What Is Ron DeSantis’s Foreign-Policy Vision?

F lorida governor Ron DeSantis — like all presidential hopefuls in the Republican camp — would do well to think about how his policy agenda differs from Trump’s both at home and abroad.

With political turmoil around the world and with Trump’s upending of America’s broadly internationalist foreign-policy consensus, a lot is up for grabs. In line with a long Republican tradition, DeSantis has signaled his pro-Israel views, an understandable disdain for the communist and far-left dictatorships of Latin America, and a hawkish view of China. He has also criticized President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Yet, less is known about DeSantis’s views on U.S. support for Ukraine, among other issues. In February, he criticized Biden for showing what he said was weakness in the run-up to the war. But beyond that, his perspective on the conflict is unclear. Does he think we should be helping the Ukrainians more or less? How does he view the burden-sharing within U.S.-led alliances? How about his views of trade, an area where Trump’s protectionist instincts have continued to dominate U.S. policy under Biden?

A DeSantis candidacy would be more than just an opportunity to move past Trump’s mercurial and confrontational style. A serious Republican contender must also be able to outline a foreign-policy agenda that would allow the United States to once again lead in the world.

The Trump administration scored some real foreign-policy successes — most notably the Abraham Accords, the killing of Qasem Soleimani in response to Iran’s depredations in the Middle East, and the revival of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance in response to the challenges posed by China. But because he was unconstrained by a clear vision of U.S. global interests or a clear strategy, Trump’s presidency also brought an unwarranted disdain for U.S. allies, neglect of international institutions in which America could leverage its power in pursuit of its interests, and an inchoate isolationism.

The fact that a number of Republicans in Congress and nearly half of Republican voters (according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll) seem keen to cut Ukraine loose is as much a part of Trump’s legacy as the increasing rapprochement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. And giving in to such isolationist impulses is both bad policy and bad politics: Not only does muscular support for Ukraine remain a highly popular proposition among Americans as a whole, but a decisive Russian defeat would serve America’s interests — especially as Washington is eager to refocus on geostrategic competition with China.

Instead of kowtowing to fringe voices, DeSantis should lead the GOP onto a better path. The public will listen. Foreign policy is rarely among the polarizing issues at the forefront of Americans’ minds. In an October Gallup poll, only 1 percent of Americans listed U.S. “foreign policy/foreign aid/focus overseas” as the most important issue facing the country. Another 1 percent named the “situation with Russia,” as their most important issue.

DeSantis should also break with Trumpism’s artificial distinction between U.S. interests and U.S. values. The two are inextricably connected, as President George W. Bush noted in his second inaugural address. “The survival of liberty in our land,” he said, “increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”

There are lessons to be drawn from the quagmires Bush oversaw in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like any other nation, the United States is capable of overreaching. Yet, as President Biden’s ill-conceived withdrawal from Afghanistan showed, it is also capable of overcorrecting — of losing its nerve and abandoning its previous commitments — once it recognizes that it has overreached.

To indulge the fantasy that American interests will be best served in a world divided into spheres of influence and governed by short-sighted, transactional relations is irresponsible. Biden is thus right to frame our competition with China as a struggle between authoritarianism and democracy. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has failed to match such lofty rhetoric with effective China policies that would live up to our values and serve our national interests. In this respect as in many others, DeSantis and the GOP must endeavor to succeed where Biden has failed.

Global leadership is costly. Given its hefty price tag, “peace through strength” is sustainable only with a healthy, vibrant economy, which the Biden administration has failed to deliver for the nation. Indeed, under Biden’s watch, a vast gulf has opened between America’s putative global ambitions, articulated in the White House’s National Security Strategy among other documents, and the actual resources of the Defense Department, which are being eaten away by inflation. What is more, my AEI colleague Elaine McCusker, who previously served as the Pentagon’s comptroller, has concluded that over $100 billion of the money in the $773 billion defense budget won’t go toward improving America’s combat readiness. DeSantis’s performance in Florida, where he has overseen a nimble, dynamic economy, may make him well-suited to the urgent task of rebuilding America’s underfunded military.

Finally, DeSantis must recognize that the success of the United States in its competition with China and the preservation of its outsized global role rest in part on its ability to temper its penchant for unilateralism. That America can form voluntary alliances and partnerships — deals in which we are willing to constrain ourselves by the same rules that we apply to others — gives it strength, compared both with previously existing hegemons and with its current adversaries.

China and Russia may be able to strike deals with other countries. They can — and frequently do — use coercion to achieve their geopolitical goals. Yet, no government is looking by choice to Beijing and Moscow for leadership in the same way that much of the world is looking to Washington. Alas, successive U.S. administrations have also burned many bridges without investing adequately in repairs, from the damage inflicted on transatlantic relations by the Iraq War and President Obama’s undercutting of our allies in Syria to the parade of grievances that was the Trump presidency to today’s neglect of the World Trade Organization and subsidies for U.S.-made electric vehicles, which disadvantage manufacturers in Europe and Korea to no productive domestic end.

The United States can, and should, do better — not for benevolence’s own sake but simply because parochialism damages our own long-term interests. Republican candidates in 2024, presumably including Governor DeSantis, have a crucial role to play in correcting the nation’s course and helping it regain an international stature and influence befitting its status as the world’s most successful experiment in self-government. We will see soon enough if they are up to the job.