Trump's Foreign Policy: Hated by Pundits but Popular With Voters

President Donald Trump keeps coming under attack for his foreign policy, predictably by Democrats but also by legacy Republican leaders.

"I'm very concerned," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said about Trump's plans to bring troops home from the Middle East.

"It makes it abundantly clear that we are headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances and empower our adversaries," said Marco Rubio.

Trump's late-2018 announcement that he planned to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from the meat grinder of Syria's brutal civil war prompted bipartisan dismay. Next, the new Qatar peace framework to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan had establishment politicos and pundits reviving their false hoary canard that America's "abandonment" of Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew in 1989 led to 9/11. Now, Trump's getting attacked for trying to reach a nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea (possible bonus: a formal end to the Korean War).

De-escalation? Why, that could cause peace! What could be a more dangerous threat to American interests?

Meanwhile, Trump is still in Syria. He's expanded Obama's drone assassinations. He wants to spend even more on defense. The pro-war wise men of the media have zero problem with hawkishness, no matter how stupid or immoral.

Conventional wisdom holds that this criticism will cost Trump. I disagree. While the president's "America First" foreign policy has no constituency within the leadership caste of either party, it has one he cares about more: the voters.

Interestingly, a high percentage of Americans (65 percent) disapprove of Trump's handling of international affairs generically. No doubt they've been influenced by "Trump is a child on foreign stuff" news coverage.

Yet when it comes to specifics, Americans mostly approve of his moves to de-escalate tensions overseas and reduce foreign entanglements.

Seventy-seven percent of Americans approved of the first summit between Trump and Kim. Fifty-four percent thought it went well. That's a significantly larger portion of Americans than those who approved of his presidency in general, indicating that on this issue he enjoyed support from many Democrats.

Support for withdrawing troops from Syria is close to 50-50 -- not stellar, yet significantly better than his mid-40s overall approval rating.

Afghanistan is a no-brainer for the president. Most Americans want immediate withdrawal, and a whopping 70 percent say we never should have invaded in the first place.

Trump's disentanglement policies are popular. The reason his overall numbers on international matters run low has more to do with the tone and image he projects than the policies he has promulgated. People like what he's doing but not how he looks and sounds as he does it.

Trump got elected in large part by ignoring GOP dogma and selling his ideas directly to the American people. Voters were tired of an immigration crisis created and prolonged by both parties, and they were angry about deindustrialization and vicious "free trade." Trump's proposed solutions -- the wall and a trade war -- might not intelligent or effective, but he addressed both issues when others, especially Hillary Clinton, would not. Voters prefer a president who does something stupid to fix a problem than one who pretends it doesn't exist.

With foreign policy, Trump is trying to pull off a trick similar to what he did with domestic issues in 2016: addressing the "endless war" problem that spun out of control under Bush. If not for Trump, neither major party would have touched a Pentagon with so many bases abroad it can't give you an exact number. The question for 2020 is whether voters -- who traditionally decide how to vote based on the state of the economy -- will give Trump credit for nibbling at the edges of America's militaristic bloat.

Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of "Francis: The People's Pope." He is on Twitter @TedRall. You can support Ted's hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.

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