At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week, amid the usual rallying cries against immigration and “woke” culture, one group of prominent U.S. and South Korean conservative speakers was on a mission: to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene in South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment.

While the speakers hoped to appeal to Trump through familiar narratives of political persecution and election rigging — pro-Yoon protesters have even adopted the ‘Stop The Steal’ slogan — the CPAC advocacy campaign revealed a fundamental misalignment between traditional conservative foreign policy frameworks and Trump’s evolving “America First” doctrine. 

Latching on to