It has been 40 days since Donald Trump became President of the US, the world’s greatest power. However, many still do not have a clue what kind of foreign policy the US is going to pursue and, in particular, how the new administration is going to practically implement Trump’s electoral slogan “Let’s make America great again.”
According to tradition, all newly elected presidents address a joint session of Congress (it is different from the president’s address to the nation, which happens at least after a year in this function). This time’s intrigue is that both houses are dominated by Republicans, and the head of the administration is also a Republican.
On Monday, at a meeting with governors, Trump already declared his intention to undertake “a historic increase in defense spending” to rebuild the military of the US. He emphasized that this would be a public safety and national security budget. According to reports from the White House, it means increasing the Pentagon’s budget by 54 billion dollars, i.e. 10 percent, with simultaneous slashing of non-defense spending, including a considerable reduction of foreign aid.
However, late night on Monday in an interview to Fox News Trump said that an increase of the military budget by another 30 billion could not be excluded. “We are going to spend a lot more money on military. We really have to. We have no other choice. And a lot of people think it [54 billion dollars. – Ed.] is a tremendous amount of money. It could be actually 30 billion more than that,” said Trump, thus retorting Senator John McCain’s reproval, who believes the proposed increase of 54 billion insufficient to renew the fighting capacity of the US army.
The Day asked experts to explain what Ukraine should expect from Trump’s appearance before the joint session of Congress and what conclusions should be made from his intention to increase military spending.
“WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHERE WE COULD HAVE A DIRECT DIALOG”
Oleksandr TSVIETKOV, American studies expert, professor, Diplomatic Academy at the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Ukraine:
“Trump associates himself with radical steps through which he wants to oppose himself to the establishment. To a certain extent, this falls out with the Republicans, so a question arises what kind of cooperation we are going to see between the executive and the legislative branches, what achievements and breakthroughs, and whether Republicans and Democrats share views on certain issues.
“On the one hand, Trump is expected to take a more aimed approach to the Trump doctrine and to how it will agree with the GOP’s political position.
“On the other, many wonder how Trump’s slogan ‘America first’ will be implemented. It is expected therefore that in the address to the joint session of Congress the administration will articulate its clear-cut economic goals and key priorities. As Trump has continually promised to come up with a plan against illegal immigration and on welfare and economy, his address might contain some elements of these plans.
“What concerns Trump’s plans to increase defense spending by 54 billion dollars: on the one hand, they affirm his intentions to strengthen the nation’s defense capacities, and that would send a message across the international arena. Obviously, harder rhetoric can be expected from the White House.
“But on the other hand, this 54 billion is no windfall, it will be cut from social welfare. This conforms to the president’s electoral promises to slash Obamacare and leave essentially two key government-supported welfare programs. This will obviously mark the gap between the Trump administration and the Democratic Party.
“We see that the Trump administration is taking a harder approach towards Russia, due to its breach of the agreement on intermediate- and close-range missiles. Currently there is no progress in the negotiations on reduction of strategic missiles. This is why Trump’s rhetoric is sharper than it was during the presidential election campaign.
“What concerns conclusions for Ukraine: we have some time to adapt the strategy of relations with the US in what concerns the settlement of the conflict on our ground. We need to understand where we could have a direct dialog, and how it could be promoted. Besides, we have reserves for re-orienting our economic and trade cooperation with the US. Now we are facing a challenge: which way could our defense industry be sent? If we cannot expand our trade in the east, we need alternatives, we must look for ways of establishing a practical dialog with America’s military technological firms. Of course, this is only possible on the basis of political agreements. In other words, now we are waiting to take a strategic step: re-orienting all components of our economic development.
“In America’s external sphere not so much the multilateral agreements are being re-evaluated as a transformation to bilateral is under way. Since we depend on the US politically, we need to build our development in such a way as to ensure a larger platform for cooperating with it.
“Judging by the steps of the Administration, engaged in the military sector, the reduction of military aid will be inconsiderable. On the contrary, the US will pay more attention to trainings. And if two countries have tighter political relations, they will be also tighter in other spheres, in particular, that of military technology and troops training.”
“INVESTING IN MILITARY SUPERIORITY IS MORE ADVANTAGEOUS THAN ANYTHING ELSE TODAY”
Mykola KAPITONENKO, Institute for Social and Economic Studies:
“President Trump’s initiative to increase the defense budget is quite a predictable choice in the traditional dilemma of ‘intelligent power.’ Staking on army generals, the ‘position of force’ rhetoric, the manner of perceiving threats, all of these were indications that the new administration will prefer the ‘hard’ and not the ‘soft’ power. This choice is largely justified. The world is dangerously destabilized, while the demand for power solutions is unusually high. Investing in military superiority is more advantageous than anything else today. That is why the decision to increase America’s military spending by 54 billion dollars – the sum exceeding total military expenditure of any country outside the Top 5 – looks justified. On the other hand, the US has long been unattainably high at the top of the military rating. Its power is so superior to that of all other countries that it is impossible to seriously consider military threats for the US security. Meanwhile, threats of a different nature are becoming more and more acute: the loss of leadership, the erosion of norms, values, and regimes (for instance, the regime of nuclear non-proliferation). It would be quite a challenge to restrain the process of proliferation of nuclear weapons by increasing one’s defense budget. We can only hope that the American president has answers to this kind of threats as well. For us it has a particular importance.
“Americans will be talking from the position of force for the sake of solving their own global task. We will not win anything from the increase of America’s military spending and will not come closer to providing Ukraine with weapons.”
