Vanceism and Post-USAID American Foreign Politics — Implications for Georgia

There is a new sheriff in town, and he does superpower politics like no one did before. That much we all have gathered over the past few weeks. Donald Trump’s return to the White House changed the game forever. He is set to broker peace in Ukraine, the Middle East, and, just as significantly, he purged USAID and thus the whole international network of American liberal democracy export. This new era of U.S. foreign politics was introduced to Europe by Vice President J. D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference.

Vance’s speech was devastating for the liberal elite in Europe. He launched an offensive against woke identity politics and illegal migration, long awaited by conservatives across the continent. He decried the annulment of the Romanian elections as severely anti-democratic and warned against an imminent meddling attempt after the German elections too. He reminded European decision makers that the Trump administration will not hide “behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation” to evade political dialogue, whether it’s left or right.

There is a growing democratic deficit in Europe, and this backsliding pulls to the left. The left-wing…