The Trump administration’s rhetoric masks a heavily ideological approach to foreign policy.

    The message that Donald Trump delivered in the Middle East last month seemed unmistakable. The days of Western leaders “giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs” were over. His remarks suggested a return to realism: putting calculations of power and the national interest at the center of foreign policy and downplaying the role of values and rights.

    One can understand why Trump wishes to align with this vital school of foreign policymaking, which has much to teach us after the withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan and the pick-up of great-power competition. Yet even a cursory look at his actions shows an administration that has deviated profoundly from the realist approach in favor of its own darker ideological project.

    For starters, Vice President JD Vance seems to have missed the memo: How else to read his speech in Munich—in which he accused European leaders of stifling free speech and “running in fear of your own voters”—than a lecture on how they ought to govern themselves?

    Surely, if Vance is concerned about free speech and democracy in Munich and Brussels, he is even more concerned about them in Riyadh and Doha. Yet after Trump’s speech in the Middle East, Vance praised the administration’s “realistic” foreign policy.

    The Vance episode is illuminating not because of the hypocrisy—if that were the charge, every White House would be guilty—but because it reveals how the administration draws on realism: not as a guide to policy, but as a fig leaf for a reactionary agenda. For Trump, foreign policy has become a vehicle to impose its cultural values on other states, prop up dictators, and cash in.

    Consider what a realist approach would look like. While realism comes in many strands, three hallmarks are (1) protecting and strengthening the sources of national power, (2) relating to other states based on what they are capable of and what they do rather than their internal character, and (3) intervening (or not intervening) in conflicts on the basis of interests rather than ideology or sentimentality.

    The Trump team is busy degrading the sources of national power. As technology transforms the economy and reshapes the battlefield, they are destroying the foundations of scientific research in America. At a time when the ability to win the AI race turns on attracting the best researchers in the world, they are sending that talent overseas. In an era of geopolitical competition with a China that has four times our population, they are dismantling alliances that enable us to redress that imbalance. They love to tout American power but show little interest in enhancing it.

    Nor do they reserve judgment on the internal dynamics of states, as South African leaders were the latest to learn in the Oval Office last month as Trump publicly charged them with overseeing persecution and genocide. Vance’s disdain for Europe is well-known, but lest one thinks it is just a matter of NATO allies needing to pay more for their defense, Vance himself has said that he is reacting to “domestic policies (on migration and censorship) that offend the sensibilities of most Americans.”

    Beyond the fact that most Americans are not closely following censorship debates in Europe, this approach conditions relations with other states on their domestic policies. This is exactly the orientation that realism, with its conception of states as billiard balls, seeks to avoid.

    And far from displaying the sober-minded approach that is a hallmark of realpolitik, the Trump team swings wildly from one view to another—whether the issue is tariffs, the TikTok ban, Israel, Iran, or Elon Musk. The policy is governed not by interests but by impulse. While it is fair for the administration to consider the cost of providing aid to Ukraine, that cost should be weighed against the benefits of deterring a direct conflict between Russia and NATO allies. For Vance, however, that question seems to matter less than another one he asked Ukraine’s president in the Oval Office: “Have you said thank you once?”

    Such outbursts make sense if we see Trump’s foreign policy for what it is: not a revitalization of realism but an extension of his domestic attack on liberalism, which he called the “enemy within” in his campaign and accused its supporters of betrayal when taking office. Vance also warned his audience in Munich of the “threat from within,” which he said was more grave than the threat of Russia or China. This approach explains the appeal of figures like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, whom Trump endorsed while out of office, and Putin. To Trump and Vance, these leaders are confronting the same forces in their own societies that the White House is fighting at home.

    In the service of such a fight, an authoritarian grip on power is not a vice but a virtue—one that Trump wishes to imitate. While a realist may choose not to judge dictators, Trump prefers them. In part, this reflects his long-held regard for outward displays of power and authority. But it also reflects the fact that dictators typically clamp down on liberal forces in their societies in order to maintain power, which is exactly what Trump and Vance want. On the rare occasion when the situation does not fit this narrative, Trump sings a different tune, as he did when he criticized Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for not holding elections, channeling Putin’s delegitimization of Ukraine’s leadership.

    If there is a force more powerful in Trump’s policy than anti-liberalism and authoritarianism, it is cold, hard cash. Except where the realist seeks to enhance the nation’s economic position, Trump’s actions seem to reflect more on his own financial situation. The European Union may have a GDP that is ten times that of Russia. Still, Trump is fixated on commercial relations with Russia, which can facilitate more favorable deals for Trump. Suppliers from Japan and South Korea provide key advanced technology inputs for U.S. factories. Still, compared with states in the Middle East, they are less likely to invest in his family’s cryptocurrency venture or gift him a plane.

    However much the administration insists—as Vance did in an exchange with the historian Niall Ferguson—that the Trump approach is simply “dealing with reality” while everyone else is hung up on “moralisms,” they are implementing the most moralistic foreign policy in decades. It’s just not the morals Americans have historically stood for. They say they want to stop trying to make dictators more like America, but in practice, America is becoming more like them. The rebuilding cannot start soon enough.