HAS In the summer of 2022, some Donald Trump fans were able to show their support for the ex-president by purchasing, in a “Trump store”, a t-shirt depicting him in an aviator jacket and glasses, like Tom Cruise in the movie Top Gunthe second part of which then triumphed in cinemas.
It was not just a self-serving misappropriation of a great popular success, nor a virilistic self-celebration on the part of a man who had carefully avoided conscription during the Vietnam War. The full title of the film, Top Gun Maverick – in other words “the maverick”, nickname of the hero -, was also a reminder of the non-conformism of the former businessman. Like Captain Pete Mitchell, invariably in conflict with an obtuse hierarchy, Donald Trump has never ceased to pose as the claimed enemy of a “system”, particularly in foreign policy, the backstory of these war films.
His entry into the Republican electoral arena, in 2015, was marked by a series of ruptures with the consensus that had long prevailed between the two major parties of the United States on the place of the latter in the world, namely that of ‘a “indispensable nation”, according to the 1998 formula of Democratic Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (1997-2001). Donald Trump’s presidency was then punctuated by challenges to international agreements, including some that had been initiated by Washington. His mandate was tinged with a display of contempt for the allies of the United States, as much as a fascination for strong men.
Today, as a candidate for the White House again, he persists and signs. In February, he further undermined the foundations of NATO by announcing that he “will encourage[t] » Russia to attack any member that does not fulfill its financial obligations to the Alliance. A denial of Article 5 of the Atlanticist organization, which states that an attack against a NATO country is an attack against all its members.
This protrusion is not a surprise. As early as 1987, during his first attempt to run for president, Donald Trump already denounced, in a page of advertising published in several press titles on the East Coast, the ungrateful nations which left, according to him, the United States to assume responsibility alone. the burden of their protection.
Total control
But, this time, the silence of the Republican ranks testified to the former president’s total control over the ideas of the “Grand Old Party” (GOP) in terms of diplomacy and strategy. The defeat in the open countryside of his last opponent in the presidential primary, Nikki Haley, also attests to this. The former American ambassador to the United Nations was the ultimate defender of traditional Republican foreign policy, before the former businessman burst onto the scene. Without waiting for the November 5 election, Donald Trump is already weighing on his country’s choices in this matter: it was at his instigation that billions in military aid to Ukraine voted by the Senate were still blocked at the end of March , in the House of Representatives of Congress.
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