The US’s biggest export? Trump’s MAGA mindset

When J.D. Vance went to Munich in February, it seemed a bizarre bit of attention-seeking.

The US vice president told Europe’s leaders that their biggest threat was not Russia or China but came “from within”. He told them they were anti-democratic. He spoke up for the far-right Alternative for Germany party. A Russian propagandist cheered him for giving Europe a “public caning”.

Illustration: Joe BenkeCredit:

We can now see it was actually a foretaste of something much bigger – an official policy to export America’s ideological revolution.

The Trump administration is applying the values of Make America Great Again to US foreign policy.

The threshold moment arrived on Thursday (US time), when the US State Department gave notice officially that it was gutting its human rights bureau and creating a new “Office of Natural Rights”.

In its notification to Congress, the administration said: “The office will build the foundation for criticisms of free speech backsliding in Europe and other developed nations.”

For example? One of the Trump regime’s greatest gripes is against countries that ban hate speech, try to moderate online content, regulate social media or apply any sort of limits to the behaviour of US tech platforms.

To punish such countries – which, of course, include Australia – the US last week announced a visa ban on any foreigner who is “complicit in censoring Americans”, in the words of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Will Australia’s pending ban on social media access for kids under the age of 16 be caught by this? The head of the US Studies Centre at Sydney University, Mike Green, an American living in Australia, says that “as the father of a 14-year-old girl, I’m all in favour” of the ban.

And, says Green, of all the issues in the Australia-US alliance, “this is the one I worry about most. It’s possible it will be flagged in the forthcoming human rights report and it’s possible it will be raised by the US Trade Representative in trade negotiations because Meta doesn’t like it.”

Australia should brace for it. The US has already raised online regulation with Britain in trade negotiations: “A review of online safety rules [is] on the table in trade talks with the US,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told parliament last month.

Rubio says it’s an Oval Office priority in dealing with foreign leaders: “That’s a new thing for us to have to raise in [European] capitals, but we do it and we do it everywhere,” he said last month. “And I personally witnessed the president and the vice president raise it with multiple foreign leaders. And I think you’re going to continue to see an emphasis on that in our diplomacy and what we talk about.”

In Trump’s worldview, nations have no right to protect their children against online suicide coaching and other harms. We are supposed to meekly submit our children to be exploited by any US corporation that might choose to do so.

The publication of the State Department’s annual report on worldwide human rights abuses has been delayed so that the concept can be redefined.

For instance, the forthcoming report will delete criticism of “countries that tolerate violence against transgender people or engage in serious government corruption”, The Washington Post reported.

Trump told an audience in Saudi Arabia that he was going to end American “lectures” to foreign governments on human rights.

His Office of Natural Rights does intend to lecture other countries, however. It’ll just be using a different definition of “rights” to the one that the US has been applying since World War II.

This was satirised by an unnamed American diplomat quoted in Politico last week: “Forget Russia’s torture and killing of Ukrainians, let’s focus on the real threat like UK’s laws against hate speech.”

What are natural rights, according to Trump? One gauge is to define what they oppose. “Digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance,” according to a Trump appointment to the State Department, Simon Samson. Samson, described as a senior adviser, is 26. But the better definition probably is that natural rights are whatever Trump wants them to be.

Trump and crew have a special fascination with Europe. It started with MAGA, but they’re intent now on MEGA – Make Europe Great Again.

The US news site Axios on the weekend published a piece headlined “MAGA Invasion”. It summarised half a dozen recent elections in Europe where Trump’s administration and his MAGA allies have taken sides.

In the case of Poland, a NATO ally, Trump anointed the right-wing nationalist and Eurosceptic candidate Karol Nawrocki by inviting him to the Oval Office last month.

Last week, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem travelled to Warsaw and urged Poles to vote for him: “He needs to be the next president of Poland.” She denounced his rival as an “absolute train wreck”. Nawrocki won on Monday with 50.9 per cent of the vote.

Then there’s Romania, another NATO ally. J.D. Vance and Elon Musk lashed the country’s constitutional court when it annulled November’s presidential election result. The court found the victorious candidate – far-right and anti-NATO – had benefited from Russian interference. In a re-run, MAGA lieutenants such as Steve Bannon endorsed the new right-wing candidate, who ultimately lost to his centre-left rival.

In Britain, Trump has allied closely with Reform’s Nigel Farage, the man who led the country to Brexit. Reform today is leading in the polls; Farage claims he has supplanted the Conservatives as the alternative government of the UK.

Trump hasn’t taken sides in the politics of America’s Indo-Pacific allies. Yet. But Steve Bannon last week broadcast an endorsement of the conservative candidate in South Korea’s snap presidential election to be held today (Tuesday). The election will decide the replacement for Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed after declaring martial law six months ago.

During the Cold War and beyond, America promoted American values abroad – when it suited. So that hasn’t changed. But American values have changed. They are now Donald Trump’s values.

Peter Hartcher is international editor.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.