Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts Trump Unveiled These Key Geoeconomic Plans in His State of the Union

Trump Unveiled These Key Geoeconomic Plans in His State of the Union

The National Interest

Every spring, at the beginning of my History of the Cold War course at Harvard Extension, I provide an overview of Marxist thought—especially the precept that it is the system of economic relationships that drive all other aspects of society, including its politics and culture.

Listening to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, I heard a number of geoeconomic imperatives that, if fulfilled and implemented, will have a profound impact on the direction and focus of U.S. national-security policy.

Bob Merry, the former editor of the National Interest, characterized Trump’s speech as a “novel mix of plans, attitudes, and impulses.” In heeding Merry’s counsel that the State of the Union represents “disparate attitudes and measures” which may or may not translate into a coherent set of policies, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the Trump administration, during its time in office, makes substantial progress on most of the items Trump outlined in the U.S. Capitol.

Here were the key geoeconomic themes found in the president’s address:

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