The Outsider Perspective Issue 431 | The Beltway Outsiders

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Good Friday Morning! Except for Canada, which defeated the United States in the 4 Nations hockey championship. The NHL put on the round-robin tournament for All-Star Week festivities. What may have seemed like a gimmick on paper turned into a bloodbath between America and our feisty hat.

It was a great taste of what the winter Olympics will be like in less than a year. After the game went to overtime, one viral post said, “Why watch overtime 4 Nations Hockey when you can simply snort cocaine and ride a motorcycle out of a helicopter?” That’s what that game felt like, for sure.

This week, I will explore how Donald Trump views foreign policy—or rather, how he plans to divide it—links to follow.

Quick Hits:

DOGE is racking up court wins. That was a headline from the Associated Press this week. Notably, they looked at the Democrat attempts to block Elon Musk and DOGE and found one hilarious point: Democrats are struggling to define how DOGE is harming anyone, which is a critical aspect of bringing litigation. All the weeping and gnashing of teeth from your liberal friends over Elon Musk likely lacks this key fact. No one can prove the parade of horribles liberals are claiming over Elon Musk.
Mitch McConnell is retiring from office. He won’t seek re-election in 2026. McConnell will go down as one of the most powerful and impactful Senators in U.S. history. He was elected in 1984 as the only Republican Senator to win a blue state for Reagan that cycle. He single-handedly reshaped the federal courts, keeping Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court and pouring conservative judges into the system during Trump’s first term. And his lawsuit eventually gave us the Citizens United case, in which Democratic censorship got turned back in earnest.
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Where you can find me this week

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A Trump Deal Is Last Chance To Save Ukraine – Conservative Institute

Hamas Murdering Babies Ends Any Peace Talks – Conservative Institute

It’s Time For Donald Trump To ‘Unleash Hell’ – Conservative Institute

Trump’s New Monroe Doctrine

One of the big things Trump is changing is America’s stance on foreign policy. In truth, it has needed changing because it needed to adapt to modern times. However, what Trump is doing will have short—and long-term consequences, and it’s worth considering them.

Mainstream pundits call Trump an isolationist. That’s wrong. He’s not an isolationist in the true sense. At no point in either his first or his second term will we be isolationist and in retreat. That’s partially because America’s economy and reach are naturally massive and because Trump intervenes in foreign affairs.

Trump is trying to create a modern Monroe Doctrine. The extent of his success and failure on this front will depend heavily on the deals he cuts with Russia and the Chinese over the coming months and years.

First, for people new to it, what is the Monroe Doctrine?

It was first stated by President James Monroe, the fifth president and last founding father to serve in office. Simply put, it said the United States controlled the Western hemisphere, and Europe (the Old World) needed to stay out. To that end, the United States focused on kicking Europeans out of the Americas and growing the United States.

Second, have we followed it? Not really, though that’s been outside our control in some spots.

For most of the 19th century, the U.S. couldn’t militarily push Europe around, but we slowly pushed everyone out over time. Things changed in the 20th century when America’s economy exploded, and more importantly, we entered two World Wars.

Through a series of deals, the United States kicked the U.K.’s Navy out of the Western hemisphere and locked down this side of the planet for ourselves. Some presidents tried pushing us beyond the Monroe Doctrine; notably, Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt sought to spread American weight around more.

But it’s not until the end of the Second World War that the modern world emerges: America is the last standing country in the destruction that doesn’t need to rebuild from a war (outside Pearl Harbor). But instead of retreating, the United States was thrust into the Cold War.

We could have retreated from that, but when American leadership saw the rising threat of the USSR, we opposed that instead of allowing the Soviets to take over Europe and Asia. And then a magical thing happened: the United States, which was built up as a superpower to project force anywhere on the planet, suddenly won the Cold War without a shot being fired.

When the USSR fell, it shifted us from a dual-polar world between us and the Soviets to a unipolar world. The nation that wanted the Western hemisphere was suddenly given control of the planet. Since then, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden have been trying to figure out how to navigate this new reality.

In his first term, Trump didn’t have a plan. In this second term, he does.

Trump seems to believe in three spheres of influence: the original Western hemisphere, which belongs to America, including Greenland, South America, and the surrounding oceans. Then there’s Asia, which belongs to China. Finally, there’s the Russian sphere, and Europe needs to handle things.

In the Middle East, Trump sees an arrangement of Israel-Saudi Arabia coexisting peacefully and countering Iran.

Instead of a U.S.-Led unipolar world, Trump sees distinct spheres with leaders in those places. This explains his stance towards Xi and Putin, as he sees them as controlling their areas of the globe, whereas smaller players do not.

In terms of reducing wars and pulling America back, this is what part of his base wants. To reduce American meddling abroad and to return home. They seem fine with things like declaring cartels terrorist groups and, fighting the Mexican cartels like terrorist organizations, and swinging our weight against Panama to kick China out.

Even Greenland is a return to a form of Monroe Doctrine era thinking in that it pushes Europeans out of the Western hemisphere and the Arctic Circle, which works for everyone because Europe can’t do anything with the land or resources anyway.

Mark Halperin said different people had recently asked him if he’d heard anything about a big grand deal between Trump and China. The contours were similar: the U.S. gets Greenland and TikTok, while China gets Taiwan and a trade deal. This would expand the U.S. territory while removing a sore point for China.

In order for this to work, we’d have to move large amounts of semiconductor manufacturing out of Taiwan. Otherwise, it’s a proposal that’s dead on arrival.
But then I look towards the deals possible in Russia over Ukraine. If the United States gets a rare earth minerals deal with Ukraine, it will keep us involved and get us access (possibly) to minerals that would counter China’s dominance of the sector. We need rare earth minerals to manufacture all our advanced tech.

In the short term, Trump can look at this and see an easy way to broker peace with everyone. He can claim no more wars and that tensions are eased everywhere.

I’m not necessarily convinced it leads to a safer world in the long term. One reason it’s worked well to have the United States in control of the world is simple: nuclear proliferation. If you’re a nuclear country and want to avoid being invaded, the best way to do that is to have nukes.

If the United States retreats to our “sphere,” it would force other countries to reevaluate their needs. In Asia alone, Japan, South Korea, and Australia would have to hyper-focus on their defense and likely pick up nuclear powers on a more pronounced level. That would have China surrounded by not-so-friendly nuclear powers in those countries, plus India.

In Europe, they’d have to actually counter Russia for the first time in over 100 years. Living under America’s umbrella has basically defanged the European continent and prevented it from idiotic internal wars. A “United States of Europe” is unlikely to occur because those countries genuinely hate each other and don’t want to be ruled by France or Germany, which would happen.

In short, the spheres theory would likely increase the number of nuclear bombs on the planet and the number of nuclear countries. We’d still be the biggest power overall and could use our weight to push things around. But it’s much easier to push non-nuclear powers around.

Libertarians hold some belief that free trade would help create friends among all the countries, which doesn’t even pass the smell test. Trade is enabled by the power of the U.S. military, specifically the Navy. If the U.S. retreats, that power decreases by necessity.

This is how I think Trump views the world. As I’ve read through hard analysis of the outlines of some of these deals, his view of spheres is a distinct throwback to the Monroe Doctrine. The big difference is that when James Monroe first pitched this, America didn’t have the military power to do anything. Now, we have first-strike capacity anywhere on the planet.

How should we define our sphere of influence in this world, and what responsibilities do we have? No one has answers to those big questions at the moment. However, for Trump, it seems clear that our responsibilities end at the borders of the Western Hemisphere.

Links of the week

The end of the transatlantic alliance Europe has lost its way – UnHerd

Only Poland Can Save Europe Now: For centuries, Poland was the rampart of Christendom – now, history is repeating as war clouds form over Europe again – John Schindler

One month of Trump reminds Americans what we’ve been missing – Karol Markowicza, Fox News

One Simple Question for Democrats: What would the working class say? – the Liberal Patriot

One month down in Trump’s presidency, 47 to go. Democrats better buckle up. – USA Today

Democrats confront their powerlessness as Trump flexes authority – CNN

Democrats are learning: It’s not 2017 all over again – Byron York, Washington Examiner

Was Bidenomics A failure? Democrats Avoided Criticizing Biden. Jason Furman’s Doing It Now. – Politico

I Regret to State I Know Exactly How Liberalism Became Uncool – Slate

The Legal War on Greenpeace: Seeking payback for the violent protests that disrupted its Dakota Access project, pipeline company Energy Transfer targets Greenpeace with a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit. – City Journal

How Greg Gutfeld Became the Bill Maher of Fox News — And Toppled Fallon and Colbert in the Ratings – Variety