While the U.S. Walks Away From the World, the World Walks Away From the U.S.
Deciphering Trump’s International Relations Logic
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Helsinki, July 17, 2018. Source: www.kremlin.ru
At the end of a striking portrait of Cardinal de Retz, La Rochefoucauld concluded: “He distances himself from the world, which distances itself from him” (1662). The election of Donald Trump to a new term in the White House raises a question of an almost similar order: will the United States once again distance itself from the world—this would be a classic form of isolationism, as there have been several waves in American history—but isn’t the world also distancing itself from the United States—another trend, no doubt, that we still discern too little? Any conjecture about the future of the real estate magnate’s presidency must also be set against the backdrop of a lasting legacy, whatever his possible intentions to break away.
My purpose here is not to discuss the many analyses that have been made since the announcement of Trump’s election about what his foreign policy might be, but to consider the turbulence that has been shaking America for several years now, and which the Mar-a-Lago resident can only accentuate. Of course, we can’t rely on the regular, ideological and factually unfounded claims that the United States is in decline. Although its power, both economic and military, is contested by China, and we have been witnessing the rise of the so-called “emerging” countries for at least two decades, Washington still has, and probably will for a long time to come, economic, scientific, technological and military preeminence. In other words, it is present in every part of the world. Many economists have postponed the moment when Beijing will surpass it in economic terms—if it ever comes—, and we don’t know when or if it will dominate it militarily—which will certainly depend both on the choices made by the United States and on China’s continued growth. But some elements of dominance have already appeared. The same uncertainties apply in terms of technological domination, despite Beijing’s colossal investments in catching up with the rest of the world, which has abandoned its status as a copier of technology to become an innovative power. Questions are even more acute with regard to other countries, notably India, whose economic and technological development faces numerous internal obstacles.
But the United States is also a power that raises many questions, not because it is no longer a power, but because it no longer fully assumes its missions. For it, it’s not a question of means, but of will. Its multiple renunciations—in Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, where it has dissuaded itself, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America—through a mixture of choice, incompetence and an inability to formulate a strategic vision, have led more and more countries to choose a path marked by a desire for autonomy or emancipation. Its short-term focus, already highlighted here, its multiple disengagements and its parsimonious action in the face of revisionist powers, have created a form of estrangement.
This form of strategic vacuum was certainly not desired by the U.S. Allies in Europe and Asia. Many of them, like lovers still in love even though he affair is over, continue to ask it to stay, because they rightly feel that they cannot fill this void. Above all, its enemies, or certain illiberal countries that found their old alliance burdensome, are all the more determined to free themselves from his “advice”, since Washington gives them little. It’s hard to find a coherent U.S. doctrine since Barack Obama took office. Even Joe Biden’s early emphasis on democracy and human rights has not only quickly dissipated, but has not even seen the beginnings of concrete implementation. The “diplomacy” that the 46th President of the United States put forward as a solution when withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan is not a “doctrine”. The abandonment of the world is even less so. We certainly don’t yet know whether the second Trump presidency will be “isolationist”, marked by complacency towards criminal regimes like Russia, or simply anarchic and muddled, but it would be risky to think that it will give birth to a coherent doctrine. Paradoxically, it will be all the less likely to be in opposition to a Biden doctrine, given the latter’s disastrous international record.
Without making any predictions, we can undoubtedly discern three structuring—or, more accurately, destructuring—trends.
Indifference to freedom
Among the certainties about the future Trump presidency is his indifference to the fight for freedom, human rights and international law in general. We can go on at length, without really being reassured, about what his policy towards Ukraine might be, or his attitude towards Taiwan, but this basic fact offers information that it is possible to underestimate. This contempt for freedom has logical consequences. It is unlikely that the independence of peoples, respect for borders and the perpetration of mass crimes are the concerns of the Trump team, in contrast to the disquiet that animated Republicans like Ronald Reagan or John McCain. Security considerations for Ukraine, as potentially for Taiwan, or even for Europe, are probably not decisive elements of their foreign policy vision either. As a result, what they perceive as America’s “national interest”—a notion I’ve already explored here—is likely to take on an increasingly restrictive meaning.
Thus, the dominant prism of Trump’s foreign policy will be linked to what he perceives, in a short-termist way, as going in the direction of America First. But this conception will have nothing to do with any greatness defined under the auspices of universalism or an “indispensable nation” to solve the world’s problems. Under Presidents Obama and Biden, the United States missed its rendez-vous with history by taking decisive action, mainly in Syria and Ukraine. They had expressed ideals, but these were not matched by actions in line with them. The total inaction in Syria and the halfway position in Ukraine revealed American hypocrisy. While America proclaimed to defend and protect Ukrainians, it actually encouraged Russia to go even further in its aggression and crimes, and allowed it to strengthen itself to the detriment of collective security. The Trump presidency may well usher in a more “forthright” era, but without even minimal support for aggressed peoples, which would formalize American disinterest.
If, therefore, we can have strong fears for Ukraine, but also for Taiwan, it is because of a lack of understanding of what is at stake. It’s a straight road that leads from contempt for freedom and international law to endangering the security of democracies. This is the major fear: that Trump and his team will deal it a fatal blow. From the moment when the defense of law and democracy becomes an objective for the better, it becomes impossible to rely on Washington to make revisionist powers, Russia and China in particular, respect the borders. The all-too-little assistance to democracy—the term had replaced “democracy promotion”—defined by Democratic administrations, will also be written off, along with development aid. In Africa in particular, the general assessment is that Biden’s record was mixed, less empty than elsewhere, but still disappointing. With Trump, it promises to be totally hollow, with Biden’s few concrete commitments abandoned.
All this is certainly irrational, as were Joe Biden’s pas-de-deux with Ukraine and Barack Obama’s abstention on Syria. But the irrationality of the Trump administration would be a second step and the final nail in the coffin of American foreign policy. For electoral reasons and because of ideological affinities with Netanyahu, Trump would have to continue his support for Israel, without the slightest concern for respecting the laws of war, and therefore maintain a tough stance with Iran. But the threat posed by Tehran, a strong ally of Russia which, through the delivery of drones, is participating in Moscow’s war of extermination in Ukraine, could in his mind be separated from the Russian question. The irrationality would be that, by strengthening Russia, and thus Iran, China and North Korea, Trump would weaken America and ultimately diminish its own security, not just that of Europe and American allies in Asia.
Indeed, there is nothing to suggest that Trump would be susceptible to the rational, common-sense argument that a deal with Moscow, containing territorial concessions from Ukraine and a lack of criminal punishment for Russian crimes, would further increase the threats from Iran, China and North Korea. Precisely, Trump does not reason in these logical terms, since his truncated vision of the world is opposed even to the consideration of a global and combined threat from regimes driven by the same ideology. His only excuse would be that he’s not the first president to think this way.
Short-term economic domination
A certain conception of the economy could be dominant in Donald Trump’s foreign policy, even though this policy is probably not sustainable in the long term and numerous contradictions will emerge. For example, the announced increase in tariffs, aimed primarily at China but also at Europe, could lead to higher inflation and not put US companies in the best of positions commercially, particularly in view of retaliatory measures. Some of those close to Trump are unlikely to be satisfied with overly harsh measures against China. It should also be stressed that these measures are not radically new: the Biden administration with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Build America Buy American Act, part of its infrastructure plan, and the CHIPS and Science Act, took measures—particularly the first, which led to the relocation of companies, notably from Europe—that gave US industry a considerable advantage, to the detriment in particular of the EU, whose response was weak. In this respect, continuity will be stronger than difference.
The Paris Agreement will be, as it was under the first Trump presidency, the first victim of this prospect. This second withdrawal from the agreement could, moreover, be emulated, with irreversible consequences for the fight against climate change and the defense of the environment in the United States itself. Already self-sufficient in petroleum energy—energy independence is in itself a disputed notion by the way—, it could also prove to be a weapon of war against oil-producing countries, potentially accelerating the energy transition of some and their still largely unfinished transformation into a service economy. However, forecasts of the impact of these measures on the oil and gas market remain difficult to assess and measure at this stage. The same applies to their consequences in strategic terms.
However, it is on Ukraine and Taiwan that this emphasis on American economic interests is likely to be most disastrous. The vision of Trump’s policies often referred to as “transactional” is that of a world where right and wrong, just and unjust, worthy and unworthy, ultimately no longer matter. Nor does it take long-term interests into account, for one simple reason: there is no longer a yardstick by which to measure them. What is described as unsubtle financial reasoning—“it’s too expensive to help Ukraine”, “let’s give this money to American citizens instead”, “Taiwan should pay for its defense”, etc.—reflects first and foremost a way of thinking detached not only from values, but also from security issues. Trump will also accentuate the naive view of geopolitics according to which only big states count—and Ukraine, supposedly a “small state”, could be considered, in his worldview, as a dependency of Russia. In this way, we return to the catastrophic dominant thinking that has led Western states to give in to Russia on almost everything.
Admittedly, we can rightly point to elements of collusion between Trump and people in his entourage with Russia, which could only accelerate American disengagement, but ultimately it is the lack of consideration for the way in which world security is also, if not primarily, forged by the principles we defend, that dominates Trump's way of looking at things. Admittedly, this may be limited by questions of ego, personal interests or pressure from this or that clan close to power. But this logic is likely to prevail.
The financial argument itself—that it costs too much—is not put into perspective in a reasoned argument: what will the final cost be if we don’t act? What are the criteria for arbitrating between different types of expenditure? On what basis should we prioritize? As if in advance, Trump is closing the door on what should be self-evident to every strategic expert: a victory, or even a non-defeat, for Russia would be an increased threat to the United States. It would encourage its enemies and make Washington a partner that has lost all credibility.
The same is true of Taiwan, about which people in Trump’s entourage such as Elon Musk have been contemptuous, to say the least, when they have been full of praise for Beijing. Trump himself had said that Taiwan had to pay more for its defense, and that it wasn’t up to the United States to provide it. This doesn’t mean that the Tesla boss will win, even if we know how keen he is to maintain good relations with Beijing, since his biggest car production plant is in Shanghai.
Admittedly, other people close to Trump are in head-on opposition to Beijing, and this was a campaign theme for the Republican candidate. But this, too, contains a possible bias: the Trump administration will undoubtedly engage in a tug-of-war with China over economic issues, but Taiwan’s security, as well as violations of fundamental rights in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, will not be at the center of its attention. A “deal” with China—it’s hard to see what that might be—is unlikely to have any security dimension. Trump will defend America’s allies and friends in the region solely on the basis of his own interests, not a global view of security.
Such a move would certainly be destructive in terms of security, but it would probably also be disastrous in economic terms. While abandoning Taiwan’s security would have massive consequences not only for the semiconductor industry, but also for freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait, the Trump administration, because of this transactional view, might be tempted to disconnect the different elements. Moreover, it is hardly possible to see why a policy that should be detrimental to freedoms and rights at home should be focused on defending them abroad.
The ideological gain of dictatorships
Even if some of those close to Trump don(t seem to mind an even more pronounced revival of dictatorships at the expense of liberal democracies, it’s not clear that the 47th President of the United States absolutely wants to strengthen dictatorships. It’s even harder to see how increased support for dictatorships could be a doctrine that could be programmed into an open policy. Today, it seems more reasonable to note Trump’s indifference to the nature of the various regimes than to imagine some form of assertive design to strengthen Russia, China and other criminal regimes. Trump’s proximity to Russia does not automatically imply a form of slavish obedience to Moscow.
But precisely because he lacks a backbone and a clearly stated foreign policy doctrine, he could be giving himself margins for action that could lead him, at worst, through lack of understanding or refusal to analyze, to strengthen revisionist regimes, or at best, to give in to them in favor of improbable transactions therewith. The fault lies precisely in failing to perceive that totalitarian regimes, such as the Russian or Chinese in particular, are not prepared to accept transactions, except as tactical and always provisional elements, for radical ends. What characterizes them is absolute unilateralism. This is what most democratic leaders have failed to grasp in the face of Putin’s Russian aggression, particularly since 2008: what characterizes his goals is their total absence of limits. Giving him something in return won’t satisfy his appetite. His ultimate goal is not, or hardly ever, possession, but destruction. With him, no stability is possible, as we enter an era of limitless destabilization.
Most democratic leaders didn’t understand Putin, at least not for a long time, because they imagined him as a normal leader in their own eyes, and failed to grasp the message conveyed by his mass crimes. A president like Trump may not understand this either, because the violation of international law doesn’t matter to him, but also because he can’t comprehend that Putin isn’t in a logic of exchange—and the Kremlin’s criminal certainly doesn’t see the future tenant of the White House as a powerful man. He also knows that Trump doesn’t see him as the main danger. For the same reasons, it is likely that Xi Jinping sees Trump as the leader of an economically vexatious power, but who has not fully established the link between the economic dimension and Beijing’s political objectives, perhaps even refusing to see the primary nature of the latter.
The period ahead could therefore be marked by new ideological gains for dictatorships, ideological gains which would turn into almost immediate political gains for these regimes, and risk new losses for nations and peoples fighting for freedom. Perhaps this would not be a radical departure from the Obama and Biden eras, marked by a permanent gap between the affirmation of principles and their betrayal by inaction. But to what extent had this gap created an opportunity for denunciation and outrage? Trump might be caught out on the power of the America he intends to embody; but there would hardly be any contradiction between his principles and his action.
Once supposedly democratic nations have banished human rights, international law, the defense of democracy and the fight alongside oppressed peoples from their founding principles, it becomes possible to compromise with criminal regimes, since we have entered a world where nothing has absolute value any more. Crimes may still exist, but no crime is too strong to be ultimately accepted and unpunished—in other words, the crimes of war, against humanity or genocide cease to be a transgression marked by total excess. Trump’s ideology thus does away with the figure of the infinite, the unlimited and the radical. This would continue the work of trivializing and normalizing these regimes that liberal democracies had begun, which is one of the priority tasks of Russian propaganda and which Trump’s new orientations will consolidate.
Will these developments mark the end of a world? First of all, it is not yet certain that they will be fully realized. The design sketched out here was only intended to describe a logic of evolution, the ideological probability of which seems strong to me, and not an evolution that is certain in all its details. Secondly, even if there is a partial abandonment of Ukraine on the part of the Americans, and if, as a result, the situation becomes more difficult for the Ukrainians, they are far from having said their last word. They have shown that they can continue to fight, thanks not only to the Europeans, but also to their ability to design and produce new weapons themselves. On the other hand, this will make things much more difficult for the people of Taiwan. Moreover, China is more likely to propose the Trump administration the terms of a deal that would be attractive to it than Russia, which basically has nothing to offer.
This is undoubtedly the harbinger of the consequences of this unpredictability in terms of international security that the second Trump presidency will bring. It comes at the worst possible time: a time when democracies have lost all credibility in terms of deterrence and combat willingness, not to mention the intelligence that alone can sustain and nurture them. It is on this basis that dictatorships have been able to strengthen their axis, more so than their alliance in the exact sense of the term. But perhaps Trump is also, in a way, already in the minds of these otherwise sincere democrat leaders: Trump will perhaps only be the exacerbation of their own inconsistencies and failures. He will be less a rupture than a continuity; more a fulfillment than a difference. He will not just be the expression of a dark face of a democracy that has abandoned all its rules and principles: he will be the product of what we have already abandoned in Ghouta in 2013, in Aleppo in 2015 and 2016, then notably in Homs and Idlib, in Ukraine since 2014, in Afghanistan in 2021 and before in Sudan, Burma, Yemen and so many other places.
His foreign policy at least won’t be a genuine novelty, but the product of what we have already become.