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Posted on 10/03/2025 10:41:45 AM PDT by RandFan
The Washington establishment is once again working overtime to undermine the best of President Trump’s restraint-oriented foreign policy instincts.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which Congress is currently debating, includes three separate provisions that reduce the president’s ability to reposition or withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, Europe, and South Korea.
The hypocrisy is blatant. Congress is content to avoid tough votes by abdicating its warmaking powers to the executive branch. It has not formally declared war since the Second World War. Yet when the President displays a willingness to end wars and consolidate America’s overstretched military, Congress seeks to tie his hands.
This should come as no surprise. Globalist elites continue to advocate that America’s military should be the primary security guarantor of every corner of the globe. But with a national debt over $37 trillion, America cannot afford to be the world’s policeman. Being everywhere all the time weakens our national security and could prevent us from being able to respond quickly to an unexpected crisis.
The NDAA’s effort to stymie troop reductions, specifically in Syria, Europe, and South Korea, follows public statements by the President supporting the withdrawal of U.S. forces from each region, respectively. The uniparty may abhor it, but President Donald Trump is right on all three accounts.
In Syria, 2,000 U.S. soldiers remain scattered around dozens of isolated bases, despite the U.S. mission being completed in 2019 with the elimination of the ISIS caliphate. Our troops’ continued presence puts them at unnecessary risk to be targeted by remaining jihadist groups, Iranian backed militias, and even Iran itself.
During President Trump’s first term, the establishment gleefully gloated how they purposely lied to the President and disregarded his orders to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria. It seems the same nefarious forces are working to undermine President Trump once again as the NDAA requires bureaucratic certifications to be completed before the President can order a reduction of U.S. forces or even a consolidation of U.S. bases in Syria.
In Europe, President Trump should rightly be praised for his efforts to get NATO allies to invest more in their own defense. But what is needed in Europe is not just burden sharing, but rather burden shifting. Our wealthy and capable allies in Europe can provide for their own defense — something they have no incentive to do as long as the United States maintains 84,000 troops on the continent.
However, the NDAA prohibits the use of funds to reduce U.S. forces in Europe below 76,000, to divest, consolidate, or return to a host country real estate used by the military, or the ability to transfer the Supreme Allied Commander Europe role to a European, until a series of unrealistic and onerous bureaucratic reporting requirements are met.
America’s sizable force presence in Europe made sense during the Cold War when our allies were rebuilding from the rubble of the Second World War and half of the continent was occupied by an expansionist Soviet Union. But today, NATO-Europe (NATO members excluding the United States and Canada) enjoys a collective GDP over $24 trillion and spends $500 billion on defense — twelve and three times larger than Russia, respectively.
Moreover, Moscow’s struggles in Ukraine highlight that the Russian threat today should not be overinflated. The hyperbolic threat of Russian tanks rolling into western Europe is laughable when one considers Moscow is estimated to have sustained one million casualties in a close to four year struggle to consolidate control of 20 percent of a smaller adjacent country. President Trump should rightfully end decades of our European allies freeriding off the generosity of the American taxpayer.
Similarly, our troop presence in South Korea has outlived its strategic prudence. With a GDP over $1.7 trillion and a defense budget over $47 billion, South Korea is leagues ahead of its northern neighbor, whose GDP is estimated to be a paltry $26 billion and defense budget between $1.5 billion and $4 billion. Seoul is more than capable of assuming the burden of conventional deterrence on the Korean Peninsula without the permanent deployment of 28,500 U.S. soldiers.
Yet, the NDAA prohibits the United States from reducing troop levels at all or transitioning wartime operational control of the U.S.-Republic of Korea Combined Forces Command to the South Koreans themselves without once again completing a series of tedious certifications.
President Trump has repeatedly indicated his desire to end unnecessary military deployments that distract from America’s core national interests, encourage allied freeriding, squander billions of taxpayer dollars, and most importantly, put American soldiers at unnecessary risk. Congress should not put bureaucratic hurdles in the President’s way should he decide the reduction or withdrawal of U.S. troops from various regions is in America’s strategic interest.
The Washington establishment’s efforts to undermine President Trump by hiding these provisions in a bill over 1,450 pages is yet another example of their disdain toward the President’s foreign policy. Shining the spotlight on these shameful provisions is a good start to ensure the American people know what their elected representatives in Congress actually support.
Rand Paul is the junior United States senator from Kentucky
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Absolutely. We are a Military State not a Republic.
big mouth grifting rand paul....
So, rand, what’s more America First?
You’re anti Trump opposition to his agenda?
Or how about your open border desires? That’ll really expand the illegal alien population, which I’m sure your democrat buddies would love as it helps them in their elections...
It’s very nice to hear Paul say positive things about President Trump..
But kinda strange that he doesn’t do it more regularly.
If POTUS signs it, he’s part of the problem.
Just say no.
He tends to sign what’s given to him on these matters
It’s sad ..
Deep State wins nearly every year with the NDAA
He often says Trump is the best president of his lifetime !!
You dont hear the praise because it’s not amplified
He’s very balanced in his views on Trump but there are disagreements
“You dont hear the praise because it’s not amplified.”
Well, that’s your job, right?
You are our resident Rand Paul reporter, so from now on post more of the praising comments.. : -)
“He often says Trump is the best president of his lifetime !!”
Honestly, I’ve never heard him say anything like that..
Rand is not MAGA and has never been. He is first and foremost for Rand.
It's too bad that he voted with the Democrats against the Republican continuing resolution to fund the government this afternoon.
-PJ
Rand Paul picks and chooses his political positions that he thinks are America First. The rest of the time he votes with the RATS.
Why would he sign a Bill that reduces his executive authority?
I think it’s safe to say on Foreign policy yes.
On domestic policy he does not like all the spending and votes against it — He’s done it pre-Trump and will do it post-Trump
He’s been a senator for 15 years and his record is as long as your arm
It’s nothing personal. He actually considers Trump one of the best president’s ever because of his foreign policy
He’ll do it post Trump if he’s reelected. He’s been in Congress for 14 years already. Is he one of those Clueless career politicians who will stay in D.C. until he can’t walk or talk any longer?
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