PALEOCONSERVATIVES AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

The rise of Donald Trump has triggered a discernible metamorphosis in U.S. foreign policy. For the first time since the end of World War II, the internationalist consensus that has guided Washington’s decisions in the international arena for the past seven decades has been at least partially rejected. Although the practice of American action in the world has undergone some changes during the Trump presidency, the roots of this vision of foreign policy are not new. Rather, they can be found in the thinking of paleoconservatives, a group that has remained a minority on the American right since its beginnings, but has since gradually gained support until becoming particularly influential during Trump’s four years in the White House. This paper examines the intellectual origins and historical development of paleoconservatism, its foreign policy visions, and the ways in which it has shaped the actions of the Trump administration.