‘I think the value or the success . . . of Trump’s foreign policies and approaches to national security only became apparent to many Americans after Biden reversed them.’
H.R. McMaster, who served as White House national security adviser (2017-18), on the Hoover Institution’s “GoodFellows” podcast, July 25:
I think the value or the success of Trump’s, certain of Trump’s foreign policies and approaches to national security only became apparent to many Americans after Biden reversed them. So you could really—I mean, hey, what does it look like when you don’t secure the border? Well, we’ve got that. What does it look like when you supplicate to the Iranians and allow them to fill their coffers with $80 billion to $100 billion of unenforced sanctions—revenue that came because of unenforced sanctions? Well, hey, you get a much more intense—wars, much more intense wars across the Middle East and you get Oct. 7.
What happens when you reinstate funding to the corrupt organization Unrwa or rejoin the Human Rights Council, which now Russia is chairing? I mean, it’s all—the fecklessness of the administration has been astounding in these areas. And the one area of continuity with the Trump administration is I think what they’ve done best at, and that’s the approach to China.
So I think that there’s a strong hand to play if President Trump and his surrogates and J.D. Vance and others—if they talk about real differences in policy between the eight Obama years, the four Trump years and the four Biden years.
