US President Donald Trump’s foreign foray enters its second phase this week when he moves from the Middle East to Europe. In so doing Trump will be entering, for the first time in his presidency, into the top table of global diplomacy with leaders from Nato and the G7 countries.
Some four months after taking office, many European and widerwWestern allies are still very nervous about what his presidency means for US international policy. The European leg of the visit will thus see the Trump team intensify a campaign of diplomatic re-assurance amidst calls for him to move further away from his ‘America First’ rhetoric.
A third of a year into office, Trump’s international approach remains largely undefined. He promised “a new foreign policy direction” in what was seen, in some quarters earlier this year, as perhaps the biggest potential shake-up of US foreign relations since 1945.
To be sure, it is already clear that the new administration will challenge some key elements of post-war orthodoxy pursued, in different ways, by Democratic and Republican presidents, including over international trade. However, his period in office so far has been much clearer for his reversing of previous campaign rhetoric and pledges, rather than fulfilling them.
Take the example of Syria where his ‘America First’ rhetoric indicated that he would not seek to deepen US involvement in that country. Yet, the president took many by surprise a few weeks ago by authorising US missile strikes targeted at the Shayrat airbase following an earlier poison gas attack on citizens in a rebel-held town allegedly committed by the Damascus regime. Moreover, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has asserted that the Trump administration is ready to take further military steps in the country if needed.
This is just one example of why key Nato and G7 allies are nervous of the unpredictability of Trump’s presidency. And this problem will have been made worse by the furore surrounding the president’s disclosure earlier this month of sensitive intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov which has been strongly criticised even by many members of Trump’s own Republican Party.
World full of danger
While much remains uncertain about Trump, what is clear as he prepares for the Nato and G7 summits is the host of major foreign policy challenges he has inherited in a world full of potential danger. This ranges from the continents Trump is visiting in his trip, including the Middle East, where there are bleak prospects facing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and where significant offensives are still underway in Syria and Iraq against Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), plus Europe where there is considerable uncertainty in the continent over the future of the EU post-Brexit.
As Trump will discover at the Nato and G7 summits, the conundrums now confronting him internationally aren’t limited to these issues, however. Indeed, there are some indicators that international political risks are now at their highest level since the end of the Cold War. Other geopolitical fault lines include tensions with China over the latter’s territorial claims in the South China Sea; continuing instability in Afghanistan and Libya.
Meanwhile, international terrorism remains a significant international concern more than a decade and a half after 9/11; unstable countries (including North Korea) have acquired nuclear weapons; and continuing hostilities in Ukraine, and tensions over Syria, means that Washington’s relations with Moscow are at a strained point which makes Trump’s disclosure of such sensitive intelligence to Lavrov all the more perplexing.
Some critics of ex-President Barack Obama, including Trump himself, see this troubled international picture as a result of weak leadership in Washington during the last eight years. However, this is too simplified.
To be sure, the United States remains the most powerful country in the world — certainly in a military sense. It can, for instance, still project and deploy overwhelming force.
However, despite some of his rhetoric, Trump hopefully recognises Washington is not an all-powerful hegemonic power. This core fact has been demonstrated repeatedly throughout the post-Cold War period, from Somalia in 1993, Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, and also most recently in Ukraine and Syria.
What this underlines — instead — is that the success of Washington in helping manage the complexity of international relations will — far from what Trump’s ‘America First’ philosophy suggests — increasingly depend upon cooperation of others, including the G7 and Nato. And this also includes the EU too, which Trump has become the first US president to show outright public hostility given his call for more countries to follow the UK’s lead in voting to leave the bloc.
In terms of this international cooperation agenda, a key uncertainty for Trump’s presidency is the direction of bilateral relations with China, which could be a force for greater global tension, or deeper strategic partnership. Earlier this year, it had appeared Beijing could become the new administration’s bête noire as part of his ‘America First’ outlook.
However, Trump’s stance toward Beijing appears to have undergone a significant change and this partially reflects the importance of North Korea in his foreign policy. The president has acknowledged that China could potentially play a very constructive role in curbing Pyongyang’s continuing provocations, which could provoke his first foreign policy crisis.
Going forward, it remains to be seen exactly how US-China relations will pan out during the next four years. Bilateral rivalry is possible if Beijing’s military power continues to grow rapidly and the country embraces a more assertive foreign policy toward its neighbours.
However, growing bilateral cooperation is also realistic if the two powers can increasingly find ways to resolve harder power disagreements, including South China Sea territorial claims, while cooperating on soft issues like climate change. As Trump will rapidly discover, including at the Nato and G7 summits, the success of Washington in helping manage the complexity of global affairs will increasingly depend upon such partnerships and alliance building going forward.
Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics
