A Spot on Analysis of President Trump’s Approach to Foreign Policy

Bill Ackman believes Victor Davis Hanson’s analysis of President Trump’s approach to foreign policy is “spot on.” See what you think.

Victor Davis Hanson has a secret weapon – trolling with a purpose. When Trump floats ideas like renaming the Gulf of Mexico or buying Greenland, the media lose their minds. But behind the shock, there’s always a strategy. Trump doesn’t just want attention. He wants results. One thing is clear, Trump isn’t playing by the old political rules. He forces the conversation, reshapes the debate, and more often than not, gets what he wants. Hansen breaks it all down in this analysis.

You can watch the clip or read the rushed transcript.

“Two things are going on with Trump when he trolls. So he looks around the spectrum of foreign policy challenges, and he has certain things he thinks need to be addressed, and he knows -it’s not eccentric that other people have mentioned.

“So I’ll give you an example. People for a long time have talked about, since World War Two, the agreement is in North America, and it’s very important, and the United States needs extra rights there to base. Then he looks at Panama, and he looks back at the treaty that Carter signed 1979 and it gave primacy for the United States to go through and at a discount rate, and it was supposed to be free of foreign and he sees China there.

“So then he looks at Canada, and he says they’re under our nuclear umbrella. They’re not paying their fair share of the defense. The border is open, and they’ve got a radical Trudeau.

”Then he looks at Mexico, and he says they’ve got $63 billion in remittances that’s coming in. It’s their largest source of foreign exchange. And yet that comes in from anywhere from 12 to 20 illegal aliens, many of them who are on public assistance that we’re subsidizing, the largest source of foreign exchange. And yet they let caravans come right through from Guatemala.

“So he sees all these problems and starts to bring attention to them by being Art of the Deal outrageous.

“So instead of saying, we’re very worried, if he was a sober and judicious politician, he’d say, I’m very worried about China. There are some ambiguities in the treaty, and this is a concern, and I’m bringing a bipartisan commission to know.

“Just going to say China has taken it over. We might have to go in there. I won’t rule out the court.

Then he’ll say, Why doesn’t Greenland just come join the United States? We’ll buy it.

“Or, he’ll say, the Gulf of Mexico. Why isn’t it the Gulf of America?

“Or then he’ll say, Canada. We can make it the first 51st state.

“So that’s outrageous, and that gets attention. And then people start to discuss the real problem, because there are real problems here.

“And then there’s another element, that’s trolling.

“Because the more you start to talk about it, and you dismiss Trump as the Europeans, as boisterous, divisive, eccentric, you start to look at other realities and the realities are irony.

“Take the Gulf of America. So Trump says it’s time for time to be Gulf of America. How do you like that, Mexico? But then you look at the coastline. The coastline of the Gulf of America is 1700 miles on the US side and it’s 1700 miles on the Mexican side. It’s been Gulf of Mexico for 400 years, and the left introduced into the popular discourse the idea that there are no names sacrosanct if you have the Woodrow Wilson Center, change it. The Hollow … change it. So he’s saying, well, they change names.

“They do it, not me, so I’m just going to change the name they’ve had 400 years. It will be the Gulf of America. We have the same amount. It’s fair.

“And that gets people upset, and then Mexico gets upset, and then suddenly Mexico says, we’ll stop that caravan, and let’s negotiate.

“And then Panama, he says, Well, you think we’re an imperial power, you’re against imperialism and Yankees, you brought in the Chinese. They’re worse imperialists than we are. You’re a colony of China, and that gets a further iron.

“Then he says to the Danish, you’re lecturing us, me that I’m getting in your internal affairs. You’re a little tiny country, and you are a colonial power. You’ve got this big continent, and you’re acting like you’re a 19th-century colony, and this is coming from the EU, and you look at Greenland, the distance from New York to Greenland is shorter than from Greenland to Copenhagen. And Greenland’s North America. So it’s 19th century, 18th century Europeans coming into North America and colonizing. And I want to let the people of Greenland decide.

“And the same thing with Canada, he’s saying, Well, maybe you should defend yourself, because, you know, you don’t want people. We don’t want people to be our colony. And we have all this one way trade with you. And I guess we’re a mercantile colonial power where the British learned that colonialism didn’t work. So either be part of US or just stop it. Just go your own way. And you know, but if you don’t, and you want to have a symmetrical, you better close the border, and you better have reciprocal trade charges, and you better pay up if you want to be a partner, but if you want to be a colonial subject, then keep doing what you want and we’ll treat you that way.

“So there’s irony in all of these, but the point of all of them is to bring attention in an eccentric fashion and get something done quickly.

The MAGA MOVEMENT

“This MAGA movement is now incorporating people across the spectrum, whether it’s RFK Tulsa, Gabbert, all the way over to Horowitz Andreessen, David Sacks, Elon Moss, Ramaswamy.

“So what that means is take taxes for the middle class. So if you say you, you, you float the idea that you’re going to reduce taxes for veterans, first responders, waitresses, Social Security, you’re talking a trillion dollars.

“And then you’ve got Vivek and Elon saying they want to cut between one and two trillion, but they can’t touch entitlements for defense. So you’re down to 30% of the budget, but you’re going to, you’re going to cut a trillion. So the theory is that by cutting those taxes and the regular tax cuts, you’re going to grow the economy more than 2% GDP, maybe get three, and then you’ll get another trillion dollars.

”But again, nobody’s ever quite done that…

cut taxes like Reagan did, and then say that you’re going to control spending or cuts, but Reagan didn’t do it. So he got deficits, and so did George W Bush, but last time, he inherited sort of an uneasy world where you had to restore deterrence. This time, it’s worse, so the MAGA people are going to have to understand that to restore deterrence.

”So you don’t have to even think about getting an option going to have to use force sometimes that’s going to be optional. That’s another challenge, I think. And you saw the one about the H1-b visas, that’s another one. So MAGA says we’re not going to bring in foreigners to do the work. Americans can do. Right back, Elon says, but we’re going to bring in people that we need in Silicon Valley, and between those two poles, you’re going to have to find a compromise. I think the compromise is if they’re only coming in with BAs, there’s a lot of Americans can do that. If they’re coming in with Masters and PhDs, and they’re unique in their field. Of course, bring them, but these are just three examples.

“And the cause of that is this: they have not won the popular vote, the Republicans in 20 years, since George W Bush, who barely did it in 2004, and they had lost seven out of the last eight popular votes.

“So to break that legacy, they had to expand the party. It was really amazing. They got record numbers of youth for Trump, for the Republican Party, blacks, Hispanics, and, of course, disaffected Democrats. He brought in the tech money. But to do that, you’re expanding the people that get a seat at the table. So there’s a lot of people who reflect views that were important for him getting elected. But they’re going to be in contradiction with the hardcore MAGA.

Watch:

This is a spot on analysis of @realDonaldTrump’s approach to foreign policy. https://t.co/dk1UY9YTAE

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) February 17, 2025

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