The Fate of “America First”

U.S. President Donald Trump at a press conference, Palm Beach, Florida, January 2026

How the Assault on Venezuela Threatens Trump’s Promise

Reid Smith January 9, 2026 Foreign AFFAIRS

It has been almost a year since President Donald Trump took office for the second time, promising at his inauguration, “During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first.” Shortly after Trump was elected, I laid out the case in Foreign Affairs for an “America first” foreign policy of restraint, one that acknowledges that the United States “operates in a world of constraints.”

Trump was uniquely positioned to execute such a policy—and in some important respects, he has begun to do so. The administration’s National Security Strategy, released in December, redefines national security around the health and cohesion of the republic, elevating the Western Hemisphere and the economic and moral resilience of American society rather than reinforcing liberal primacy. And on the ground in Europe and particularly in Asia, the rudiments of a more restrained, interest-based approach are indeed emerging. But in the Middle East and Latin America, interventionist reflexes are still shaping the administration’s policy. The Trump administration’s latest foreign policy foray—a military operation to capture Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and, potentially, to manage the country’s affairs—is the clearest example.

Trump’s character, driven by instinct and susceptible to flattery, plays a role in these policy shifts. But bureaucratic competition within the administration, congressional obstinacy, and a U.S. press still enamored with liberal primacy are also inhibiting a full shift toward restraint. Unless the Trump administration adheres to its declared policy objectives, exerts more influence over congressional Republican leaders, and does a better job of selling its “America first” vision to the U.S. public and media, the administration will betray Trump’s inaugural promise.

STRENGTH THROUGH PEACE

The most striking difference between Trump’s first administration and his second is the eclipse of a generation of graying primacists. This cohort reached its prime at the zenith of American unipolarity and remained confident that U.S. power was unrivaled, durable, and sufficient to reorder distant societies. But a new cadre has now taken its place—strategists who cut their teeth on the limits of their predecessors’ ambition. Key second-term political appointees—including Vice President JD Vance, Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—served in Iraq or Afghanistan in various military and civilian roles and entered political maturity skeptical of the status quo.

The influence of this next generation is most clearly articulated in the new National Security Strategy. Notably, the document’s authors take direct aim at their forebears. “Not only did our elites pursue a fundamentally undesirable and impossible goal,” the document reads, in reference to past exhortations to sustain and expand liberal primacy, but “in doing so they undermined the means necessary to achieve that goal: the character of our nation upon which its power, wealth, and decency were built.” If this is not a revolt against the past, it is certainly a reckoning with it. From here, the strategy turns to first-order questions: What should the United States want? How do we get it? To lead with foundational questions rather than leaning on inherited assumptions marks a profound break with the past.

But a strategy is only as sound as its outcomes, and the record of the Trump administration’s first year is uneven. The clearest shift in the right direction can be seen in Washington’s approach to Asia. Trump’s prioritization of direct dialogue with Chinese leader Xi Jinping—the two have spoken on the phone, met in person, and plan to have as many as four meetings in 2026—suggests that the administration may be seeking to revive great-power diplomacy. Trump’s “art of the deal” instincts have been on full display in his willingness to negotiate with the United States’ primary rival. Such an approach is entirely consistent with a more restrained approach to great-power politics and squares with the conservative approach to Cold War diplomacy.

Over the past year, Beijing and Washington have mostly compartmentalized their disputes, avoiding sweeping commitments that could prompt confrontation if one part of the relationship breaks down. Indeed, Trump’s evolving China policy shows a surprising willingness to experiment with diplomatic give-and-take. The Trump administration, for instance, has reframed cooperation on combating fentanyl trafficking as an explicitly transactional exchange, incentivizing China to restrict exports of fentanyl precursors by offering tariff relief rather than symbolic adjustments to sanctions. This move ties the matter to core economic interests, creating clear incentives while keeping the issue tightly siloed from other hot button geopolitical issues.

Trump has also made progress in restoring strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, rather than drifting further toward an explicit security guarantee, as the Biden administration did. Asked in November whether the United States would order U.S. troops to defend Taiwan in response to a Chinese military incursion, Trump replied, “You’ll find out if it happens.” This was a notable departure from Biden’s repeated affirmations that Washington would defend the island militarily.

Ambiguity reduces the risk of escalation while maintaining a credible threat of action. Terms of art embedded in the National Security Strategy reinforce this register: promising to build a military capable of “denying aggression” in the first island chain, as the strategy does, is an important rhetorical departure from “defeating any adversary,” the language used in Trump’s 2017 strategy. Meanwhile, the administration has pressed allies such as Australia and Japan to increase their defense spending, although competing overtures on trade have complicated this push.

OLD HABITS DIE HARD

The Middle East has proved less hospitable to course correction. There were early signs of a shift toward a less ideological approach to the region. In May, Trump traveled to Riyadh for the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, where he lauded the Middle East’s economic transformation, emphasizing that it arose not “from Western interventionalists . . . but by the people of the region themselves” and touted a regional future defined by “commerce, not chaos.” He blasted “so-called nation-builders” for wrecking “far more nations than they built” and even extended “an olive branch” to Tehran to negotiate over its nuclear program. He also threatened to “inflict massive, maximum pressure” if they rejected that branch, bluntly dealing in both carrots and sticks.

But barely a month later, Israel killed Iran’s top nuclear negotiators. Escalating fire between Israel and Iran culminated in a series of U.S. strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites. At issue here is not Israel’s wherewithal or its sovereign right to pursue its security but the wisdom and consequences of direct U.S. escalation. After Iran retaliated with a barrage of strikes against Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which houses U.S. forces, Trump announced a cease-fire on Truth Social. For restrainers, however, this episode was a significant setback. The diplomatic window slammed shut, a new precedent for bombing Iran was established, and Washington was left imposing a fragile truce. Within the United States, the strikes prompted a sharp public split within the conservative media ecosystem. And the matter remains largely unresolved, given Trump’s recent warning that the United States is “locked and loaded” to intervene should Iran violently suppress peaceful protests.

Burden shifting is policy, not preference.

Last summer’s turbulence likely accelerated the administration’s efforts to secure a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Steve Witkoff, the administration’s special envoy to the Middle East, negotiated the first sustained pause in fighting in the enclave since 2023 and facilitated the return of dozens of hostages, including Americans. Although the cease-fire’s durability remains uncertain, it stands as a case where diplomacy succeeded where force had failed.

Elsewhere, restraint emerged through trial and error. Washington’s campaign against the Houthis last spring in Yemen severely depleted the U.S. navy’s weapons stockpiles, revealing the costs of such an operation. The sustained campaign likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars before accounting for maintenance and personnel. The result was status quo ante: the Houthis promised not to shoot at American ships if the American military stopped shooting at them.

Meanwhile, the effective end of Syria’s civil war allowed the United States to repeal certain sanctions—and demonstrated that change can happen without direct U.S. intervention. Following an executive order last June that terminated many sanctions, the latest National Defense Authorization Act, passed in December, included a repeal of the sweeping secondary sanctions adopted in 2019 to isolate the Assad regime and which had limited funds for reconstruction. Ongoing negotiations with Damascus’s new government assure greater drawdowns in the U.S. troop presence in the country, if not an outright exit.

REALITY CHECKS

Trump’s efforts to apply restraint to U.S. policy toward Europe have also been stop-and-start, though they remain one of its best opportunities to align policy with interest-based logic. The Trump administration has applied sustained pressure on Ukraine to prepare for a negotiated settlement. The current shape of the deal is far from equitable, but it reflects a harsh reality: Ukraine is unlikely to achieve decisive gains, and Western support is eroding. Honesty remains the best policy, and Ukraine deserves the truth. Closing the door on NATO expansion—a position the Trump administration has supported—would mark a major victory for restraint. Washington has provided ample evidence it will not fight a major war with Russia over Ukraine. To pretend that an ersatz Article 5 guarantee implies otherwise would ultimately undermine NATO’s credibility and Ukrainian security.

But progress on peace remains sluggish. Russian President Vladimir Putin has little incentive to negotiate, and much will depend on the security agreement Kyiv can secure from Europe and the Americans. Ultimately, the most durable assurance for Ukraine would be a capable domestic military deterrent, supported by the United States and Europe but not underwritten by empty commitments.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is restructuring the transatlantic division of labor. European defense planning is shifting in ways unimaginable a decade ago. At its 2025 summit, NATO endorsed a benchmark of 5 percent of GDP for each country’s annual defense spending. The EU’s ReArm Europe initiative, worth about $850 million—including around $160 billion for joint procurement—constitutes the most ambitious rearmament effort since the Cold War. And despite objections from European capitals and the U.S. Congress, the recent cutback in U.S. forces rotated through Romania signals Washington’s expectation that Europe will assume greater responsibility for its conventional security. “Burden shifting” is policy, not preference.

AMERICAS FIRST?

The Western Hemisphere has become the greatest paradox in Trump’s “America first” policy. The National Security Strategy’s emphasis on hemispheric concerns—and its assertion that the United States’ future “will be determined by our ability to protect U.S. commerce, territory, and resources that are core to our national security”—is consonant with an “America first” approach. So is denying great-power competitors’ influence in the region and controlling migration and drug flows.

In principle, Washington’s targeted military strikes in Caracas and recent capture of Maduro are roughly consistent with the administration’s renewed emphasis on establishing a robust hemispheric posture. But the latest operation also exemplifies the split between realists and restrainers on Trump’s foreign policy team. Realists tend to be more comfortable with the overt employment of military power to send a message about U.S. dominance or gain U.S. access to oil reserves. Restrainers, on the other hand, tend to believe that the risks of escalation and entanglement outweigh these potential gains. Those now championing the operation in Caracas would likely have reacted quite differently had an American helicopter been shot down over the city, resulting in lives lost, hostages taken, and marines deployed to clean up the mess.

The Western Hemisphere has become the greatest paradox in Trump’s “America first” policy.

Moreover, the uncertainty about what the Trump administration plans to do next in Venezuela has complicated regional diplomacy, puzzled U.S. lawmakers, and stalled domestic support. Shortly after the operation, Trump said that the United States was “going to run the country,” and when later asked how long this would last, he replied that it would be “much longer” than a year. The president also said he was “not afraid” of putting “boots on the ground” in Venezuela. Suggesting that the United States might occupy a foreign territory for an undefined period is a remarkable shift in the administration’s stated policy. And the practical obstacles to occupation would be substantial: the United States currently has no forces on the ground in Venezuela and has not maintained an embassy there since 2019.

Americans do not support U.S. military action in Venezuela. In a Quinnipiac poll released in December, only 25 percent of voters supported U.S. military action inside Venezuela, and only 52 percent of Republicans backed the idea. And the typical bump in support for an operation once it has proved successful does not seem to have registered in this case. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this week, 33 percent of Americans approved of the U.S. military action to remove Maduro, while 72 percent of respondents worried that the United States would become “too involved” in Venezuela.

Trump then muddied the waters further by amping up threats to conduct operations in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico and to take over Greenland. Some of this rhetoric may be mere bombast, but repeated and unqualified public threats can confound adversaries and allies alike.

The administration could still contain the scope of its actions in the region. Trump can and should call Maduro’s removal a win without resorting to the more ambitious and self-injurious instincts that guided past regime-change endeavors, such as the de-Baathification campaign that followed the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the facilitation of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s overthrow in Libya in 2011, or the picking of sides in the Syrian civil war. If the Trump administration can reach a favorable accommodation with Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, the U.S. operation could remain one that forced a change in leadership rather than an open-ended exercise in nation building. Further acquisitive or offensive actions, such as the military annexation of Greenland, would sit well outside the logic of a National Security Strategy that emphasizes hemispheric stability and the denial of territorial threats. And poll after poll has evinced robust American opposition to the acquisition of Greenland. The execution of a hemispheric strategy should prioritize diplomatic engagement and regional capacity-building rather than open-ended U.S. military operations.

CONSTRAINING RESTRAINT

The fact that progress toward a more “America first” foreign policy has been so halting stems from four underlying constraints. First, Trump governs by instinct rather than ideology. His intuitions tell him to avoid “stupid endless wars,” but he is clearly swayed by flattery and often won over by confidants. The cohort of advisers skeptical of foreign entanglements is far larger than it was in his last administration, but important political constituencies and foreign dignitaries will still have their say, yielding frequent shifts in his policy aims.

The formal interagency process, which is ostensibly designed to coordinate policy across departments, has bent and buckled. Competing centers of gravity in the administration fight for attention and favor. The president frequently articulates goals—as evidenced in his avalanche of Truth Social posts—but those tasked with executing them are often pulling in different directions. And the nascent generation of national security leaders are new to power and may struggle to wield it against bureaucratic inertia.

Congress is not offering assistance to an “America first” agenda, either. Republican leaders in both houses remain suspicious of any retrenchment and have worked to restrict the White House’s aims. For instance, the current National Defense Authorization Act prohibits the president from reducing the U.S. force stationed in Europe to below 76,000 troops without certification from both the secretary of defense and the U.S. general responsible for NATO’s military operations. This is an extraordinary intrusion on the president’s power to conduct foreign affairs and inconsistent with what previous U.S. presidents were allowed.

Congress is not offering assistance to an “America first” agenda.

Finally, legacy media outfits are uniformly startled by any departure from post–Cold War orthodoxy. The prominent New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, for example, employed his by line to award Trump the “Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize” for proposing a settlement in Ukraine that would put the whole EU “under Putin’s thumb.” Trump’s instincts toward greater diplomatic engagement in the Middle East are regularly portrayed as naive, immoral, or destabilizing, while interventionism is often applauded. The president’s preferred network, Fox News, heralded Trump as a modern-day Winston Churchill immediately after he ordered the bombing run on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Against all this, Trump faces declining approval numbers. For a U.S. president, bombing a foreign country is easier than bringing down grocery prices, and so doing so—or getting involved in other misguided foreign policy ventures—remains a temptation. Voters remain wary. According to Pew Research Center polls conducted toward the end of last year, 74 percent of Americans rate the economy as “only fair” or “poor,” and majorities believe the president should focus more on domestic priorities.

How should the administration adapt to these constraints? First, Trump’s instincts must be translated into clear policy. This was largely accomplished with the publication of the National Security Strategy, and its goals should continue to be reflected in administration officials’ public statements. The foreign policy bureaucracy must also develop a greater unity of effort, though this will likely come with time and experience.

Legislative resistance to retrenchment demands a political strategy. The administration should work with its congressional allies to highlight the public’s enduring support for “America first” policies and frame retrenchment as hard-nosed realism. Meanwhile, proponents of an interest-based approach to foreign policy should urge Congress to take seriously its constitutional prerogative to initiate, oversee, and ultimately end wars. And finally, the administration should take advantage of alternative, less reflexively primacist media platforms to promote more restrained foreign policy objectives.

To return to the National Security Strategy’s primary question, “What should the United States want?” The document’s authors have articulated, in unusually candid terms, a more disciplined foreign policy that serves the sovereignty of the American people, encourages allies to step up, and avoids open-ended commitments and ideological crusades. So far, the administration has advanced this agenda only in fits and starts. A more fully realized rendering of “America first” will require discipline in execution.

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