Meet Donald Trump, Foreign Interventionist

July 12, 2025

Trump’s broadsides against “witch hunts” in Brazil and Israel show his true colors on foreign policy.

No more “giving you lectures on how to live,” President Donald Trump promised a delighted audience in Saudi Arabia in May. No more interference. No more regime change. Not even “liberal nonprofits” on the ground teaching the gospel of economic development.

Now, the lectures have resumed. In recent weeks, Trump has publicly attacked the judicial systems of Israel and Brazil, demanding an end to the prosecution of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former President Jair Bolsonaro, respectively.

Netanyahu faces corruption charges. Bolsonaro faces trial for attempting a coup.

“The way that Brazil has treated former president Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace,” Trump wrote to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“This Trial should not be taking place,” he continued. “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”

Why Is He Doing This?

There’s no need to put Trump on the metaphorical couch. He spelled out his motivation in a social media post demanding that Netanyahu’s trial be scrapped.

“It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure,” he said. “Witch hunt” is Trump’s favorite term for the various investigations and trials he has faced, notably on charges he stole classified information and abetted the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

It’s not just that he sees Netanyahu and Bolsonaro as natural allies. He also sees himself in their legal travails. In both cases, Trump invoked financial leverage to assert his will: He imposed a 50% tariff on all Brazilian goods in a letter that called the treatment of Bolsonaro “an international disgrace,” and he hinted at using American aid to Israel as a lever on Netanyahu.

“This travesty of ‘Justice’ will interfere with both Iran and Hamas negotiations. In other words, it is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump said. “The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this.”

Never an Isolationist

The idea of Trump as an isolationist – repeated by some of his critics and some of his supporters – was always wrong. “America First” didn’t rule out pursuing the anti-ISIS campaign in his first term. And it didn’t stop him from ordering strikes against the Tehran-backed Houthis or bombing Iranian nuclear facilities in his second.

There’s zero evidence for his claims he opposed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and no sign that he was against the late-2001 invasion of Afghanistan. (He did, of course, set in motion the summer 2021 American withdrawal from the latter.)

In addition to direct military action against the Houthis and Iran, Trump just resumed arming Ukraine, a cause many Republicans have turned against. He has repeatedly floated using the military against Mexican drug cartels.

And his open desires to take over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal (by force if necessary) don’t fit an anti-interventionist narrative, even if they’re obviously radically different from sending hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to carry out a regime change operation followed by decades of nation-building, which is what he railed against in his Saudi speech.

Other Countries Have Patriotism

Trump’s push to make Canada the 51st state helped hand electoral victory to Prime Minister Mark Carney, who trailed badly in the polls until the president’s broadsides.

Lula could hardly take Trump’s shots lying down. He said Brazil would retaliate with its own tariffs on U.S. goods.

“Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions that will not accept being abused by anyone,” he said on social media. The case against Mr. Bolsonaro “is the sole responsibility of the Brazilian Judiciary.”

The proceedings, he continued, “are not subject to any interference or threats that could compromise the independence of national institutions.”

Lula’s polling numbers are bad. So were Carney’s.

Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/u-s-news-decision-points/articles/2025-07-11/meet-donald-trump-foreign-interventionist

Written by: Joshua Stuart

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