During his first term, President Donald Trump complained that the United States had spent too much time trying to remake countries in its own image, imposing the American way of life on others, instead of advocating for its security interests.
Trump underscored that complaint when he traveled to Saudi Arabia for his first overseas trip of his second term, telling the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in May that “far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins.”
The moment was remarkable after President Joe Biden declared Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ought to be a “pariah” for ordering the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Yet, while Trump may dislike the idea of being a “global lecturer”, he has not been afraid to hold countries to account when they do not share the same values as his administration.
Trump and his Vice President, JD Vance, have used the White House’s Oval Office and the president’s Truth Social account to lecture the likes of the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Nigeria regarding issues with which they disagree.
Trump’s confrontation with South African Cyril Ramaphosa concerning allegations of white genocide even included an audio-visual presentation.
“Turn the lights down. Turn the lights down and just put this on,” Trump said in May before the video.
Last week, Trump confirmed his decision not to attend this year’s Group of 20 leaders summit in South Africa in protest of the country’s land expropriation law, which he has repeatedly criticized for discriminating against Afrikaners.
The U.S. has played the role of “global lecturer,” at least since the Cold War, as it has tried to prevent the spread of communism, according to American Enterprise Institute nonresident senior fellow Heather Conley.
For Conley, a former president of the German Marshall Fund and senior vice president for Europe, Russia, and Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Republican and Democratic U.S. presidents have “‘lectured’ by imperfectly promoting rule of law programs, human rights policies, religious freedom and anti-corruption efforts to support the most essential element of democracy: to preserve and protect the rights of the individual.”
But Conley, who was once a deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, special assistant to the coordinator for U.S. assistance to the new independent states, and a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs’ Office of International Security Operations at the State Department, contended Trump’s lecturing “selectively seeks to uphold only the rights of those who are culturally, politically, and religiously [his administration] aligned with it while ending the programs and advocacy which sought greater freedoms for all.”
“Ironically, many of these supported and aligned groups are openly anti-American,” Conley said of Euro-skeptic parties and the like that are also anti-U.S. “Whether at home or abroad, if you believe that one groups’ freedoms are greater or more important than those same freedoms for others, you are lecturing about an Orwellian future of ‘all are equal, but some are more equal than others’ which tragically would resonate with communists.”
The White House stridently disagreed with Conley. Instead, the White House reiterated that Trump’s foreign policy is “conducted through the lens of ‘America First,’” including by addressing issues of concern that “make the world less free, less safe, or less stable.”
“That includes violence against persecuted groups and free speech restrictions that impact American companies,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Washington Examiner. “The president will also continue to leverage his dealmaking skills to achieve major deliverables for our country, including fairer trade deals, major investments, defense agreements, and more.”
Vandenberg Coalition Executive Director Carrie Filipetti, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cuba and Venezuela, and the Deputy Special Rep. for Venezuela at the State Department, agreed with the White House.
Filipetti argued, “Engaging in discussion with allies to try to push them to accomplish things aligned with the U.S. interest without the use of hard power is diplomacy.”
“Which is precisely what we should be doing,” Filipetti told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t understand the criticism that Trump is successfully giving attention to key issues involving civil and human rights around the world without using force. Isn’t that exactly what we want?”
Heritage Foundation homeland security and western civilization visiting fellow Katie Pavlich added to the Washington Examiner that Trump “isn’t ‘lecturing,’ he’s looking out for America’s interests, which is reflected in the ways and situations in which he decides to weigh in.”
Pavlich cited the United Kingdom as an example where the British government’s “assault on free speech not only puts Americans traveling to the country at risk, but it’s caused massive trade problems through the overregulation of American tech companies.”
To that end, Vance previewed before the press that he, Trump, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer would discuss the issue during Starmer’s first visit to the White House in February.
“We do have a special relationship with our friends in the U.K., but we also know that there have been infringements on free speech that affect not just the British, but American citizens,” Vance said.
Hudson Institute Center for Strategy and American Statecraft deputy director Mike Watson asserted, “almost every American administration ends up trying to, in some way, advance values that its supporters and the American people support,” which is “what other people would perceive as a lecturer.”
But to Pavlich’s point, Watson also cited the U.K. as an example of what sets Trump apart: he “has talked a lot more about human rights-related issues that we disagree about with our European partners and allies than most presidents do.”
“That part is new. He’s a lot less that way when it comes to Asia and places like that,” Watson said. “The U.K. is a bigger concern for Americans than other places for a few reasons, one of which is cultural. I think for Americans who are pro-life, seeing pro-life protesters or demonstrators getting arrested, even when they’re following the regulations as they understand them, is quite alarming because they’re thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, if that happens over there, it could happen over here next.’”
He went on: “For Trump, it’s a very easy way of saying to pro-life people, ‘Last term, I got through a bunch of Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v Wade, that’s one way I’m delivering for you. And another way I’m delivering for you is trying to address your concerns about free speech.’”
Watson, too, cited Trump’s social media threats, regarding sending U.S. service members to Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” in response to reports of Christian persecutions, as another example because “American evangelicals and Catholics pay more attention to the violence in Nigeria than most other Americans do.”
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However, as Trump is criticized for not lecturing countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, Watson concluded, “It actually helps a lot to dial that part back and think about stuff that you can do constructively together.”
“If he’s trying to figure out how to chip away at Chinese influence in, particularly Southeast Asia, then talking less about human rights and democracy promotion and more about economics and security can probably get him closer to that goal,” he said.