John Bolton completes Trump’s America First goals

Second, Mr Bolton has no patience for US democracy promotion, which gels with Mr Trump’s worldview. Contrary to popular opinion, Mr Bolton is not a neoconservative. Neocons believe US values should be universal. Mr Bolton believes in aggressive promotion of the US national interest, which is quite different. In a Lunch with the FT interview more than a decade ago, he argued that the Iraq war, which he strenuously supported, had been distorted by the neocon democracy agenda. “What we should have done is said to the Iraqis: ‘You’re on your own. Here’s a copy of the Federalist Papers. Good luck’,” he said,referring to philosophical treatises that inspired the US constitution. Mr Bolton was arguing for “America first” policies long before Mr Trump ran for office.

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Finally, Mr Bolton’s appointment nearly completes Mr Trump’s managerial revolution — a White House with no recognisable managerial principles. Mr McMaster tried to operate as an honest broker to co-ordinate policy across the inter-agency process. He was not often successful but he tried. Mr Bolton dislikes the very notion of consensus building. Again, this chimes with Mr Trump’s approach. That could spell doom for John Kelly, Mr Trump’s chief of staff. Mr Bannon told the FT Future of News conference on Thursday that he thinks the US president would prefer to do away with the role altogether. Either way, we are entering the phase of Trump unbound. Ronald Reagan once said “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. The same is true of Mr Trump. He is now surrounded by nationalists who believe in America first. Contrarian voices are disappearing. Pax Americana is growing weaker by the day.

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