At the 2016 Republican Convention, Donald Trump presented a picture of America in a desperate state, threatened by terrorism, suffering from domestic disaster and international humiliation. He offered himself as the answer: “I am your voice,” he said. “I alone can fix it. I will restore law and order.” He did not ask Americans for their help. He asked for them to place their faith in him.
Despite a world characterized by increased interdependence of peoples and countries, Trump’s mantra of “going it alone” has been a constant theme underlying his foreign policy. It has taken different forms. Some examples: calling NATO “obsolete,” withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, insisting on calling the novel coronavirus, the “Wuhan virus,” to try to pin sole blame on China. It has meant demeaning comments toward friend and foe: shaming Chancellor Angela Merkel for allowing desperate refugees to enter Germany, calling London Mayor Sadiq Khan a “stone cold loser” and labeling North Korea’s Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man.”
The effect on leaders and countries has been problematic. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Shribman has observed that, in this period of the pandemic, “some of the greatest doubts about the United States come, not from Russia or China, but from … Ireland, with its sentimental attachment to America … and from Canada, which in ordinary times sends a quarter of a million travelers a day across its southern border.” A veteran Canadian diplomat speaks of “America’s evacuation of world leadership.” A survey of 25 countries showed that most lack confidence in Trump to do the right thing regarding world affairs. “Maybe for the first time in decades,” Shribman warns, “we should begin worrying about what others are saying about us.”
Trump may not really care. He treats nations and people as if they did not matter. Little reciprocity is evident in his dealings with foreign countries. Relatively few see the U.S. stepping up to help solve international problems. At the end of the Munich Security Conference in February 2019, a senior German official told The New York Times that “no one any longer believes that Trump cares about the views or interests of the (European) allies.”
If we accept the notion that going it alone is counterproductive, how can we understand Trump’s insistence that such an approach benefits American interests? An examination of Trump’s beliefs provides insight.
In The New York Review of Books, Fintan O’Toole, columnist, literary editor and drama critic for The Irish Times, noted that Trump divides the world into two groups: winners and losers. Crises like the coronavirus pandemic do not bring citizens together; rather, they reveal divisions in the world — between those who “deserve” to survive and thrive and those who do not.
In Trump’s view, the division between winners and losers is inherited. As he tweeted, in June 2013, “What my father really gave me is a good (great) brain, motivation and the benefit of his experience — unlike the haters and losers (lazy!).” This insight explains his approach to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump did not bother to show up at the recent teleconference of global leaders pledging contributions for a coronavirus vaccine. He continues to smear the World Health Organization. He has ignored calls to create a global COVID-19 task force. He seems unaffected by the catastrophe affecting millions of people in the developing world.
Simon Tisdall, foreign affairs commentator for The Guardian, stated that America’s “global reputation hits rock-bottom over Trump’s coronavirus response.” Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard, asserts that “the Trump administration’s self-centered, haphazard, and tone-deaf response (to COVID-19) will cost Americans trillions of dollars and thousands of otherwise preventable deaths.”
If we assume that change in our foreign policy is in order, what will it take to engage effectively with other nations? I think we need to avoid derogatory comments about other leaders or nations or a defensive posture that blames others. We need to support strong leaders with humane views who can, in the words of New York Times columnist David Brooks, “create a gracious environment by greeting the world openly and so end up maximizing their influence and effectiveness.” We need to focus less on people’s positions on an issue and more on our common interests.
We need to recognize that a “going it alone” foreign policy is counterproductive as the world turns. We do need to present a strong posture with respect to other countries, to be clear about our values, commitments and responsibilities to the world order.
This will all be difficult as America is divided politically, culturally and socially. But we need to close those divisions because people are hard to hate up close. To avoid being torn apart, we must ask ourselves two fundamental questions: Who are we as Americans? What do we stand for?
Bob Scobie lives in West Lebanon.