Donald Trump on Wednesday will deliver a major foreign policy speech in Washington as he looks to advance his campaign’s efforts to cast him as a more presidential figure and appeal to Republican Party elites.
A member of Trump’s national security team told CNN that Trump will describe how his foreign policy will be a departure from the foreign policy of both President Barack Obama and George W. Bush. That includes opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and the Iraq War, as two key examples.
Trump is also expected to talk about his desire to cooperate with Russia on counterterrorism, something that Obama has been reluctant to do.
The full Trump national security team, including Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions, is set to be on hand.
Trump said during a news conference Tuesday night that he would not lay out a “Trump doctrine” in his speech because “you have to have flexibility.”
“You may say one thing and then the following year you change it because circumstances are going to be different,” Trump said. “You can’t say, this is my doctrine, I will not move. Because countries change, leaders change.”
The Republican front-runner will drop his off-the-cuff style in favor of reading prepared remarks for his address at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, fleshing out his foreign policy views as he aims in part to broaden his Washington appeal.
Wednesday’s speech — which comes after Trump completed a five-state sweep on Tuesday, bringing him significantly closer to clinching the GOP presidential nomination — will be the first in a series of policy addresses Trump will deliver in the coming weeks as he looks to show a different side of his typically brash persona.
“It will be a speech on foreign policy, some of my ideas on foreign policy,” Trump told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Wednesday on “New Day.” “It will have to do with some of the economics of foreign policy because we are getting killed on economics. You know I’m an economic person. It’s one of my strengths.”
A slate of veteran Republican operatives whom Trump hired in recent weeks, including his convention manager Paul Manafort, have encouraged Trump to cool his at-times heated rhetoric and plug more resources into Washington outreach.
Those efforts have faced a halting start as Manafort and Trump appeared at odds this weekend over the pace of that transition. As Manafort talked up Trump’s ability to morph into a more presidential figure to appeal to a broader audience, Trump at a rally the following day served up his characteristic brashness, complete with insults aimed at his presidential rivals.
Trump’s speech Wednesday may also help skeptical foreign policy experts drill down on the details of his vision for American foreign policy, which has often been scant on details.
To defeat terrorism, the Republican front-runner has vowed to “bomb the s— out of ISIS,” suggested he would target the families of suspected terrorists and vowed to bomb oil fields in a bid to deprive ISIS of a key financial resource.
Trump’s discussions of foreign policy on the campaign trail have primarily focused on trade, with the billionaire candidate calling for the U.S. to renegotiate what he deems are “stupid” and unbalanced free trade deals. Trump has also called for imposing a 35% tariff on goods imported by American companies who outsource their manufacturing overseas.
Trump’s most extensive remarks on foreign policy have come not in speeches on the campaign trail, but in interviews, including a pair of lengthy interviews with The New York Times and The Washington Post’s editorial board late last month.
Trump’s speech Wednesday will be the second time the real estate mogul has read a prepared speech. Trump first used the teleprompters he has so often derided on the campaign trail late last month as he addressed the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
