Nine months into his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has bombed Iran’s nuclear program, struck Houthi rebels in Yemen and killed dozens of alleged narco-terrorists in Venezuela. Over the weekend, he threatened to send U.S. troops “guns-a-blazing” to Nigeria to stop the killing of Christians.
As Trump hails his peacemaking credentials, the White House has framed the attacks as targeted military operations and other forms of pressure aimed at protecting U.S. interests — stemming immigration flows, countering drug trafficking, and even preserving what they see as Western culture. But they’re also prompting an outcry among some mainstream Republicans and even some of his most ardent supporters, including Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson.
That tension underscores just how delicately Trump must walk a tightrope between his desire to restore a Reaganesque “peace through strength” foreign policy and holding close the MAGA loyalists who had touted his promise to end “forever wars” and to keep the U.S. out of costly foreign entanglements.
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