American Foreign Policy under Donald Trump.

Walter Russell Mead, Professor of Foreign Affairs of Bard College and Yale University, Humanities Editor-at-Large at The American Interest Magazine

Within the framework of the MCI Alumni & Friends “Distinguished Guest” platform series, the Entrepreneurial School® recently welcomed Walter Russell Mead, James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs of Bard College and Yale University. Mead gave insights into the American Foreign Policy under Donald J. Trump. The professor of Foreign Affairs is also the Editor-at-Large of The American Interest magazine.

From Mead’s point of view, Trump’s plan is trying to make the United States an Exporter of Energy through fracking technology. According to Mead, fracking creates a lot of jobs for Trump voters. He claimed that working class people that have no academic degree working in natural gas or oil fracking creates high paying jobs. For the Editor-at-Large at the American Interest Magazine Trump also wants to create new pipelines to transmit all the natural gas and oil to refineries and factories which would result in a myriad of high paid blue-collar and some white-collar jobs. All these promises of the new US president produce economic hope for the economic class - blue-collar Americans that are faced with declining wages and being told they don’t have a future, as Mead pointed out.

“We don’t know what kind of president Donald Trump is going to be. We don’t know what some of his policies would be.” stated Mead. He explained that if someone attacks the US by terrorism or some other form of attack Trump will be under a lot of pressure to respond in a dramatic fashion. The professor of Foreign Affairs of Bard College often remembered the audience that he is no advocate of Donald Trump and that he doesn’t want to convince the audience that the possible reactions or actions of Trump would be a great idea. Instead he emphasized many times that there is an inner logic to the way that President Trump and the people who voted for him look at the world and how we may anticipate what will happen.

Mead left the audience with the thought that the new American government will probably be more focused on bilateral relationships in Europe than on coordinating American policy with the EU. The event was chaired by MCI rector Andreas Altmann. A refreshing discussion afterwards rounded off Walter Russell Mead’s talk.

>>> Invitation