CHANGE IN FOREIGN POLICY UNDER TRUMP - CHELSEA KEIRSNOWSKI

CHANGE IN FOREIGN POLICY UNDER TRUMP

CHELSEA KEIRSNOWSKI

The Donald Trump presidency triggered concerns among US military allies and economic partners because, as the first President without military or political experience, he made notable departures from traditional US foreign policy. This essay will investigate how Trump’s “America First” approach to foreign policy was significantly different to post-war US foreign policy, as it rejected three major liberal mechanisms including free trade and economic interdependence, US leadership through multilateral international organisations, and the promotion of democracy. Trump was sceptical that an open, interdependent global economy benefitted the US and opposed the limits to the state’s economic freedom of action imposed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Trump not only rejected multilateral agreements in trade, but also had less support for multilateralism in security, environmental protection, and diplomacy. Trump preferred to act unilaterally, consequentially causing traditional allies to feel exploited by the power imbalance of the US hegemon. Whilst some democratic promotion initiatives continued under Trump’s presidency, he did not advocate these ideals as past presidents had done.

Trump’s foreign policy was divergent from US tradition as it was cynical of the benefits of free trade and economic interdependence. Instead, he chose to rescind previous free trade agreements and go against the rules-based order of the WTO. For approximately 70 years preceding Trump, Free Trade Agreements (FTA’s) had been gaining prevalence, the US leading the liberal world trade movement. Barack Obama presided over negotiations for the plurilateral FTA’s of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership as well as engaging economically with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.1 Obama described himself as America’s first “Pacific President” in November 2009, as he believed in the importance of regional economic integration to promote trade and security.2 Contrastingly, Trump’s “America First” approach was exemplified by the reneging of the TPP shortly after his inauguration.3

Trump perceives relationships and agreements between countries as having winners and losers. Rather than reaching multilateral win-win agreements, Trump tended to prefer using the influence of America’s significant economic power coercively to get better deals which solely

1 Arne Melchoir, Free Trade Agreements and Globalisation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) 2-3.

2 Peter H Gries, ‘Humanitarian Hawk Meets Rising Dragon: Obama’s Legacy in US China Policy’, in Oliver Turner and Inderjeet Parmar (eds), The United States in the Indo-Pacific: Obama’s legacy in US China Policy (Manchester University Press, 2020) 29, 33.

3

Paul K Macdonald, ‘America First? Explaining Continuity and Change in Trump’s Foreign Policy’ (2018) 133(3) Political Science Quarterly 401, 403.

considered America’s interests.4 Trump replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement with the Canada and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement which allows the US to impose tariffs on imports which may threaten economic security, which supports Trump’s protectionist agenda to the detriment of free trade.5 The WTO helps govern the rules-based order of international trade through regulations and resolving trade disputes between states through its Appellate Body (AB).6 Both Bush Jr. and Obama blocked the appointment of new judges of the AB after previous judges finished their four-year terms to protest the way the WTO functions. The US leaders believed that the WTO was not operating in line with US interests and was engaging in judicial activism that overstepped its jurisdiction. The AB was able to continue functioning with the minimum of three judges until Trump blocked new appointments after two of the three judges finished their terms. Whilst Trump’s actions followed those of his predecessors, his decisions had more significant repercussions since the judges he blocked were vital to the continuation of the AB’s functioning.7 This is contrary to statements published in Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy, claiming that the US will “promote free, fair, and reciprocal economic relations” and “pursue enforcement actions when countries violate the rules to gain unfair advantage”.8 Without the WTO having the ability to make binding international rules and judgements, this may create a system of trade relations based solely on power.

Trump created an international climate where States could impose tariffs and disregard the principles of free trade without the repercussion of sanctions. This is displayed by Trump’s unilateral action that triggered a trade war with China by threatening to impose a 25% tariff on US$50 billion worth of imports from China in 2018. China responded by placing tariffs on US$50 billion worth of US imports and there has been a subsequent back and forth of threats and further tariffs between these countries.9 These actions go against the most-favoured-nation principle of the WTO which governs those states must not discriminate between their trading partners, as per Article 1 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947. However, whilst the US is blocking the operation of the WTO’s AB, the WTO is limited in its ability to resolve this conflict.10 Trump’s administration imposed these tariffs due to concerns that the Sino-US

4 Michael Pembroke, America in Retreat: The Decline of US Leadership from WW2 to COVID-19 (Oneworld Publications, 2021) 128.

5 Dan Ciuriak, ‘The Trade and Economic Impact of the CUSMA: Making Sense of the Alternative Estimates’ (Working Paper, C.D Howe Institute, Toronto, 2020) 8. 6 Pembroke (n 4) 127. 7 Pembroke (n 4) 128.

8 Donald Trump, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, Washington D.C. 2017, 19.

9 Yu Miaoje, China-US Trade War and Trade Talk (Springer Singapore, 2020) 38. 10 Pembroke (n 4) 129.

trade deficit caused the loss of nearly 3 million US jobs in the manufacturing industry.11 Thus, by increasing tariffs, Trump hoped to limit Chinese exports to the US and to subsequently rely more on US manufactured goods, increasing the demand for US manufacturing jobs. Trump’s foreign policy aimed to contain China’s rise to prevent it from catching up with the US economy, which contrasts with Obama’s administration which proclaimed that the US “welcomes the rise of China”.12 However, Obama’s policies were influenced by the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9 as the global economic situation during this time required cooperation between states rather than competition.13 The Trump administration’s “America First” approach to trade was competitive and valued acquiring the best deal for America rather than following Obama’s pursuit of negotiation and economic integration through multilateral FTA’s.

The Trump Administration repudiated America’s trend of promoting multilateral international institutions, contrarily favouring unilateral action, often to the detriment of its relations with traditional allies. After WWII, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed to safeguard the security of its member states. It was agreed that the US would saddle the responsibility of ensuring overarching military protection to allow the European member states to instead focus on investment in improving the livelihood of its citizens after the devastation of the war. This benefitted the US by contributing to its power as global hegemon and fostering strong links to Europe.14 The attitude of the US shifted and in 2016 Obama expressed concern that NATO members were not contributing enough to their defence budgets and relied too heavily on the US.15

During his presidency, Trump repeated this concern more aggressively than Obama, threatening to make US military support conditional on NATO members increasing their defence contributions.16 Declaring support as conditional is contrary to the US’ obligations under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which requires NATO members to come to the aid and defend other NATO states if they are attacked. When Germany did not sufficiently

11 Joseph Essig et al, ‘The “Trump” Effect: Political Elite and Support for Free Trade in America’(2021) 48(3) American Politics Research, 328, 330.

12 Miaoje (n 9) 39.

13 Cheng Li, ‘Assessing U.S.-China Relations Under the Obama Administration’, Brookings (online) 30 August 2016 https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/assessing-u-s-china-relations-under-the-obama-administration/.

14 Francesco M Bongiovanni, Europe and the End of the Age of Innocence (Springer International Publishing, 2018) 28.

15 Jo Jakobsen, ‘Is European NATO Really Free-Riding? Patterns of Material and Non-Material Burden Sharing After the Cold War’ (2018) 27(4) European Security 490, 493.

16 Benjamin Miller and Ziv Rubinovitz, Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump (University of Chicago Press, 2020) 231.

increase its defence budget, Trump retaliated by proposing he would remove nearly 12,000 US troops from Germany.17 Despite creating unease between the US and its allies, Trump’s threats may have been effective in his aims as NATO members increased their military spending for the sixth consecutive year in 2020.18 Trump further contributed to the growing sentiment that the US no longer wholly appreciated or was committed to NATO by incorrectly claiming that NATO does not target terrorism and by calling it ‘obsolete’.19 However, Trump later changed his tone, claiming that “it’s no longer obsolete” and publicly reasserting commitment to Article 5 after attempted to take credit for shifting NATO’s focus more towards terrorism even though no shift occurred, but rather he became aware of the existence of NATO terrorism policies.20

The European Deterrence Initiative was formed by the Obama administration in 2014 to reassure NATO members of the US’ commitment to their security after the Russian invasion of Crimea.21 Despite Trump’s cynical and inconsistent statements regarding NATO, his administration increased the European Deterrence Initiative by US$1.4 billion and was involved in extensive military training in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania.22 Therefore, whilst Trump’s rhetoric did not appear to support NATO, in practice his administration did, in certain ways, increase support, however his lack of vocal support may have had a detrimental impact on the trust from NATO members in the sincerity of America’s commitment. Further, it is not uncommon for Trump to back out of multilateral organisations and agreements, for instance he withdrew from the Paris Agreement, which had been adopted by the Obama administration and aimed to strengthen the global efforts to reduce climate change.23 Trump also suspended funding to the World Health Organisation, despite the US being the WHO’s largest donor for many years, due to criticisms of its inept handing of the COVID-19 pandemic and accusing it of favouring Chinese interests.24 Obama’s enthusiasm for, and Trump’s rejection of, multilateral action both stem from a desire to take a step back from America’s global engagements to allow for an increased focus on domestic issues. Obama believed that multilateral action benefitted the US, as instead of the US taking the lead or independently addressing global issues, such as security, climate action, and global health, through interstate

17 BBC, ‘US to Withdraw 12,000 Troops from Germany in ‘Strategic’ Move’, BBC (online) 29 July 2020 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53589245.

18 NATO, ‘Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2013-2020)’ (Press release, 2021/030, 16 March 2021) https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/3/pdf/210316-pr-2020-30-en.pdf.

19 Macdonald (n 3) 411, 421. 20 Macdonald (n 3) 422.

21 Paul Belkin and Hibbah Kaileh, ‘The European Deterrence Initiative’ (Budgetary Overview, Report IF10946, 1 July 2021 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IF10946.pdf.

22 Macdonald (n 3) 421. 23 Macdonald (n 3) 411.

24 Jose Alvarez, ‘Trump Administration Submits Notice of U.S. Withdrawal from the World Health Organisation Amid COVID-19 Pandemic’(2020) 114(4) The American Journal of International Law 765, 765.

action, the burden can be shared, thus allowing the US to redirect their focus internally.25 Trump’s “America First” approach preferred to repudiate multilateral agreements and focus on domestic issues whilst leaving others states to address their own.

Obama and Trump shared to desire to no longer have US troops stationed in Iran, however both administrations continued to get drawn into the conflict, despite approaching the issue in different ways. Obama nominated a group of diplomats and strategists to comprise his National Security Council, whereas Trump elected past and current military officers. Trump consequently utilised military personnel to address national security issues more than any president since Reagan and the militarisation of advisory roles was reflected in the advice he received.26 Obama pursued a multilateral diplomatic approach through the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement between Iran and China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and the European Union to inhibit Iran from developing nuclear weaponry. Despite the International Atomic Energy Agency certifying for the eighth time that Iran was complying with the JCPOA, Trump pulled out of the agreement and unilaterally imposed sanctions against Iran.27 Trump’s foreign policy ended the tradition of committing to multilateral agreements and unorthodoxly distanced the US from the global community through policies of independent action.

Trump advocated for US foreign policy to move away from goals of nation building and regime change, whereas past US Presidents advocated for the promotion of democracy abroad. Despite Trump’s position, there was a level of continuity in policies on democracy promotion. The US’ history of spreading democracy stems from Reagan’s desire to end communism and his establishment of the National Endowment for Democracy to help establish democratic frameworks abroad.28 Democracy promotion was a key element of US foreign policy because, as explained by Clinton in his State of the Union address in 1994, “[d]emocracies don’t attack each other. They make better trading partners and partners in diplomacy.” Bush Jr. was also an advocate for democracy, stating during his second inaugural address, “the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world”.29 Bush Jr. tripled funding initiatives for democracy and human rights promotion such as the Millennium Challenge

25 Robert G Kaufman, Dangerous Doctrine: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America (The University Press of Kentucky, 2016) 5.

26 Macdonald (n 3) 428.

27 Macdonald (n 3) 434; Jay Solomon, ‘Military Brass Fill Donald Trump’s National Security Council’, The Wall Street Journal (online) 26 Jan 2017 https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-brass-fill-national-security-council1485478127.

28 Henry R Nau, ‘Ronald Reagan’, in Michael Cox, Timothy J Lynch and Nicolas Bouchet (eds), US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion: From Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama (Taylor & Francis Group, 2013) 138, 143.

29 Paul J Saunders, ‘Trump and Democracy Promotion’ (2017) 147 The National Interest 74, 74.

Corporation and the Middle East Partnership Initiative.30 However, during Bush Jr.’s presidency, counterterrorism became a major US foreign policy preoccupation, influencing the US to cooperate more with authoritarian governments, which continues to be relevant to contemporary US foreign policy. Consistent with Obama’s ideology, he established the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative to promote democratic norms, however democracy promotion receded slightly under his administration as they reduced focus on international affairs.31

Trump’s rescission of the US’ global pro-democratic stance is more significant as he praised authoritarian rulers, acted undemocratically domestically and publicly renounced the goal of “trying to spread universal values that not everybody shares or wants”.32 However, concurrently, US diplomatic efforts to advance democracy and counter backsliding largely continued similarly to past administrations. For example, the US aided with elections in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia by assisting with preparations, reforms, and observations.33 It is not uncommon for US presidents to endorse authoritarian leaders when geopolitical context means this may be a tactical decision. For instance, Franklin Roosevelt fostered good relations with King Absulaziz of Saudi Arabia to source petroleum, and Harry Truman aided Chiang Kaishek, a nationalist authoritarian, to counter Mao Zedong.34 However, Trump cultivated closer relations with authoritarian leaders on a larger scale, including the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Russia, and North Korea.35 Further, when asked to comment on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s human rights abuses after the attempted coup against him, Trump replied, “when it comes to civil liberties, our country has a lot of problems, and I think it’s very hard for us to get involved in other countries”.36 In summary, whilst Trump vocalised different views regarding the US’ role in democracy promotion abroad and refrained from condemning authoritarian rulers, in practice his administration continued certain past prodemocracy policies.

It would be highly unlikely for US foreign policy to be completely overhauled during a single president’s administration, as whilst the president changes, thousands of bureaucrats remain through transitions in leadership, and practices become deeply entrenched. Considering this, the changes implemented during Trump’s presidency were substantial as he changed US attitudes toward three pillars which had been common themes in US policy since WWII.

30 Eric Patterson, ‘Obama and Sustainable Democracy Promotion’ (2012) 12(1) International Studies Perspectives 26, 29.

31 Thomas Carothers and Frances Z Brown, ‘Can U.S Democracy Policy Survive Trump?’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (online) 1 Oct 2018 https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/10/01/can-u.s.-democracypolicy-survive-trump-pub-77381.

32 Macdonald (n 3) 411. 33 Carothers and Brown (n 31). 34 Patterson (n 30) 28. 35 Carothers and Brown (n 31). 36 Macdonald (n 3) 411.

Firstly, the Trump administration did not uphold WHO regulations governing free trade, reneged FTA’s and capitalised on its economic power to coerce trade partners. Secondly, the US retreated from its international commitments, opting for isolationist and unilateral policies rather than pioneering multilateral agreements. Finally, Trump publicly rejected the promotion of democracy abroad and forged relationships with authoritarian leaders. Consequently, Trump’s “American First” foreign policy created uncertainty among traditional allies.