Trump Was Never Antiwar

Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Opinion Supported by SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Michelle Goldberg The Idea That Trump Was Antiwar Was Always Delusional March 2, 2026, 7:00 p.m. ET Listen to this article · 5:34 min Learn more Share full article 2 By Michelle Goldberg Opinion Columnist In 2023, JD Vance, then a freshman senator from Ohio, endorsed Donald Trump for president in a Wall Street Journal column headlined, “Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars.” It suggested that despite his impolitic rhetoric, Trump was a statesman who understood that “the U.S. national interest must be pursued ruthlessly but also carefully, with strong words but great restraint.” If Vance really believed his own words — with him, it’s always impossible to say — he shared the strangely widespread delusion that Trump was antiwar. So, evidently, did Tulsi Gabbard, who once sold “No War With Iran” T-shirts. Endorsing Trump in 2024, Gabbard, now Trump’s director of national intelligence, said she was “confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war.” The ludicrous idea of Trump as a promoter of peace — a notion his 2024 campaign leaned into — rests on a deep, willful misunderstanding of Trump’s record and character. It is true that he broke with key elements of neoconservative ideology, particularly when it comes to nation-building and promoting democracy. In 2016, he set himself apart from his Republican rivals with his willingness to call the Iraq war a disaster. But what Trump has always hated isn’t conflict but sacrifice, the notion that American power should ever be constrained by a veneer of idealism or care for global opinion. As he said at a 2015 rally: “I’m really good at war. I love war, in a certain way, but only when we win.” One of his chief complaints about the Iraq war, let’s remember, was that George W. Bush had failed to take Iraq’s oil. Those on the isolationist right who thought Trump shared their views made the mistake of inf...