A month after he was elected President in November of 2016, Donald Trump laid out his opposition to the Washington foreign policy establishment consensus. “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with” he said at a speech near Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina. “Instead our focus must be on defeating terrorism and destroying Isis, and we will.”
Less than two and a half years later ISIS lost 100% of their territory, and the Caliphate was declared defeated.
And now four years later, President Trump has proven to have made good on his promise not to bring American into new foreign wars. He’s now the first President since Jimmy Carter to have not gotten the U.S. into a new war. All five presidents preceding President Trump got the U.S. involved in the following new conflicts:
- Barack Obama
• 2015 Syria
• 2011 Libya - George W. Bush
• 2003 Iraq
• 2001 Afghanistan - Bill Clinton
• 1995 Bosnia
• 1993 Somalia - George H.W. Bush
• 1991 Gulf War - Ronald Reagan
• 1983 Lebanon
Trump had previously moved to reduce the troop presence in Syria, but was lied to about the progress. We learned from outgoing Syria Envoy Jim Jeffrey that “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there.” He explained that while Trump agreed to leave about 200 troops there in 2019, there were still “a lot more” than that.
Earlier this month the Pentagon announced troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Troops in Iraq will be reduced from 3,000 to 2,500, while troops in Afghanistan will be reduced from 4,500 to 2,500. Trump is also reportedly planning on removing troops from Somalia.
