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Commentary
Wall Street Journal

Trump Gambles on Africa

walter_russell_mead
walter_russell_mead
Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship
President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House on November 7, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)
Caption
President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House on November 7, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

President Trump did the impossible last week. He horrified the neo-isolationist “restrainers” who hoped that his second term would see the U.S. turning away from foreign quarrels to focus on “America first.” And Mr. Trump simultaneously left what remains of the old globalist American foreign policy establishment wringing its hands in despair and chagrin.

While pushing for regime change in Venezuela and launching into nation-building in Gaza, the indefatigable American president got into promoting humanitarian intervention in Africa by repeating his threat to use force against what many in the Trump administration are now calling a genocide of Christians in Nigeria. Would John Bolton have been more ambitious? Did Samantha Power bring more energy to humanitarian interventions overseas?

Read in The Wall Street Journal.