the book’s thesis while opening up his notebook to discuss which policymakers currently animate former President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy thinking.

Foreign Policy columnist Matthew Kroenig tells FP’s Ravi Agrawal that the U.S. Republican Party’s foreign policy is united under a “Trump-Reagan fusion.”

Kroenig rejects the idea that former U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is isolationist, contending that in his first term, he actually strengthened U.S. alliances.

Kroenig argues that the United States can constrain China’s ability to “threaten America’s vital interests” without risking economic engagement.

Kroenig explains what Trump’s foreign-policy agenda would be if he were to be elected to a second term.

A Trump 2.0 presidency would take place in “the most dangerous international security environment … since the end of the Cold War.” Kroenig tells Agrawal what his potential concerns would be.

Matthew Kroenig

Columnist, Foreign Policy

Matthew Kroenig is a columnist at Foreign Policy, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and a professor in the government department and the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His latest book is We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy & the New Cold War.

Host of FP Live

Ravi Agrawal

Editor in chief, Foreign Policy

Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy, the host of FP Live, and a regular world affairs analyst on TV and radio. Before joining FP in 2018, Agrawal worked at CNN for more than a decade in full-time roles spanning three continents, including as the network’s New Delhi bureau chief and correspondent. He is the author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy.

Related

Does Trump Have a Foreign-Policy Vision?

A new book lays claim to interpreting the former president’s global legacy—and has a plan for what a second term could accomplish.

Q&A | Ravi Agrawal

Republicans Are More United on Foreign Policy Than It Seems

Squabbles over Ukraine aid obscure broader consensus among the party’s two major wings.

Argument | Matthew Kroenig, Dan Negrea

Another Trump Presidency Won’t Much Change U.S. Foreign Policy

The world’s fears are mostly exaggerated.

Argument | Stephen M. Walt

The Scrambled Spectrum of U.S. Foreign-Policy Thinking

Presidents, officials, and candidates tend to fall into six camps that don’t follow party lines.

Analysis | Ash Jain

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NATO’s Future

After a decade as the secretary-general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg will step down from his job on Oct. 1. How has Russia’s aggression transformed the world’s largest military alliance? How is that alliance assessing challenges in the future, whether from China or artificial intelligence? Stoltenberg sat down with host Ravi Agrawal for an exit interview.

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H.R. McMaster on America’s Foreign-Policy Choices

H.R. McMaster served as former President Donald Trump’s national security advisor for all of 13 months. In a new book, At War With Ourselves, he candidly describes his old boss’s foreign-policy foibles. But McMaster is also critical of the Biden administration, particularly how it has handled Afghanistan and Iran. McMaster joined FP Live to describe how he assesses global crises and what the White House needs to do to combat them.

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The China Challenge

The United States has undergone a dramatic change in its China policy in the last decade. How does that play out in day-to-day diplomacy? Nicholas Burns has served as the U.S. ambassador to China since 2022. He will sit down with FP’s Ravi Agrawal in a rare long-form interview to discuss the state of the U.S.-China relationship, encompassing trade, technology, Taiwan, and more.

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Could Civil War Erupt in America?

From Northern Ireland to Syria, Barbara F. Walter has studied the genesis of civil wars around the world. The conditions that foment conflict are predictable, she says—and there are signs that those conditions are growing increasingly visible in the United States. Can citizens and institutions stave off violence? Walter joined FP Live to lay out lessons for the United States in a crucial election year.

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