Throughout his years in the public eye, former president Donald Trump has frequently said things that reveal his belief that the construct of ‘race’ is a valid measure of human difference and human worth.  In countless public utterances, he has used racist, derogatory language to insult, belittle, and abuse non-white people.  He has also conflated whiteness with American-ness, implying that the United States is a racial community of white people whose non-white residents cannot be incorporated into the nation because of their race.  After all, he rose to national political prominence primarily through his prolonged racist campaign against President Barack Obama, claiming that Obama had been born in Kenya and was also a Muslim.  And his announcement in June 2015 that he would seek the presidency featured the defining comment of what might be called Trump’s “racial panic.” Speaking about immigration to a group of cheering supporters, Trump said, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.  They’re not sending you.  They’re not sending you.  They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.  They’re bringing drugs.  They’re bringing crime.  They’re rapists.  And some, I assume, are good people.”^[1]

Continue reading

President Joe Biden has called the current moment an “inflection point,” both domestically and internationally.^[2] In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, some forces within the Republican Party have made clear that they no longer believe democracy is in the best interests of their party.  Rather than adjusting their message and policies to broaden their base of support, many in the GOP have doubled down in support of baseless claims of electoral fraud to enact voter suppression laws in the hopes of increasing their odds of success at the ballot box in the 2022 midterm elections and beyond.^[3]

Continue reading

“It’s the economy, stupid!” While this phrase was initially coined by Democratic Party nominee Bill Clinton’s campaign to emphasize the importance of a struggling domestic US economy in the presidential race of the early 1990s, today, it appears applicable to the international realm as well.^[1] For several decades, IR scholars have drawn a separation between the economic and security realms.  Concretely, the established “neo-neo synthesis” in IR literature posits that whereas considerations about relative gains characterize the security relations between states, the prospect for absolute gains informs economic interactions.^[2] Recent developments in international politics, however, are putting in question the continued relevance of the neo-neo synthesis in thinking about statecraft.  China’s growing economy, for instance, was long viewed through the lens of economic opportunity by American policymakers.  Today, in contrast, China’s economic rise is increasingly seen by Washington as a threat to (American) firms, workers, and consumers.^[3] In a similar vein, narratives about weaponized interdependence – the practice of “leveraging global networks of informational and financial exchange for strategic advantage” – are becoming increasingly popular.^[4] More fundamentally, policymakers and pundits have raised questions about the orthodoxies of “win-win globalization,” and the underlying assumption that increased economic interdependence promotes “peace and cooperation by increasing the cost of conflict between states.”^[5]

Continue reading

In my 2017 essay I did not venture any predictions about how Donald Trump would behave as president, or the extent to which he would wish (or be able) to re-shape the character of U.S. foreign policy according to his own views.^[1] Rather, I focused on the evident public appeal of his call to put “America First,” seeking to explain this and to assess the impact it might have on the character of U.S. foreign policy. I observed that the extensive scope of America’s security commitments went far beyond those needed to safeguard the nation’s core interests of physical security and economic wellbeing and that they were therefore intrinsically vulnerable to domestic criticism, especially whenever they became costly to uphold.  The commitments were the product of a broader conception of America’s vital interests as including also the existence of a stable world order in which its values as well as its interests would be respected. That the scale of America’s power brought with it a special responsibility for the maintenance of such a world order had become the orthodoxy governing U.S. foreign policy as a result of the two world wars and it had been solidified during the Cold War. The end of the Cold War had led to a questioning of the justification for these wide-ranging military commitments – by realist advocates of ‘restraint’ as well as by Trump – and, more recently, the lengthy and unsuccessful interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq had created public and political resistance to involvement in further ‘foreign wars.’^[2] This was the background of the apparent political appeal of Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, which was likely to raise doubts abroad about the credibility of U.S. commitments, and thus weaken the country’s capacity to uphold its version of world order.

Continue reading

Donald J. Trump is often viewed as an aberration, or at the very least as someone whose presidency signaled a decisive shift in U.S. politics.  A showman with little political experience, he was elected by a narrow margin on the back of “protest votes” by millions disillusioned by the established status quo.^[1] Whilst some worry that he will set the stage for other celebrity policymakers, thereby degrading the office of the president, the greater danger is that politics will go on as per normal, but with ever greater legitimacy and space.^[2] Politics as usual amounts to the reinforcement of a (post)colonial and capitalist structure, one which Cedric Robinson has so memorably and aptly termed “racial capitalism.”^[3]

Continue reading

Everyone saw the photo of President Donald Trump and Chancellor Angela Merkel glaring at one another during the G-7 summit in Quebec in June 2018.  Trump, seated, looked stubborn and impetuous; Merkel leaned forward across the table in stern disapproval.  The photo went viral after being tweeted out by the Chancellor’s press chief, Steffen Seibert – an indication that Merkel herself may have approved this framing.^[1] Fifteen months earlier, the Chancellor’s staff had publicized more amicable photos of the Chancellor’s visit to Washington, but the gaping rift between the U.S. and Germany was becoming impossible to gloss over.^[2] The exceedingly poor personal chemistry between Trump and Merkel was, of course, one major source of tension.  Even the President’s attempts at levity, such as when he famously tossed Starburst candies at the Chancellor, came across as sour and ill-tempered.^[3] But a broader review of recent U.S.-German dust-ups suggests that the damage was compounded by the “swaggering” demeanor of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the brusque comportment of the U.S. ambassador to Berlin, Richard Grenell.  In their own distinctive ways, all three men trampled on German sensibilities – and all of them put the U.S. on a course toward withdrawing from strategic assets in Germany, a profoundly destabilizing prospect for European security.^[4]

Continue reading

Washington’s foreign policy community had a love-hate relationship with President Donald Trump.  They hated many of his foreign policy ideas so much that hundreds of Republican former officials and foreign policy experts signed open letters arguing that “he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world.”^[1] Trump was indeed at odds with the D.C. establishment on many core foreign policy issues, from NATO funding to his proposed withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many pinned their hopes on the notion that principled appointees like former general James Mattis – the so-called “adults in the room” – could constrain Trump’s worst foreign policy impulses.^[2] The 2020 Biden presidential campaign even explicitly cast its foreign policy in terms of ‘restoration,’ that is to say, of fixing the wrongs done by Donald Trump.

Continue reading

How has the Trump presidency affected the status of the United States as the leader of the current international order?  When Donald Trump assumed the presidency on January 20, 2017, few could have predicted what the next four years would mean for U.S. standing in the world.  What was almost certain was that Trump’s approach to foreign policy would be different from his predecessors and that he would likely not be guided by the same rules, norms, and priorities that had shaped U.S. foreign policy after the Second World War.  Four years later, we are in a position to take stock and think about the impact the Trump administration had on America’s role in the world and the challenges and opportunities it has revealed.  In one sense, Trump’s foreign policy did not represent the radical departure that many feared when he first took office.  While his rhetoric was mostly devoid of the outward commitment to liberal ideals that is characteristic of U.S. foreign policy discourse, there were no major wars, the U.S. did not wholly abandon its key allies, and the multilateral institutional order remains mostly intact.  Nevertheless, the change in style and tone of his foreign policy represented a perhaps small, but not insignificant, change in U.S. foreign policy.  Trump openly chastised allies, curried favor with dictators, and withdrew from international agreements.  His brash, personalistic style eroded democratic norms at home and abroad.  In short, Trump’s diplomatic style and choices have affected the standing of the United States in the world.  Specifically, they worked to make America unrecognizable to the most important members of the international community for upholding American status, close allies and friends.  As a result, questions have arisen about the norms and values that underpin American identity and thus about the status of the United States as the leader of the international order going forward.

Continue reading

Donald Trump’s final disgraceful weeks in office displayed him at his narcissistic worst, encouraging the storming of the Capitol by his supporters, and leaving a legacy of damaging claims about the electoral process that will take time to dispel.  Though the manner of his going was shocking it was not surprising.  Inflammatory rhetoric, extravagant promises, and disdain for convention, had all been present in his election campaign.  They were at the fore in his January 2017 inauguration address.  And so it continued.  In the essay I wrote in the summer of 2018 I noted Trump’s “embrace of nationalist impulses, his contempt for his political opponents and the rule of law, his incessant boastful, malevolent, and false statements, his lack of empathy and curiosity.”^[1] There was no drift back to the center.  His strategy for a second term involved enthusing his supporters by continuing as before rather than reaching out to doubters.  It almost worked.

Continue reading