The most obvious difference between Trump and his predecessors was his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump chose an unapologetic defender of the Israeli settler movement, David Friedman, as his ambassador to Israel, a clear signal that he was not going to press Israel on this issue.47 And unlike Clinton, Bush, or Obama, Trump was not personally committed to the idea of the “two-state” solution. As he told an interviewer in February 2017, “I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.”48 Then, in December, Trump made good on a campaign pledge to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. When Palestinian leaders protested, he accused them of failing to show “appreciation or respect” for the United States and threatened to cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority.49
The Jerusalem decision broke sharply with the international consensus that the city’s status should be determined through negotiations rather than by unilateral Israeli action, which is why previous presidents had all ignored their own campaign pledges to do something similar.50 Yet Trump’s uncritical embrace of Israel and his disinclination to oppose Israel’s settlements was more a shift in appearances than a sea change in U.S. policy.51 Previous presidents had complained about the settlements on numerous occasions and had tried to nudge Israel toward a peace agreement, but none had ever tried to force Israel to comply by threatening to reduce U.S. aid or diplomatic protection. On the contrary, Clinton, Bush, and Obama had all gone to considerable lengths to demonstrate that U.S. support for the Jewish state was “unshakable.”52
Furthermore, there was no “peace process” to speak of in 2017, and the two-state solution that past presidents had favored was on life support, if not completely dead.53 And in the unlikely event that it got miraculously revived, Trump’s largely symbolic action on Jerusalem would not preclude the Palestinians from eventually having a capital of their own in East Jerusalem as well. Overall, Trump’s approach to this issue merely made plain what sophisticated observers already knew: the U.S. government was firmly on Israel’s side and was never going to use the leverage it possessed to bring about a fair settlement. At worst, his actions simply removed the pretense of American evenhandedness, a facade that no longer fooled anyone.54
DEFENSE POLICY AND COUNTERTERRORISM
As a candidate, Trump had charged the Obama administration with neglecting America’s defenses and had insisted that the United States had become a “weak country,” even though U.S. defense spending equaled the next dozen or so countries combined and was nearly three times that of China. Insisting that “our military dominance must be unquestioned,” Trump promised to “spend what was necessary to rebuild our military.”55
Once in office, he immediately proposed a 10 percent increase in base military spending, and the House of Representatives eventually authorized an even bigger budget than the president had requested.56 As noted above, senior military officers occupied key policymaking positions—including secretary of defense, national security advisor, and White House chief of staff—and Trump gave regional commanders greater latitude to initiate combat operations without White House approval. The Pentagon responded by ramping up combat activities in several theaters, and U.S. forces launched six times more air strikes in Trump’s first 142 days in office than they had by Obama’s last 142.57 Trump also tried to reverse the Obama administration’s decision to permit transgender Americans to serve in uniform—apparently without consulting senior military officers or his secretary of defense—only to have his executive order struck down in federal court.58
Even so, these actions hardly added up to a significant shift in defense policy. Neither Trump nor Secretary of Defense Mattis proposed major shifts in U.S. overseas commitments, military strategy, or the day-to-day management of the vast Pentagon bureaucracy. And though Trump tried to portray his budget hike as an unprecedented move to strengthen the armed forces, a careful comparison by the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments showed that it was smaller than ten previous defense buildups and “far short of an historic increase.”59
Nor did Trump alter the broad outlines of the ongoing war on terror. The U.S. military campaign against ISIS continued to follow the strategy conceived and implemented under Obama—albeit at a slightly accelerated pace—and Trump also approved slight increases in U.S. force levels in Somalia, Syria, and several other theaters.60 In most respects, however, U.S. counterterror policy stuck closely to the blueprint Trump had inherited: the Defense Department continued to conduct training missions for foreign military forces, perform air and drone strikes on suspected extremists, and launch occasional raids by U.S. Special Forces. According to Joshua Rovner of American University’s School of International Service, “the Trump administration’s approach to counter-terrrorism resembles that of its predecessors.”61 Hal Brands of Johns Hopkins University agreed, saying, “the military component of Trump’s counterterrorism strategy is not fundamentally different than what President Barack Obama pursued in the final stages of his administration.” Or as Bill Roggio, the editor of the counterterrorism publication Long War Journal, put it, “[Trump] has basically done what President Obama has done, maybe just a little bit more forcefully.”62
In any case, unwavering support for America’s armed forces was hardly a novel political stance for a U.S. president. Every president since Truman had pledged to maintain U.S. military primacy, and uncritical support for “the troops” had become de rigueur for American politicians ever since 9/11 (if not before). As noted in previous chapters, the military role in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy had been expanding for decades; one might even see the overabundance of generals in Trump’s inner circle as the culmination of trends that have been under way for some time.63 On the whole, therefore, Trump’s handling of defense policy was simply “business as usual,” with a bit more money and a few more bombs.
PROTECTING THE BORDER
After making lurid warnings about foreign terrorists, criminals, and other “bad hombres” during the campaign and repeatedly promising to build a wall on the Mexican border, it was no surprise that Trump took a hard line on immigration and the need to protect the U.S. homeland from unwanted foreign entrants. It took the administration three tries to come up with an executive order to restrict travel from six Muslim-majority countries that could survive judicial review, but the Supreme Court eventually agreed to let the administration’s third attempt stand, pending its own examination of the issue.64 Trump pushed the Justice Department to accelerate deportations of illegal immigrants and rescinded a 2001 program that granted “temporary protected status” to some two hundred thousand people from El Salvador admitted under humanitarian visas, making them eligible for deportation as well.65 And in January 2018 Trump ignited a new furor when he referred to several developing nations as “shithole countries” and questioned whether the United States should admit immigrants from any of them.66
Yet with the exception of his controversial “zero tolerance” policy (which sought to deter migration by separating detained children from their parents), Trump’s actions were not substantially different from those of his predecessors. Homeland security had been an overriding priority since 9/11—as every air traveler knows—and the federal budget for customs and border security had increased by 91 percent from 2003 to 2014. Barack Obama had expanded the ranks of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service significantly, and his last Department of Homeland Security budget had called for hiring more than two thousand additional customs and border patrol officers. Indeed, Obama had deported more than five million people during his two terms, and the pace of deportations in Trump’s first year was actually lower than in 2016.67 After reviewing Trump’s policies on immigration and border security, Peter Dombrowski and Simon Reich conclude, “When judged against U.S. operations since 9/11, [Trump’s] goals and language alike do not represent a fundamental change in U.S. strategy.”68
Nor was Trump the first president to propose a border wall with Mexico,
or the first to have trouble getting it built. George W. Bush had also sought to build a barrier along the Mexican border, but Congress balked at the multibillion-dollar expense, and only seven hundred miles of fencing were ever constructed. Trump’s experience was much the same: neither Mexico nor the GOP-controlled Congress agreed to provide funds for the wall, forcing Trump to assert, unconvincingly, that Mexico would pay “eventually, but at a later date.”69 By January 2018 Trump was telling congressional leaders that the wall would not be needed, with White House chief of staff John Kelly explaining that the president had not been “fully informed” when he originally promised to build a wall and that his views had “evolved.”70
On a wide variety of important foreign policy issues, therefore, Trump’s actions did not constitute a sharp break with the past. There were several areas where he did depart from the establishment consensus, but even here, the shifts may not be as far-reaching as he had originally promised.
GLOBALIZATION ON PROBATION
The United States had long sought to promote a rules-based international order, largely by bringing other states into multilateral institutions in which the United States played a central role. Consistent with his “America First” mantra, Trump had repeatedly questioned the value of these institutions—especially in the economic realm—which he saw not as tools of American influence, but as “bad deals” that limited Washington’s freedom of action, undermined U.S. sovereignty, and crippled the U.S. economy.
Trump did not hesitate to put this new agenda into action. On his third day in office he announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the ambitious multilateral trade pact that had been a key element of the Obama administration’s “rebalancing” strategy in Asia. He followed this step by taking the United States out of the multilateral Paris Agreement on climate change in April, a move that left the United States as the only country in the world that rejected the accord.71 The final communiqué from the G20 summit in March 2017 dropped its previous vow to “resist all forms of protectionism” at U.S. insistence, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reminded reporters afterward, “We do have a new administration and a different view on trade.”72
Trump continued to rail against the NAFTA trade treaty with Canada and Mexico, calling it a “one-sided deal” that had caused a $60 billion trade deficit. Claiming that “the [World Trade Organization] was set up for the benefit [of] everybody but us,” Trump blocked new nominees to the WTO’s seven-person appeals board, a move that threatened to cripple the organization’s ability to resolve future trade disputes.73 In July 2017, Trump overruled his advisors and rejected a Chinese offer to voluntarily cut steel capacity, reportedly urging U.S. officials to find reasons to impose broader tariffs.74 Threats to abrogate the 2011 Korea-U.S. trade agreement forced Seoul to agree to a minor revision, and by September 2017 the Commerce Department had opened up more than sixty investigations of alleged import subsidies, preparing the ground for possible imposition of punitive tariffs.75 The official National Security Strategy released in December 2017 said that the United States would still “pursue bilateral trade and investment agreements with countries that commit to fair and reciprocal trade,” but it made no mention of broader multilateral agreements.
Even so, Trump’s initial retreat from globalization was more tentative than his fiery campaign rhetoric had promised. Trump declined to label China a “currency manipulator” or to eliminate the Export-Import Bank (as he had promised to do during the campaign), and he ultimately chose to renegotiate both NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement instead of simply abandoning them. These shifts were partly due to opposition from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and from business interests that benefited directly from these agreements (including agriculture producers in key “red states”), but it also reflected deep divisions within the administration itself. Although Bannon, Lighthizer, and Navarro had continued to push a more protectionist agenda, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Secretary of State Tillerson, and National Economic Council chair Gary Cohn were wary of sparking a punishing trade war and disrupting ties with key U.S. allies.76
Trump’s “America First” economic agenda suffered another setback in December, when the Senate Banking Committee rejected his nominee to head the Export-Import Bank, Scott Garrett, a longtime opponent of the bank who was vehemently opposed by the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and other business interests.77 And then, in January 2018, Trump struck a moderate tone in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the high temple of the globalist internationalism he had previously scorned, saying “America First is not America alone,” reiterating his support for free but fair trade, and emphasizing that “America is open for business.”78
Trump had not become a convert to unfettered globalization or an unabashed proponent of free trade, however, and he no doubt understood that supporters expected him to deliver on his promises to bring lost jobs back from overseas. These instincts returned to the fore in February 2018, when Trump rejected Cohn and Tillerson’s advice and announced stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, tweeting out that “trade wars are good and easy to win.”79 Cohn resigned in protest and Tillerson was fired several weeks later, giving trade representative Robert Lighthizer and National Trade Council head Peter Navarro—both staunch economic nationalists—greater influence.80 Their ascendance opened the way for a more direct assault on the existing trade order, beginning with the March 2018 imposition of punitive tariffs on China for its alleged trade violations and theft of U.S. intellectual property, followed by stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the EU, Mexico, and Canada in June. By midsummer, the possibility of an all-out trade war could not be ruled out.
Yet even here, Trump’s growing assault on the existing trade order must be seen in a broader context. The decision to impose steel and aluminum tariffs prompted a widespread outcry at home and abroad, and the administration soon announced that the measures would be administered “selectively,” sparking a frantic wave of lobbying for exclusions and making it clear that the initiative was not as far-reaching as it initially appeared.81 Nor was Trump the first president in recent times to play this card: George W. Bush had also imposed tariffs on imported steel back in 2002 and Richard Nixon had imposed a 10 percent surcharge on foreign imports in 1970.
It is also important to recognize that free trade has always been somewhat controversial in the United States. Although most members of the foreign policy establishment support reducing barriers to foreign trade and investment, this principle is the one component of liberal hegemony that faces well-organized and politically potent opposition. Domestic industries and labor unions whose positions are threatened by foreign competition have long been wary of free trade and eager for government protection, and they can usually win support from members of Congress whose districts might be adversely affected by a specific trade agreement. For this reason, major acts of trade liberalization—such as NAFTA or TPP—have always been a hard sell. It is not surprising, therefore, that this element of liberal hegemony was under more or less constant pressure under Trump despite the pushback he faced from some of his advisors. Even so, Trump’s first year and a half in office showed that reversing globalization was neither as easy nor as painless as he had promised.
DEMOCRACY PROMOTION, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND NATION-BUILDING
Trump’s second clear departure from liberal hegemony was his minimal commitment to promoting democracy or human rights and his closely related aversion to nation-building. Trump had said little about democracy and human rights during the 2016 campaign, and he declined to raise these issues when meeting with such leaders as King Salman of Saudi Arabia, Xi Jinping of China, and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. The 2017 National Security Strategy mentioned human rights but once, going so far as to say “the American way of life cannot be imposed upon others.”82
Moreover, Trump’s sometimes scathing attacks on the free press and his dis
regard for established democratic norms suggested that his personal commitment to traditional liberal values was paper-thin, and a number of foreign autocrats were quick to invoke Trump’s frequent denunciations of what he called “fake news” to justify their own illiberal practices.83 Overall, his diminished interest in actively spreading U.S. ideals and institutions was perhaps Trump’s most obvious break with the core principles of liberal hegemony. As Barry Posen suggests, Trump’s grand strategy might be termed one of “illiberal hegemony”: the United States still sought primacy and its global military role was undiminished, but it was no longer strongly committed to promoting liberal values.84
Yet even here, Trump did not accomplish a 180-degree reversal of U.S. policy or lead Washington to abandon these concerns completely. The 2017 National Security Strategy insisted that the United States would continue to “champion American values” and maintained that “governments that respect the rights of their citizens remain the best vehicle for prosperity, human happiness, and peace.” Indeed, in a passage that could just as easily have been written for Clinton, Bush, or Obama, it declared that the United States “will always stand with those who seek freedom” and remain “a beacon of liberty and opportunity around the world.”85
These universal principles would be applied selectively, however. As an internal memo written for Secretary of State Tillerson made clear, as far as human rights were concerned, the administration believed that “allies should be treated differently—and better—than adversaries.”86 In other words, human rights was an issue the United States could use to undermine and embarrass rivals such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, but one it should downplay when dealing with friendly regimes that denied citizens full democratic rights or were guilty of significant human rights abuses.
The Hell of Good Intentions Page 26