Gorka Describes Trump’s Foreign Policy: Not Interventionist or Isolationist, but ‘Surgical Strength’

Sebastian Gorka, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, stands for a photograph after an interview with The Epoch Times in Washington on Dec. 17, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Those seeking to classify President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy as either interventionist or isolationist are wrong, according to one of his key policy advisers, Sebastian Gorka.

Gorka, who served as a deputy assistant to the president during Trump’s first term, will reprise that role in the second Trump administration. Joining Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” on Dec. 17, Gorka shared insights into Trump’s foreign policy and national security plans.

Trump’s range of actions during his first term, combined with his rhetoric on the campaign trail and the mix of people he has chosen for positions in his new administration, have led many to speculate about just how he intends to steer U.S. foreign policy.

Regarding the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war, Trump has stressed a desire for negotiations to end the fighting, but has said less about continuing U.S. support for Ukrainian forces as the war stretches on. At other times, Trump has criticized members of NATO for not contributing more funding to the collective military alliance. This month, as Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad lost his hold on power, the president-elect urged the United States to let the situation play out on its own.

Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have urged against an isolationist approach. In a Dec. 16 op-ed in Foreign Affairs, McConnell praised Trump for his first-term decision to begin sending weapons to Ukraine and for ordering U.S. air strikes on Russian mercenary forces operating in Syria during the 2018 Battle of Khasham. However, McConnell wrote that Trump “sometimes undermined these tough policies through his words and deeds.”

Asked for his thoughts on Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric and his recent call for the United States to stay out of the post-Assad power vacuum, Gorka said Trump has taken a deliberate foreign policy approach that eschews both isolationism and interventionism, instead favoring an approach Gorka has termed “surgical strength.”

“He doesn’t talk about red lines—he takes action,” Gorka said.

He said the Battle of Khasham was exemplary of the foreign policy approach.

“When he heard that 300 Russian mercenaries were running around the Middle East, he didn’t say, ‘Don’t do that, Putin.’ He ordered the then-secretary of defense to kill them all,” Gorka said.

He said the 2018 incident showed that the Trump administration wasn’t interested in invading Syria, but also wouldn’t tolerate Russian efforts to destabilize the region or endanger U.S. forces already there.

He said another example of Trump’s “surgical strength” foreign policy approach was the Jan. 3, 2020, drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani as he traveled through Baghdad, Iraq. Iran launched a salvo of missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq in the days following Soleimani’s death, but no U.S. servicemembers were killed, and tensions between Iran and the United States subsided in the weeks that followed.

“It’s this very precise, overwhelming use of force when necessary, but then in the meantime, focusing on U.S. national security, the prosperity of Americans,” Gorka said.

The Challenges Ahead

Looking forward to the immediate challenges that the incoming administration will encounter, Gorka said an early focus will be on assessing the risks of terror attacks within the United States.

Gorka estimated that as many as 16 million people have entered the United States through illegal means during President Joe Biden’s time in office. He raised concerns about the number of illegal border crossers who may hold extremist motivations.

“If only 1 percent of them are malefactors, are jihadis, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, Hamas, then we’re talking about divisional-sized assets. We’re talking about potentially thousands, if not tens of thousands of malefactors,” he said.

Gorka said the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well as the recent upheaval in Syria, have fueled concerns about resurgent extremist threats around the world.

Along with reprising his role as a deputy assistant to the president, Gorka will serve as the senior director for counterterrorism for the National Security Council.

“There is much for us to do day one, when it comes to the domestic terrorist threat and when it comes to the recrudescence of global jihadism,” he said.

The incoming Trump administration will also have to contend with the growing partnership of Russia, China, and Iran. Although such a partnership could form the foundation for a geopolitical bloc to counter Western institutions such as NATO and the European Union, Gorka said it requires harmony among conflicting ideologies.

China and Russia remain natural competitors, he said, while China represents a Maoist communist approach and modern Russia increasingly embraces an approach similar to that of its pre-Soviet empire—a “proto-imperialist Russia.” Iran proceeds along an Islamic theocratic line.

“These are marriages of convenience, that are temporary relationships, right?” Gorka said. “Does it help China to sell equipment to Russia while they’re attacking Ukraine? Sure they can make money out of it. But does China want to dominate Russia in the long term? Absolutely.”

Gorka said Assad’s fall from power in Syria also undermines both Russia and Iran on the world stage. Both countries supported Assad as he fought to retain power throughout Syria’s still ongoing, multi-sided civil war.