e Post-American Order

“America First” Will Leave America Behind

By Kori Schake
October 21, 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump in Jacksonville, Florida, September 2020

Tom Brenner / Reuters

SHARE S AV E

T
he 2016 election was hardly the rst time that the U.S. political system alarmed
many of the United States’ partners broad. After the election of 1832, the British
complained that the United States was governed by “demagogues and non-
entities,” and versions of that grievance have been repeated regularly by allied leaders
since. Yet this time is di erent. During the presidency of Donald Trump, the United
States’ friends have, for the rst time, begun to hedge their bets in clear and consequential
ways. A second term for Trump would accelerate such moves, with the result of
transforming the international order for good.

Even before the start of the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year, support for the United
States had plummeted to historic lows. Over the past six months, Washington has shown
both indi erence to the magnitude of su ering among its own citizens and sharp-elbowed
sel shness in its approach to global cooperation on vaccines, medical supplies, and more—
decimating support for both U.S. leadership of a mutually bene cial international order
and global aspiration to the American way of life.

If Trump is reelected, his “America rst” foreign policy will have been validated, and the
result will be an America snarling into decline. e admiration for the United States that
reduces the cost of everything it tries to achieve in the world will evaporate, and other
countries will move on, shaping a new order to protect themselves from a self-seeking,
often hostile United States. Washington will nd that it has squandered an international
order that was built to enhance its security and sustain its prosperity and instead faces a
world without the institutions, alliances, and goodwill that have long bolstered U.S.
interests. e president and the Republican leaders who support him will have to take
responsibility for what they have wrought: a new order that excludes the United States.

Stay informed.
In-depth analysis delivered weekly.
SIGN UP

A NEW ORDER

Projecting forward from the Trump foreign policy decisions of the last four years makes
clear the damage that could be done in a second term—and what that damage will mean
for U.S. leadership. Convincing countries to align their policies with those of the United
States will become more di cult because the United States will no longer represent
common ideals. Allies will not want to station U.S. military forces in their countries or
join coalition operations with the United States. Pardoning war criminals and vituperating
against the International Criminal Court—as Trump has done over his rst term and will
likely continue doing over a second term—will make it less likely that other powers see
the U.S. military as a force that uses violence lawfully.

e Trump administration’s self-seeking approach to foreign policy, if repeated, will push

other powers to forge new alliances that keep the United States out. Under a second
Trump administration, the United States will likely withdraw troops from Europe. It will
continue demanding extortionate payments from South Korea and Japan for stationing
U.S. troops and, since neither will concede, withdraw troops from both countries,
embrittling security commitments. Meanwhile, North Korea will continue to stockpile
nuclear weapons, and South Korea will inch toward conciliation with the North. Japan
will become a major military power and pull the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and
Vietnam into closer cooperation. ese new security alliances may not embrace U.S.
interests, thus shaping a new order.

The United States will go from leading an international order to being

unmoored from it.

In the Middle East, Washington will write o the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and leave
Syria to President Bashar al-Assad’s brutality. Perhaps Russia and Iran would dispute each
other’s in uence in the region. But it is more likely that the vacuum the United States
leaves behind will have room for the ambitions of both. Meanwhile, no U.S. allies will
trust Washington’s security guarantees, instead hedging against the United States’
abandonment or conceding to intimidation. Middle-power cooperation, once a promising
means to strengthen the rules-based international order, will prove inadequate without the
underwriting of U.S. support.

e fundamental miscalculation by the Trump administration is to assume the United

States is so powerful that it doesn’t need to compromise. Under a second Trump
administration, Washington would withdraw from international organizations, vacate
alliances, fail to negotiate treaties limiting threats, and accelerate its use of punitive
sanctions. Extending sanctions to France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and
intending to snap back penalties on Iran for an international agreement the United States
withdrew from will exhaust European patience. As economic ties fray, the EU will work
with China and Russia to create alternative payment structures to the dollar and increase
e orts to set regulatory standards a ecting U.S. companies. ese changes will put more
sand in the gears of U.S. investment, manufacturing, and trade, isolating the United States
from sources of prosperity. Excluded from these new economic structures, the United
States will go from leading an international order to being unmoored from it.

is post-American order is not hypothetical. Leading indicators have already come into
view, and the United States’ adversaries and closest allies are acting to diminish its
hegemony and create a new order at its expense. China created a “petro yuan” to price oil
in a currency other than dollars. Meanwhile, India and Russia have developed a payment
method to skirt the dollar zone, as have the United States’ European allies. When the
United States balked at joining the Trans-Paci c Partnership, Australia, Canada, and
Japan brought the agreement into force without it.

CHANGING COURSE

Republicans backing Trump will have to reckon with a new post-American international
order that shuts out the United States—the direct consequence of continuing policies
already enacted or implementing policies likely to be enacted if the Trump
administration’s approach to foreign policy is validated by Trump’s reelection. But if
Republicans decline to support the president in numbers su cient for his reelection,
Republican politicians and foreign-policy makers will have the opportunity to push for an
alternate approach—one that acknowledges the Trump administration’s successes while
shearing away its self-defeating tendencies.

at would mean strengthening U.S. alliances that have deteriorated under the Trump
administration. To forestall the trend toward creating institutions that work against U.S.
interests, the United States needs to start doing things with allies, not to them. Barring the
current leader of the Republican Party, both Republicans and Democrats broadly agree on
the value of U.S. alliances. Republicans in Congress have legislated against troop
withdrawals from allied countries, supported NATO against presidential threats, and
funded cooperative defense initiatives. Going forward, Republicans should push to
strengthen the United States’ alliances, especially with its North American partners. e
United States is missing many opportunities to consolidate North American cooperation
in energy development and distribution, workforce management, and the creation of
supply chains independent from China.

A new approach will require rethinking relationships not only with allies but also with
adversaries such as China. e Trump administration was right to continue the shift
acknowledging China’s refusal to become a responsible stakeholder. at shift, however,
began in the George W. Bush administration, when the Pentagon determined it needed
50 percent of naval forces in the Paci c, and continued with the Obama administration’s
“pivot to Asia.” Republicans should smooth out the erratic veers of Trump administration
policy regarding China and push for a cooperative strategy that builds a common front
with allies, achieving the economy of scale needed to push China to play by the rules.

Republicans backing Trump will have to reckon with a new post-American

international order.

To protect the U.S.-led order, policymakers should also reconsider the current approach to
so-called forever wars. e basic strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq over the last three
U.S. administrations has been to develop the ability of the Afghani and Iraqi governments
to manage threats. ese wars are creating the stability that will diminish the prospect of
future wars in the region. Most Republicans understand the need to sustain these
commitments and reject the appeal to abandon the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq.
ough policymakers have not been expending the political capital to sustain public
support for these relatively low-cost ways of achieving U.S. objectives, they must do so
going forward to regain public support.

In the Middle East, the Trump administration was right that moving the U.S. embassy to
Jerusalem would not ignite blowback. It rightly assessed that Arab states were less
committed to Palestinian concerns than they professed to be. Whether or not the Trump
administration anticipated it, shared concern among Gulf Arab states and Israel about
Iran and about U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East fostered the thaw of icy relations
in the region. Furthering that cooperation into greater support for Jordan, which is
buckling under the weight of Syrian refugees and stateless Palestinians, and a common
approach to Syria would diminish the need for U.S. military involvement.
Preventing a post-American international order will also require a new trade policy. Tari
wars are costing U.S. producers their markets and consumers higher prices. Americans
appreciate that trade is generally advantageous; the problem is that trade creates markets
and bene ts consumers broadly, but the costs of expanded trade fall on speci c sectors. To
rebuild support for trade, Republicans need to develop trade-adjustment policies that
maintain open markets while bu ering transitions for American workers.

Opportunities abound for constructing a Republican foreign policy that restores the luster
of the United States’ example and the strength that comes from cooperation. But it will
require Republicans repudiating Trump at the ballot box to avert the dark and dangerous
course his policies are following. If Republicans do not wrench foreign policy out of the
“America rst” course Trump and his supporters have put the United States on, this
country will nd itself not just alone but facing an international order bu ering itself from
U.S. in uence and indi erent to U.S. interests.

You are reading a free article.

Subscribe to Foreign Affairs to get unlimited access.
Paywall-free reading of new articles and a century of archives
Unlock access to iOS/Android apps to save editions for offline reading

Six issues a year in print, online, and audio editions

SUBSCRIBE NOW

KORI SCHAKE is Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise
Institute and the author of Safe Passage: The Transition From British to American Hegemony. She
served on the National Security Council and in the U.S. State Department in the George W. Bush
administration.

MORE BY KORI SCHAKE

More: United States Domestic Politics U.S. Foreign Policy Trump Administration

Recommended Articles
 When the Trump Administration Ends
e Painful Task of Rebuilding Trust in American Leadership Can
Begin
Christopher R. Hill
 A Foreign Policy for the Day After Trump
Reimagining—not Restoring—the Liberal International Order
Rebecca Friedman Lissner and Mira Rapp-Hooper

GET THE MAGAZINE

Save up to 55%
on Foreign A airs magazine!

SUBSCRIBE

F O R E I G N A F FA I R S

Weekly Newsletter
Get in-depth analysis delivered right to your inbox

SIGN UP

ABOUT

CONTACT

SUBSCRIPTION
FOLLOW

GRADUATE SCHOOL FORUM

From the
publishers of
Foreign Affairs

The Most:
Recent Shared Viewed

Protests, Chaos in Nigeria

by John Campbell

Revitalizing Human Trafficking Policy Twenty Years In

by Guest Blogger for Women Around the World

Envisioning a Green New Deal: A Global Comparison

by Andrew Chatzky

Published by the Council on Foreign Relations

Privacy Policy Terms of Use

©2020 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.