CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-NEVERTRUMPER.
Trump has done plenty of things the old Republican foreign-policy establishment would cheer for, if someone else were doing them. He has labeled China as a threat, condemning its trade practices and calling for investments to counter the country’s military rise. He ditched a nuclear deal with Iran that many Republicans hated, and has financially devastated the regime instead. His administration has added more troops in Eastern Europe to confront Russia, and ended an arms-control treaty that Moscow was violating—even while Trump himself has confused matters by praising Vladimir Putin’s leadership and questioning whether Russia has really interfered in U.S. elections. Whatever Trump’s own doubts, though, at the insistence of Congress, he has imposed sanctions against Russia for 2016 election interference. Sure, he has said mean things about NATO, but Republicans and Democrats alike have long wanted other members to pay more for their own defense, and now they are.
On the flip side, the Trump presidency hasn’t manifested in the precise kind of nightmare the Never Trump letter writers envisioned in 2016. In the first of two alarmed open missives—one that appeared in March 2016 in War on the Rocks and another in The New York Times that August—GOP foreign-policy power brokers warned about specific consequences of a Trump presidency: His wish for trade wars was “a recipe for economic disaster”; his “hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric” would alienate allies in the Muslim world; he could bring back torture. In 2020, the economic effects of the trade war have been mild, cushioned by a multibillion-dollar bailout to farmers; Muslim allies in the Gulf in particular have overlooked his rhetoric and embraced Trump over his harshness toward their archenemy Iran; the use of torture in war remains illegal, even though Trump has granted clemency to three soldiers accused of war crimes.
None of this consoles the many signatories who still find Trump unacceptable.
What they truly find unforgivable is that he doesn’t respect them, and won’t give them important jobs. When they talk about “character,” that’s what they actually mean.