Should the U.S. Defend Taiwan?

Arguing for a Trump-Reagan policy fusion.

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Former Trump administration official Dan Negrea and national security strategist Matt Kroenig join Jamie to discuss their book We Win, They Lose. Jamie challenges their thesis that a Trump-Regan foreign policy fusion is possible.

The Agenda:
-The current international landscape
-China’s aggressive military operations and Taiwan
-Can Americans stomach backing Taiwan in war?
-Trump’s switch on a TikTok ban
-The Biden administration’s failure to deter Russia
-Is there really a Trump-Reagan policy fusion?

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Comments (56)
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  1. Sharon

    I live in California, in the Bay Area. Lots of wonderful Taiwanese Americans here. I would hate to see Taiwan taken by China by force. But.... is it really better for Taiwan if we "commit" to protecting them, and do what we've done in Syria and Ukraine, which is supply enough arms to keep the fight going longer, devastating more of the country, then losing our stomach for it when it "takes too long"? Looking at Ukraine, if we let Russia conquer them anyways, in the next year or two, are they better off having fought for so long? Morally maybe yes? I don't know. Given that the average American probably can't find Taiwan on a map and would just think a Taiwanese person was Chinese if they met them, does anyone outside of thinktanks think Americans will actually care if Taiwan is consumed by China? Care enough to risk nuclear war with China? Care enough for, say, a Chinese semi-blockade of our west coast ports? Have we invested enough in our Pacific fleet over the last decade to even realistically compete with China - especially when they will be manufacturing endless drones to attack our ships, if we get in the middle of this? And we will respond by... not having drones, because we import all the parts from China? If I were Xi, taking Taiwan sooner (before we have chip fabrication up and running, and before we get around to fixing our navy) seems more prudent than reckless. From his perspective, we fully supported Ukraine for what, a year and a half? That's an eyeblink. And we supported Israel wholeheartedly for... maybe 3 months? The biggest thing in our favor vis-a-vis China is their economic doldrums. But if Xi thinks a war would be a nice unifier for his potentially restive population, and thinks it would be a force for discord for us, which it would... he might not be wrong.

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  2. Shbier

    Please spell Reagan correctly - it’s wrong in numerous places. Now get off my lawn.

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  3. Capsaicin

    I agree with the commenter who called the so-called Reagan-Trump synthesis a Frankenstein monster pulling apart in two different directions. The authors of course find several places Trump and Reagan can be seen as similar, but they minimize their ideological direction--Trump toward isolationism, dictator-fluffing, and alliance weakening, vs Reagans anti-totalitarianism, and democracy alliance building.

    The strong critique of this argument by Gabriel Schonfield (May 21) in The Bulwark is worth reading; it rips into the self-interested hubris of the authors.

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    John Lewis

    Dan and Matt are not persuasive. At all.

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  5. R. James

    There wasn't much substance here. Negrea and Kroenig did not make a very persuasive argument on their central thesis that a Trump-Reagan foreign policy fusion is possible. It did not help that the interview gave very little time at the end of the discussion for that central question. Everything that came before it was just going over ground that had be heavily treaded on before.

    On the question, I doubt that Trump-Reagan fusion is possible. First, I doubt that Trump has a coherent foreign policy to fuse with. Trump just says a lot of stuff in the moment and often it conflicts with things he said in the past, Tik-Tok being the most recent example. It's hard to fuse with a moving and self-contradictory target. Second, to the extent that MAGA 2024 has a foreign policy, there is not much overlap with Reaganism. Far from being exceptions, MAGA positions on NATO, Ukraine and TikTok are baked into the zeitgeist of Trumpism for 2024 and seem to be the foreign policy positions that the online Kulturekamp cares most about. How do you reconcile Reaganism with that? As a Reaganite, why would you even want to try?

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  6. Joe

    Negria and Kroening seem like two guys who are campaigning for a position in a second Trump Administration. Their arguments seem carefully designed to pander to Trump in hopes they can manipulate him to their point of view.

    But to get there they had to engage in significant alternate history. Trump was in many ways the architect of the Afghanistan debacle. While Biden implemented it, Trump negotiated it. Trump even wanted to invite Taliban leaders to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11.

    And during his Presidency it was Trump who did nothing when China invaded Hong Kong. At one point he was trying to stop Congressional sanctions on China over their Hong Kong invasion. While Trump did sign to avoid spending political capital defending China in such a public way, he dramatically watered down its implementation. Trump even expressed support to Xi over his genocidal Uyghur policy.

    Yes, Trump did have Soleimani killed, but Iran recognized that Trump was behaving like a classical schoolyard bully. In 2020 Iran responded to Soleimani’s killing by launching a missile attack on a US base in Iraq. Trump, in typical bully fashion, backed down and did nothing.

    Our enemies knew Trump could be pushed around and was easily manipulated. Just look at Kim Jong-Un. He had Trump eating out of his hand after sending a few love letters.

    And, of course, there was Putin. Trump never criticized Putin. As one of Trump’s peers on the world stage recently commented, watching Trump and with Putin was like watching a 12 year old boy meeting the captain of the high school football team. Just look at Trump’s shameful performance in Helsinki when he sided with Putin over American intelligence agencies.

    Trump's foreign policy can be connected to politicians of the past. But Ronald Reagan is not one of those politicians. The through line for Trump’s foreign policy is Trump to Walter Mondale to George McGovern to Henry Wallace. I wouldn’t be surprised if Oliver Stone has a line to Donald Trump.

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      Xsearnold

      A nice recap. And let us not forget how Trump pulled out of Syria and Turkey, leaving the Kurds in the lurch and giving the Russians access to our military equipment.
      It was laughable how these two "experts" minimized Trump's rhetoric, as if it was irrelevant. Most of the discussion was maddening.

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    George.Skinner

    It felt like the guests were in denial of the fact that the foreign policy of Trump's term was largely consistent with historic Republican positions because Trump's foreign policy office was staffed with the traditional Republican foreign policy establishment. Trump didn't have a nationalist/populist political base to draw from when staffing his administration; he had to rely on the Republican establishment. He's got one now, and he won't be bringing back the serious people who kept stymying his whims before.

    I was also irked by the argument that Trump's tough foreign policy somehow deterred aggression. On the one hand, why would authoritarians want use military action when Trump would pliably give them what they wanted? On the other, it reminds me of Woodrow Wilson's 1916 campaign slogan: "He kept us out of the war!" Trump's first term is not a guarantee of future performance.

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    1. Jefferson

      Spot on. The most charitable interpretation one can give the guests is they are either naive or have spent so much time researching and writing their book they don’t realize the better parts of Trump 1.0 foreign policy was driven by people who were either booted out of the administration or left while they could keep their reputations in tact.

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        George.Skinner

        I think this foreshadows much more of this type of rationalization as Republican partisans try to reconcile themselves to the fact that Trump is the Republican nominee again, and has a good shot at winning the election. For a lot of people, that tribal party identification has a deeply ingrained importance and they just cannot bear the idea of the other party winning. So, they'll figure out some way to accommodate themselves to Trump because it's an easier emotional hurdle.

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  8. BPhillips

    The guests lost credibility at the end. Dan tried to convince me Trump was playing some kind of 4D chess with his threats to pull out of NATO, Matt dishes up the "we need to take Trump seriously, not literally" when he says wacky things like saying he'd tell Putin to "do whatever the hell he wants" to a NATO ally."

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  9. RaoD

    Growing up I was a huge Yes Prime Minister fan. It was a BBC series. This exchange here is relevant. Jim Hacker is the PM and Sir Humphrey is his Undersecretary.

    Jim Hacker: "We should always fight for the weak against the strong."
    Sir Humphrey: "Well, why don't we send troops to Afghanistan to fight the Russians?"
    Jim Hacker: "The Russians are too strong."

    Fact is China is strong and getting stronger every year. We have to prevent them from taking the first step. But we can’t fight them. We better plan to aid India and/or Vietnam as a hedge against Chinese expansion into Taiwan.

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    1. R. James

      China is not strong and getting stronger every year. China is strong and getting weaker every year. They've peaked and are facing strong long term economic and domestic headwinds. However, China is still very dangerous and pose a credible threat to US national security and the sovereignty of U.S. Allies and Partners in the short to medium term. Given that Xi and the CCP Politburo understand that their window to achieve "national rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation" is closing, China will become even more dangerous in the short to medium term.

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    Ericjbutcher

    Yah sorry anyone claiming there was anything coherent enough it Trumps term to even be considered a foreign policy is gonna be hard for me to take seriously to begin with. To try and compare it to Reagans....yikes. They didn't make the sale for me other then what I think is pretty obvious most people in that we are in a new cold war with China and a Vassal Russia.

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    1. BPhillips

      Wait, Trump isn't some 4D master strategist when it comes to foreign policy?? How did Dan praise Trumps foreign policy with a straight face? Matt just went with the "don't take him literally" trope.

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    2. Grantefletcher

      Reagan would be appalled

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