DONALD TRUMP ON SETTING THE PRICE FOR THE U.S. FOREIGN DEFENCE POLICY – TRACING BACK THE OPINIONS OF AN ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
DONALD TRUMP ON SETTING THE PRICE FOR THE U.S. FOREIGN DEFENCE POLICY – TRACING BACK THE OPINIONS OF AN ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

Summary/Abstract: Since 1987, Donald Trump has constantly considered in a critical manner the U.S. foreign defence policy that he understood as the use of the U.S. military for advancing the interests of foreign states. In the context of the 1988, 2000, 2012 and 2016 election campaigns for the U.S. presidency, he strongly argued that this military support should not be provided for free but only in exchange for a fair price to be paid by the states which benefit from it. This paper points out that Trump`s position on the exact structure of this price is less clear and that three contrasting views on this issue could plausibly be attributed to him, with the last two ones being more prominent and explicit: firstly, the price includes both the costs for employing the U.S. military and a mark-up, secondly, the price covers only the costs for employing the U.S. military and finally, the price is made up exclusively from a share of the costs for modernising the U.S. military. A possible way of integrating all three views into the U.S. foreign defence policy is also suggested by this paper which concludes that Trump’s perspective on this policy is complex and thus resistant to a simple characterization.

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