During a lazy afternoon last week, I found myself scanning the headlines of the Hollywood Reporter. I was in search of the latest scoop on the Oscar race, or perhaps a prediction of the coming weekend’s box-office returns, but, to my astonishment, I found something altogether different. The former President Joe Biden, the website advised, had entered into an agreement to be represented by the Creative Arts Agency (CAA), a talent agency in Los Angeles. Forget celebrity gossip—here was some news! “His lifelong commitment to public service is one of...

For years, many career officials in foreign affairs, including this author, observed firsthand as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) fought bureaucratic battles within the government to protect its turf, budgets, and pet projects—often with little or no interest in advancing U.S. objectives in target countries. By shuttering USAID, President Donald Trump is not only saving taxpayers billions of dollars but also disbanding a uniquely self-interested bureaucracy with an ideological agenda.

President Donald Trump, in an executive order issued Friday, suspended aid to South Africa over alleged violations of the rights of Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority. The order also directs the secretaries of State and Homeland Security to prioritize the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees in the United States. In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump wrote, “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.” Last month, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law the Expropriation Act, which empowers the government to seize privately...

The critics are raving about President Trump’s comments at that February 4 press conference at the White House: “The U.S. will take over the Gaza strip, and we’ll do a job with it, too. We’ll own it.” Yep, that got ’em going: “Trump’s Gaza fantasy is a recipe for a forever war,” sniped the headline in POLITICO. “Trump’s Gaza proposal for ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ sparks global condemnation,” snapped Reuters. “Gaza plan sparks sharp criticism,” snipped CNN. Plus this header in the Hill: “Texas Dem says he’ll bring articles...

Only three weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump is at a crossroads. Trump has taken the reins of government from Joe Biden’s disastrous administration that effectively spent its final year publicly unraveling, largely due to its foreign policy—more specifically, over Biden’s unconditional backing for Israel’s war on Gaza. The policy pleased no one: It ignited outrage from the left, leading to scenes of chaos and sometimes shocking violence on the home front; America-Firsters were forced to watch the country regularly humiliated and pushed around by its own client...

“I think we are going to peel… more off the foreign aid handout program, and I hope the State Department will not accuse us of being Communist sympathizers if we do,” said Republican Congressman H.R. Gross of Iowa in 1963. Even at the height of the Cold War, when America's foreign policy debate was narrow, Washington was divided over an issue that is igniting controversy again today: foreign aid. MAGA conservatives, like their Republican predecessors, are peeling more off the foreign aid handout program, a move that critics have branded...

President Donald Trump has entered the White House with an ambitious international agenda. Whether it’s expanding the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arab world, ending the three-year-long war in Ukraine or pushing Europe to spend more on its own defense, Trump isn’t wasting any time outlining his expectations. Some of them, like taking over Gaza and turning the territory into a U.S.-administered haven for the “world’s people,” are downright bonkers. Others, like higher European defense budgets, are far more conventional and increasingly recognized as urgent and necessary.

The 25th president is having a moment in the spotlight. William McKinley, twice elected to the presidency before being felled by an assassin’s bullet in 1901, won praise from President Donald Trump during the latter’s inaugural address last month. Trump praised McKinley for making “our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.” Trump also pledged to restore McKinley’s name to North America’s highest peak, “where it belongs.” As the esteemed editor and McKinley biographer Robert Merry recently observed, “It isn’t difficult to see how Trump, once he became familiar...

The last time the United States expanded its territory—gaining the Northern Marianas and some other Pacific islands—President Donald Trump was just a year old. The fact that so much time has passed makes it easy for critics to dismiss Trump’s recent statements about Greenland and the Panama Canal as outlandish. Looking at the full scope of our 248-year history as a country, however, it is clear that territorial expansion has been an integral and celebrated part of the American story. While it may not be well known, America’s plans for...

South Korea is populous and prosperous, ahead of the North on almost every measure of national power, other than possession of nuclear weapons. Yet despite enjoying 50-plus times the economic strength and twice the population of its northern antagonist, the Republic of Korea remains dependent on the United States for its security. However, Washington’s policy of protecting everyone from everyone, treating the Pentagon like an international welfare agency, may be ending.