MORNING GLORY: The president ends 2025 with a clear declaration of the Trump doctrine

America has many allies in what promises to be a decades-long Cold War 2.0 between the U.S. and its allies and the alliance of tyrants, led by the People’s Republic of China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. This quartet of dictators has some fourth-string powers allied with it in our hemisphere, like Venezuela’s Maduro and Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel, who succeeded the Castro brothers (though Raul is still doddering around at 94 with some influence.)

President Donald Trump is in the process of securing the Western Hemisphere against this alliance by placing a quarantine on Maduro’s oil and drug exports from Venezuela. Cuba can only export sugar and secret police and is already in an advanced state of economic collapse. It is heavily dependent on Venezuelan oil, and the spigot for that has been turned off by 45-47. Xi, Putin and Khamenei can’t live forever, and succession battles within tyrannies are never guaranteed to run smoothly for the bad guys. 

So the United States, already in possession of the most powerful military in the world, is modernizing it  — especially its navy — and can count on its allies around the world to contain "the evil-doers," as President George W. Bush once memorably and accurately put it. 

TRUMP DOCTRINE SLAMS GLOBALISM AND CHARTS A TOUGHER, TECH-DRIVEN US FUTURE

President Trump’s willingness to use deadly and overwhelming force in defense of Americans was on display over the past few days as he ordered the Pentagon to pummel elements of ISIS remaining in Syria that had dared kill Americans. The president has also put the screws on Venezuela’s Maduro and the network of narco-terrorists of which he is a part. 

Our allies are very much in the effort to keep Ukraine standing against the savagery of Putin, and while President Trump has tried again and again to bring Putin to the table, the Russian dictator isn’t budging from his imperial ambitions. 

China has always played the long game, thinking in centuries, not generations or decades. To Xi, President Trump presents a formidable deterrent to his ambitions for three more years. 

The president has the great asset of being very unpredictable. The ruins of Iran’s nuclear program are a testament to that, and Operation Midnight Hammer, which crushed the mullahs' underground nuclear weapons facilities, is the certain guarantee that the second Trump term is already a success. That single order to send the B-2s will never not be significant in world history because it kept the most powerful weaponry known to mankind out of the grips of theocrats with a crazed "end-times" theology. The world has breathed so much easier since June 22, 2025. 

Our allies are many and varied and spread across the globe, but make no mistake: Israel is our most important strategic ally. 

That is because Israel is a nuclear and intelligence superpower with the will and ability to project deadly force over vast distances. It is also home to, along with emerging American defense companies like Anduril and Palantir, the crucial defense-tech industries of the free world. That President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu are such close friends is of great importance to both countries. So are the president’s relationships with the leaders of our major Sunni allies. 

For the next three years, this partnership between the U.S., Israel and the Gulf States is the most important one for our country’s near and medium term. That’s because fanatical theocrats run Iran. A second round of blows may be headed soon towards Iran, because the fanatics who lead it are rushing to rebuild and expand the regime’s ballistic missile program, which poses an existential threat to Israel as well as our Gulf allies and Europe. 

The U.S. is not in the regime change business. We are not exporting democracy to lands that are balancing modernity with deeply traditional cultures. But, neither will President Trump stand aside if Iran continues on this self-destructive course. 

President Trump will not allow the U.S. or its citizens to be threatened or killed. President Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday as strikes on ISIS in Syria were underway — in all caps — the core "Trump Doctrine": "YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A."

That’s it. In less than 25 words, President Trump put the whole globe on notice. The key word he included in his post: "THREATEN."

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This is deterrence. And while the U.S. has many allies it can count on to join in retaliation for attacks on U.S. citizens, it has one that it can, for sure, rely upon when it comes to regimes that threaten us: Israel. 

This is why support for Israel is a key part of the GOP’s core values. There is a surge of antisemitism around the world and the massacre at Bondi Beach in Australia, as well as the many attacks on Jews in Europe, and indeed in New York City this month, are both tragic and also deeply alarming. There is even a very small slice of anti-Israel voices within the GOP and a much louder and larger wing of the Democratic Party that is not just anti-Israel but hides its antisemitism behind slogans and chants.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune discussed with me one of the key differences between the GOP and the Democrats last week: "But they [the Democrats] have their political left, the pro-Hamas wing of the Democrat Party, [and it] is ascendant right now. It’s where the energy is and a lot of the money is in Democrat politics. You see it playing out in some of these elections around the country, and that’s really unfortunate, because support for Israel is a time-honored policy of this country. And our greatest ally in that part of the world and an ally with whom we have so much in common going back to faith tradition, to the economy and national security interests and to democracy, there are just so many reasons why our support for Israel needs to be unequivocal, especially at a time when they are constantly under attack. And so, yeah, it’s hard to explain where the Dems are, but we will continue here, at least in the Senate on the Republican side of the aisle, with continuing a very strong message of support [for Israel] and backing it up with actions." 

As 2025 comes to a close, the GOP is united on the most important of issues: national defense. That’s a Christmas present for everyone, whether they know it or not. 

Hugh Hewitt is host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990.  Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

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