Will the ‘Transactional’ Trump End Up, Paradoxically, Spreading Democracy Around the World?

President Trump rarely, if ever, utters the word “democracy” in speeches or social media postings. His detractors say he is too “transactional” and friendly to dictators. Yet will this president end up spreading more freedom to the globe than some of his predecessors? That is what one interested observer, Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado, believes, at least in the case of Venezuela. Mr. Trump is widely denounced for maintaining the Chavistas in power at Caracas. Yet Ms. Machado, who is widely seen as the country’s legitimate ruler, trusts that the days of acting president Delcy Rodriguez are numbered. True, Mr. Trump said publicly that Ms. Machado isn’t popular in Venezuela. That, though, is not what he told her in private, the exiled leader says. “I will concentrate on what he told me in a private conversation, looking each other in the eyes,” Ms. Machado told CBS on Sunday. “I do trust the president in what he has said regarding how much he cares about the Venezuelan people.” Washington, she said, is being deliberate in carefully dismantling the illegitimate regime at Caracas. On another front, Mr. Trump is publicly changing his tune on regime change at Tehran. “Iranian Patriots, keep protesting,” he wrote on Truth Social last month. “Take over your institutions. Help is on its way.” Now administration officials are leaking reports that special envoy Steve Witkoff is scheduled to talk to Tehran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, at Ankara on Friday. Unpredictability, though, is a cornerstone of Mr. Trump’s policies. Similar plans for negotiations with the regime were advertised last June. Those talks never materialized as a day earlier Israel, in coordination with America, launched what is now known as the 12-day war. “Trying to discern a broader doctrine that we can ascribe to Donald Trump is not easy,” the executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Schanzer, tells the Sun. “He will work with some autocrats and dictators” that he deems unthreatening to America’s interests. At the same time, though, he is “surely pushing for democratic participation in increasing numbers of countries,” Mr. Schanzer says. Domino effect?Mr. Trump often criticizes President George W. Bush, who unsuccessfully pushed for democratizing Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. Mr. Trump prefers quick, decisive strikes to long military engagements, such as America’s involvement in the Middle East and south Asia. He is also no fan of such doctrines as the mid-20th century’s “domino effect” — the belief that once Vietnam falls to the Communists, so would its neighbors. Freedom promoters around the world, though, sure hope his bold global strokes would strengthen democracy everywhere. “Once Venezuela is free,” Ms. Machado says, “then the Cuban regime will follow. The Nicaraguan regime will follow. Even the Iranian regime that has turned Venezuela into its safe haven and satellite only three hours away from Florida.”IranTens of thousands of anti-regime rebels were killed in blood-soaked streets since Mr. Trump vowed to “help” them. Scores of others are in prisons, where many are being executed. America is amassing firepower in the region but Iranians, for now, are dispirited. People “still have hope that maybe this is all part of a bigger grand strategy and this is the hope that they’re holding on to, but at this point they are discouraged,” a correspondent for Iran International, Negar Mojtahedi, tells the Sun. “Too much time has elapsed. Something should have happened a few weeks ago.”Analyzing the situation from the outside is different, Ms. Mojtahedi says. She knows it takes time for America to amass the kind of fire power necessary to make a difference, even as those whose loved ones are being killed or disappeared, “are not necessarily seeing it the way.” VenezuelaMr. Trump’s focus is on the country’s oil, which he says would benefit America and return the currently-impoverished Venezuela back to its former wealth. Publicly, he rarely promotes democracy. Yet Ms. Machado seems convinced that Venezuelans “are getting more and more empowered, more and more confident that this process will eventually lead to a legitimate government based on the will of the people.”CubaThe Castroite country, Mr. Trump said on Sunday, “is a failing nation, it has been for a long time, but now it doesn’t have Venezuela to prop it up. So we’re talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba. We’ll see what happens.”As in Caracas and Tehran, though, Mr. Trump’s idea of “talking” to such dictators seems to lead in one direction: The dismantling of troublesome regimes. Past presidents almost instinctively have preached democracy as a cornerstone of America’s foreign policy. Mr. Trump, in contrast, “is not trying to dictate the process,” Mr. Schanzer says. “He’s not saying I want elections.” Instead, “he’s telling them what he doesn’t like. He’s excising autocratic leaders if they’re a problem. He’s threatening entire regimes if they’re a problem — but he’s not saying here’s what you’re going to do next, at least not yet.”

Will the ‘Transactional’ Trump End Up, Paradoxically, Spreading Democracy Around the World?

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