Trump 2.0: A threat to the open international order?
The Reframer | No. 06.2024
As the United States (US) presidential campaign enters the final week, Donald Trump has a fair chance of winning the presidency. Routinely denounced by his opponents as a fascist and dictator, foreign policy analysts often view Trump as a grave danger to the open international order. His respectful – often appreciative – comments on tyrants in Moscow, Beijing and elsewhere and his unabashed ‘America First’ agenda fuels concerns that a Trump-led America will go ‘rogue’. Much of this critique comes from Europe, which is more vulnerable now than in 2016 and which fears Trump’s impact on trade, green policies, and security – especially the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and Ukraine. But are these trepidations fully justified? Here, we attempt to ‘disrupt’ orthodoxy and ‘reframe’ outmoded thinking about Trump’s approach to foreign affairs.
Does Trump even have a foreign policy ‘doctrine’, or is he simply a loose cannon?
Actually, he does. He laid it out during the 2016 campaign, in several foreign policy speeches (27th April, 13th June, 15th August and 7th September 2016) and interviews (especially the 26th March 2016 interview with the New York Times). In office, he broadly acted in line with the approach he had outlined, and now he is holding to the same philosophy.
His first priority is economic growth: making America even more prosperous. This imperative subordinates everything else. With a powerful, revitalised US economy, Trump thinks he will be able to pay for a much stronger military and dictate terms to everyone else in the world while retaining the option to ‘walk away’ from any negotiation. Domestic economic policy – tax and spend – is one half of the story here. The other comes in the form of reducing overseas costs: allies should ‘pay’ more for US protection, either by serious burden-sharing and/or purchasing American weapons. There is no way around this.
In office, Trump emphatically wanted to rebuild the US military for ‘unquestioned’ dominance – and his administration moved forcefully in that direction, especially during Jim Mattis’s tenure as US Secretary of Defence. The guiding star of Trump and his key advisers is ‘Peace through Strength.’ Building up US space power is particularly high on his agenda, given his attachment to the Space Force he created, and his close ties with Elon Musk. In any case, accelerating US rearmament – while also reforming the Pentagon – will be not just welcome, but essential if the continued aggression of the ‘CRINK’ (People’s Republic of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) is to be checked.
The third pillar of Trump’s approach is an explicit rejection of ‘globalism’ and endorsement of the nation state. In his words, ‘international unions tie us up and bring America down.’ Trump’s low regard for organisations which are dysfunctional or slow to act – such as the United Nations (UN) or the European Union (EU) – has likely only deepened. With his belief in the primacy of power in international relations, Trump sees multilateralism as a distraction and obstruction from sorting out geostrategic problems by direct US engagement with the key actors. He wants to cut through the thicket of ‘secondary’ allied interests to go straight to the deal with the ‘principals’.
In short, Trump’s foreign policy instinct is to engage in power politics. He represents a revival of Realpolitik, particularly the willingness to negotiate with adversaries and find a stable balance of power, similar to the post-1815 Congress System. It might be disagreeable to some, but it is a coherent worldview.
Would not a Trump victory be a calamity for America’s allies and the world?
Not necessarily. His ultimate aim is restoring clear US dominance in the international system, believing that ‘the world is most peaceful and most prosperous when America is strongest’ – which is true. Contrary to Barack Obama, in particular, who presented America as an ‘ordinary nation’ and took a collegiate approach to allied relations, Trump reverts to an older understanding of American ‘exceptionalism’. In his view, the US has a special licence – and responsibility – for running world affairs, with allies’ supporting this effort.
Trump divides the world into friends and enemies, and wants to keep the order by cutting deals from a position of strength. He has a classic, mid-century concept of the ‘West’ and its values – best articulated in his 2017 Warsaw speech – and therefore of who is on the ‘good’ side and who is on the ‘bad’ side of the foreign policy ledger. Ultimately, he wants America – and his ‘camp’, i.e., the ‘free world’ as he understands it– to win in any negotiation.
The notion that Trump would willingly cede strategic US-held positions to rivals such as Russia, Iran or the PRC, and that he would accept to be the president who ‘lost’ Europe, the Middle East or the Western Pacific, is not credible. Whatever negotiations he will pursue in these three regions, he will want to get a good deal.
In Ukraine, according to a report by Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, two of his closest advisers, that might involve threatening Russia with escalating US support for Kyiv in order to create leverage. Then, Europe will have to step up – but that would be the case in any scenario, Trump or not.
On NATO, Trump’s demands for higher European spending are common sense and hardly unjustified. We have been here before, and in his first term, Trump ended up strengthening NATO by expanding the funding for the European Defence Initiative. He is not against NATO, but he thinks it must prepare to keep Russia at bay.
On Iran and the PRC, again, Trump’s hardline track record is clear and he will likely resume similar confrontational policies – while leaving room for talks – if he returns to office. A maximum-pressure approach on Iran and its proxies, with full backing for Israel’s right to defend itself, is vital for containing the threat in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Trump’s ‘China policy’ is likely to only sharpen, both on the military and on the economic fronts.
Right. So, a Trump presidency means the ‘withdrawal of American leadership’?
Not at all. It certainly did not in his first term in office, when, for example, America led global efforts to expose the reality of Chinese power and to push back against Beijing’s attempts at technological subjugation of other countries in key areas such as 5G. Or when it took drastic action against Iran and destroyed the Islamic State ‘caliphate’. But it does mean the continued transformation of how ‘American leadership’ manifests itself.
Under a second Trump administration, America might become a much more arbitrary power which will be far less sensitive to allied concerns and will act forcefully when its interests demand it. But these interests – even, or especially, under an ‘America First’ programme – will very likely continue to include the stabilisation and then preservation of global order to the extent possible, and the checking of rivals’ growth.
Gabriel Elefteriu FRAeS is Deputy Director at the Council on Geostrategy, and leads the Council’s Strategic Advantage Cell. Gabriel is also an Associate of King’s College London, an elected Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and a founding partner at AstroAnalytica, a space consultancy.
To stay up to date with Britain’s World, please subscribe or pledge your support!
What do you think about this Reframer? Why not leave a comment below?
 | A guest post by
|