<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump\u2019s slogan has long been \u201cAmerica First,\u201d and his movement is all about making America great again\u2014language the president\u2019s foes misunderstand as meaning \u201cisolationism.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
In fact, strengthening America requires strengthening our friends as well\u2014and Trump sets an example for those leaders\u00a0in Latin America, Asia, and Europe who want to make their nations great again, too.\n<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump\u2019s slogan has long been \u201cAmerica First,\u201d and his movement is all about making America great again\u2014language the president\u2019s foes misunderstand as meaning \u201cisolationism.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
In fact, strengthening America requires strengthening our friends as well\u2014and Trump sets an example for those leaders\u00a0in Latin America, Asia, and Europe who want to make their nations great again, too.\n<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no paradox here: A robust international order is impossible if America has to sacrifice its own industrial capacity, and our people\u2019s economic security, to global free trade. That led to a weaker, more dependent America, even as our allies, in the era before Trump, expected us to shoulder most of the burden for their defense.\n<\/p>\n
The \u201cliberal international order\u201d was a suicide pact,\u00a0building up China\u00a0while wearing down America\u2014and the system perversely incentivized our friends to prioritize welfare spending over national security needs.\n<\/p>\n
The alternative to that old, failed order isn\u2019t anarchy or Chinese hegemony; it\u2019s cooperation among stronger nations that take their responsibilities\u2014to their own people and to Uncle Sam\u2014more seriously.\n<\/p>\n
Japan is a critical case\u00a0in point.\n<\/p>\n
Its new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, represents a right turn for the dominant Liberal Democratic Party, which is Japan\u2019s leading conservative party, despite what the name might suggest.\n<\/p>\n
More than 80 years after the end of World War II, Japan remains constitutionally forbidden to rearm: it has defense forces but not true military.\n<\/p>\n
Takaichi belongs to a wing of the Japanese right that would change that\u2014and thereby make Japan no threat to anybody else but a better ally for America.\n<\/p>\n
The superpower danger in the Pacific today comes from Beijing, and the more constrained Japan is, the less constrained that China is.\n<\/p>\n
Rearmament is highly controversial within Japan, but just as Trump has taken controversial yet necessary steps to address America\u2019s weaknesses\u2014from imposing tariffs to cracking down on illegal immigration\u2014a leader like Takaichi can bring great changes to her country.\n<\/p>\n
She\u2019s already restricting immigration before it becomes the kind of problem it has long been in the West.\n<\/p>\n
Takaichi is a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Shinzo Abe, who was prime minister during Trump\u2019s first term and had a uniquely strong bond with him.\n<\/p>\n
As the first woman to lead Japan, she\u2019s also drawn comparison to Britain\u2019s Iron Lady of the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher.\n<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump\u2019s slogan has long been \u201cAmerica First,\u201d and his movement is all about making America great again\u2014language the president\u2019s foes misunderstand as meaning \u201cisolationism.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
In fact, strengthening America requires strengthening our friends as well\u2014and Trump sets an example for those leaders\u00a0in Latin America, Asia, and Europe who want to make their nations great again, too.\n<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no paradox here:\n<\/p>\n
A robust international order is impossible if America has to sacrifice its own industrial capacity, and our people\u2019s economic security, to global free trade. That led to a weaker, more dependent America, even as our allies, in the era before Trump, expected us to shoulder most of the burden for their defense.\n<\/p>\n
The \u201cliberal international order\u201d was a suicide pact,\u00a0building up China\u00a0while wearing down America\u2014and the system perversely incentivized our friends to prioritize welfare spending over national security needs.\n<\/p>\n
The alternative to that old, failed order isn\u2019t anarchy or Chinese hegemony; it\u2019s cooperation among stronger nations that take their responsibilities\u2014to their own people and to Uncle Sam\u2014more seriously.\n<\/p>\n
Japan is a critical case in point.\n<\/p>\n
Its new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, represents a right turn for the dominant Liberal Democratic Party, which is Japan\u2019s leading conservative party, despite what the name might suggest.\n<\/p>\n
More than 80 years after the end of World War II, Japan remains constitutionally forbidden to rearm: it has defense forces but not true military.\n<\/p>\n
Takaichi belongs to a wing of the Japanese right that would change that\u2014and thereby make Japan no threat to anybody else but a better ally for America.\n<\/p>\n
The superpower danger in the Pacific today comes from Beijing, and the more constrained Japan is, the less constrained that China is.\n<\/p>\n
Rearmament is highly controversial within Japan, but just as Trump has taken controversial yet necessary steps to address America\u2019s weaknesses\u2014from imposing tariffs to cracking down on illegal immigration\u2014a leader like Takaichi can bring great changes to her country.\n<\/p>\n
She\u2019s already restricting immigration before it becomes the kind of problem it has long been in the West.\n<\/p>\n
Takaichi is a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Shinzo Abe, who was prime minister during Trump\u2019s first term and had a uniquely strong bond with him.\n<\/p>\n
As the first woman to lead Japan, she\u2019s also drawn comparison to Britain\u2019s Iron Lady of the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher.\n<\/p>\n
Tariffs that serve America\u2019s industrial policy\u00a0put a strain upon trading partners like Japan, of course\u2014although the land of the rising sun has long practiced its own forms of industrial and agricultural protection.\n<\/p>\n
Japanese rice production, for example, is heavily protected\u2014which means Japan has enough domestic capacity to endure shortages in the event of war or other disruptions of international trade.\n<\/p>\n
Although Japan isn\u2019t self-sufficient, it\u2019s a boon to American security that the country can provide for itself better than some of our other friends in the region, such as Taiwan\u2014which could be starved into submission by a Chinese blockade.\n<\/p>\n
Trump not only shows leaders like Takaichi that boldness can succeed in throwing out the political establishment\u2019s playbook; his return to power prods allies like Japan to pick leaders simpatico with his right-leaning nationalist worldview\u2014and those are the kind of leaders America needs among its allies in the 21st century.\n<\/p>\n
Right-of-center, anti-establishment politics also plays well for Trump-friendly leaders at home, both with voters and the stock market:\n<\/p>\n
Takaichi\u2019s ascent sent the Nikkei stock index soaring to a new record.\n<\/p>\n
Half a world away, the success of President\u00a0Javier Milei\u2019s right-leaning party\u00a0in Argentina\u2019s midterm elections Sunday produced a similar result, with stock indexes booming by as much as 23%.\n<\/p>\n
It baffles Trump\u2019s critics that America\u2019s self-declared \u201cTariff Man\u201d can have such good relations with Milei, a self-described \u201canarcho-capitalist.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
But Trump thinks in terms of interests, not ideology, and it\u2019s in America\u2019s interests that Milei succeed in making Argentina freer, more prosperous, and friendlier to us, in a region\u2014our own neighborhood\u2014where socialism, anti-Yanqui sentiment, and Chinese influence continually threaten to align against us.\n<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no contradiction in nationalists from different nations working in parallel to make their own countries stronger individually and more secure collectively.\n<\/p>\n
Likewise, there\u2019s nothing strange about populist reformers from different places with different needs having sympathy for one another\u2014Trump is fighting an establishment bent upon globalization; Milei faces an establishment in Argentina that wants an all-powerful state.\n<\/p>\n
Bringing different philosophies together to advance shared interests is simply the\u00a0art of the deal.\n<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s the master of that, and other leaders around the world are quickly learning from him.\n<\/p>\n
They\u2019re advancing a global realignment that will contribute to making America great again, even as it makes their own nations greater as well.\n<\/p>\n
(Originally posted at The Daily Signal. Photo Credit: Andrew Harnik via Getty Images \/ AFP)
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President Donald Trump\u2019s slogan has long been \u201cAmerica First,\u201d and his movement is all about making America great again\u2014language the president\u2019s foes misunderstand as meaning \u201cisolationism.\u201d In fact, strengthening America requires strengthening our friends as well\u2014and Trump sets an example for those leaders\u00a0in Latin America, Asia, and Europe who want to make their nations great<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[280,281,279],"class_list":["post-8716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-prayer","tag-allies","tag-great","tag-maga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}