Politics
Column: Trump isn't an isolationist. He's a bully — and that's hurting U.S. influence in the world
WASHINGTON — When President Trump announced last week that the United States will take over the war-blasted Gaza Strip, expel its Palestinian population and build a high-end beach resort, most of the reviews ranged from disbelief to outrage.
“The craziest and most destructive proposal any administration has ever made,” said Aaron David Miller, who advised both Democratic and Republican presidents on Middle East peacemaking. “Problematic,” allowed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), normally a reliable Trump cheerleader.
Optimists speculated that Trump was merely trying to prod wealthy Arab states to rebuild Gaza, but the president insisted he was serious.
That was only one of many disruptive moves in his first three weeks back at the helm of U.S. foreign policy.
Trump also announced that he intends to “take back” the Panama Canal and force Denmark, a U.S. ally, to sell him Greenland. He threatened two more friendly countries, Canada and Mexico, with punitive tariffs until a tanking stock market prompted him to reconsider. His spending czar, Elon Musk, abruptly halted most U.S. foreign aid, cutting millions of people off from life-saving medicines, at least temporarily.
During Trump’s first term, pundits often labeled him an “isolationist” because of his disdain for alliances and his self-declared opposition to military adventures.
But that tag doesn’t quite fit a president who claims he’s willing to send troops to Gaza, Greenland and the Panama Canal to secure desirable real estate.
A Rutgers University historian, Jennifer Mittelstadt, has suggested that Trump is more accurately categorized as a “sovereigntist,” a nearly forgotten label from the early 20th century.
Sovereigntists are allergic to foreign alliances and multilateral trade deals. They are zealous in protecting American borders against immigrants or invaders, but mostly indifferent to conflicts elsewhere. They also believe in the Monroe Doctrine, the idea that the United States is entitled to throw its weight around the Western Hemisphere.
Sounds a lot like Trump.
His foreign policy represents a historic break from the basic doctrine shared by presidents of both parties since World War II: the belief that American leadership is necessary to ensure world peace, stabilize the global economy and, when feasible, promote democracy and human rights.
To pursue those goals, earlier presidents built alliances in Europe and Asia that would serve the allies as well as the United States.
Trump doesn’t buy most of that.
His mantra is “America First.” In his view, other countries are mostly on their own. He has denounced traditional U.S. alliances, beginning with NATO, as scams by which foreigners take advantage of gullible Americans.
He’s often harder on allies than on adversaries. He appears to enjoy “punching down” as a show of dominance, pressuring less powerful countries like Denmark and Canada, both NATO members.
Meanwhile, he’s full of flattery for nuclear-armed adversaries like China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
He has no compunction about violating treaty commitments or ripping up trade agreements, even deals he negotiated himself. He says being unpredictable is an asset. It’s also a good way to convince other countries that he’s an unreliable friend.
The danger, U.S. and foreign diplomats say, is that some of those countries may decide to look for other allies to help protect their interests.
“Trump is giving goodies to China,” said Kishore Mahbubani, an Asia expert at the National University of Singapore. “He’s alienating so many countries, especially friends, so quickly [that] the Chinese may say, ‘Why can’t we have eight years of Trump?’”
Musk’s abrupt gutting of the U.S. foreign aid agency, USAID, is a gift to China as well.
Trump and Musk have derided foreign aid as needless charity to the poor — or, worse, as “corruption.” But foreign aid is rarely motivated by charity alone; it’s a tool superpowers employ in the competition for global influence.
China, whose regime has rarely been mistaken as a charitable institution, has poured billions of dollars of aid and investment into developing countries, seeking to extend its own power.
With USAID crippled, the Chinese can more easily expand their influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
And as Trump has weakened traditional U.S. security alliances, Xi has been building a military alliance of his own with Russia, North Korea and Iran — a group sometimes called the “Axis of Autocrats,” united mostly by their desire to counter American power.
If that axis holds together, it could be the most dangerous threat to U.S. security in a generation — and Trump seems to know that.
“The one thing you never want to happen … [is] Russia and China uniting,” he said in an interview with Tucker Carlson last year. “I’m going to have to un-unite them, and I think I can do that.”
But the president has never offered a strategy to make that happen. Right now, he appears more focused on downsizing the bureaucracy, launching trade wars, retaking the Panama Canal and acquiring real estate in Greenland and Gaza.
His new “sovereigntist” foreign policy might be cheaper in the short run. Foreign aid is less than 1% of federal spending, but it still comes to more than $68 billion.
He might somehow succeed in acquiring Greenland or building beach hotels in Gaza. But it will almost surely be a bad deal in the long run — because it will leave the United States with fewer friends and allies just when we might need them.
Politics
Federal judge blocks Trump from cutting childcare funds to Democratic states over fraud concerns
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A federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stopping subsidies on childcare programs in five states, including Minnesota, amid allegations of fraud.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, didn’t rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but said the states had met the legal threshold to maintain the “status quo” on funding for at least two weeks while arguments continue.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns.
The programs include the Child Care and Development Fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Social Services Block Grant, all of which help needy families.
USDA IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDS ALL FEDERAL FUNDING TO MINNESOTA AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
“Families who rely on childcare and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.
The states, which include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, argued in court filings that the federal government didn’t have the legal right to end the funds and that the new policy is creating “operational chaos” in the states.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian at his nomination hearing in 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In total, the states said they receive more than $10 billion in federal funding for the programs.
HHS said it had “reason to believe” that the programs were offering funds to people in the country illegally.
‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’: SENATE REPUBLICANS PRESS GOV WALZ OVER MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
The table above shows the five states and their social safety net funding for various programs which are being withheld by the Trump administration over allegations of fraud. (AP Digital Embed)
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to HHS for comment.
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leveling a stunning accusation at Vice President JD Vance amid the national furor over this week’s fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent.
“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not,” the four-term federal lawmaker from New York and progressive champion argued as she answered questions on Friday on Capitol Hill from Fox News and other news organizations.
Ocasio-Cortez spoke in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.
RENEE NICOLE GOOD PART OF ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUP, DHS SOURCES SAY
Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Video of the incident instantly went viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.
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Vance, at a White House briefing on Thursday, charged that “this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order.”
“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” the vice president added. “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”
And Vance claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested she was connected to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Federal sources told Fox News on Friday that Good, who was a mother of three, worked as a Minneapolis-based immigration activist serving as a member of “ICE Watch.”
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Ocasio-Cortez, in responding to Vance’s comments, said, “That is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I. I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
But a spokesperson for the vice president, responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation, told Fox News Digital, “On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, AOC made it clear she thinks that radical leftists should be able to mow down ICE officials in broad daylight. She should be ashamed of herself. The Vice President stands with ICE and the brave men and women of law enforcement, and so do the American people.”
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