Trump Is Racing to Redefine ‘America First’ in a Time of War

Trump spent years championing “America First,” but now he is rewriting from scratch what it means—and he is doing so just as America has returned to war in the Middle East. It seems like a paradox: a huge portion of his base elected him precisely on the promise of pulling the United States out of conflicts, yet now Trump is attacking those who criticize him for ordering military operations against Iran. The truth is that “America First” has become a magic phrase that means everything and its opposite— and the real battle today is not only in the Middle East but within the Republican Party: who decides what “America First” really means? The mistake everyone makes is thinking that “America First” is a well-defined doctrine, like a foreign policy playbook. In reality, it is a banner that everyone waves as it suits them. Trump exemplifies this perfectly: first, he gains support from young anti-interventionists, then—as soon as the crisis erupts—he posts a furious message on social media against those who accuse him of betraying his promise not to wage wars. “They’re not ‘MAGA.’ MAGA is about WINNING and STRENGTH in not allowing Iran to have Nuclear Weapons.” That sentence, written all in capital letters, split the American right. Republican hawks rejoiced: it was confirmation that Trump had never really been an “isolationist,” and that “America First” can also mean striking hard to prevent Iran from arming itself. But his younger supporters, those who grew up online, felt betrayed: they thought “America First” meant no more pointless wars and no more foreign adventures. Instead, they now find themselves defending a war that feels like a throwback to the Bush era. One scene says it all: just a few hours after Trump’s post, in Telegram groups and on X, his most radical fans began debating whether “America First” is a promise not to fight or, on the contrary, a call to use force to protect American interests. No one could agree. A fact that few people notice: every time an American president talks about “America First,” the definition changes. With Trump, the difference is that the phrase has become fluid by choice, not by mistake. And those who follow him go along with it, at least as long as it suits them. Now, the missing piece of the puzzle is understanding what happens after Trump. If “America First” means only what the current leader decides, who will inherit it? Can a party build a foreign policy strategy on a slogan that changes direction like a weather vane? One thing remains certain: when a phrase can mean anything, in the end, it means nothing. “America First” is a mirror: everyone sees in it what they want to see. If you change your mind about what “America First” really means, you can indicate it on Lara Notes with I'm In — choose whether it's an interest, an experience, or a belief that resonated with you. And if this discussion leads to a real conversation with someone, you can use Shared Offline to say that the encounter truly mattered. This was from The New York Times, and you just saved over a minute.