Message from the Director

In its first five months, the second Trump administration has created chaos in international affairs that is unparalleled since 1941. In international security, it has threatened to abandon Ukraine, which is fighting to defend its democracy against Russian aggression. It has undermined the credibility of US commitments to defend our NATO allies in Europe, our allies in Asia, and Taiwan, which escalates the risk of wider aggression by Russia and China. In trade, it has repudiated treaty commitments that made the United States a predictable partner and has disavowed the commitments to nondiscrimination and reciprocity that were at the heart of the international trade regime. Predictability and multilateralism have been replaced by coercion and chaotically shifting tariffs that cause global stock markets to gyrate and deter investment. Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Accord on Climate Change for the second time and reversed Biden-era policies that were intended to make the United States part of the solution to the existential climate crisis. Trump has reversed the historic US commitment to help poorer countries to develop their economies, a commitment that goes back to Franklin Roosevelt, which has been viewed by Republican and Democratic administrations ever since as promoting a crucial US national interest. He has abolishing USAID, halting foreign aid and withdrawing US aid workers who were feeding starving people in Sudan and vaccinating children across Africa. He has eliminated US aid for democracy promotion and has silenced Voice of America, which played a key role in winning the Cold War and remained the only credible news source available in many authoritarian countries, and has disavowed the US stance of promoting democracy abroad.

Perhaps most troubling of all, Trump’s domestic policies aimed at subverting and undermining democracy in America signal that it is free season on democratic institutions. He has turned the power of the Federal government against law firms that seek to challenge him in court and has succeeded in causing many to withdraw their claims. He has weaponized Federal research grants, Federal contracts and student visa policies to silence his critics in Universities. He has asserted Federal authority to oversee research and curriculum at private universities to impose his own vision of ideological correctness, and has targeted Universities that resist, including Harvard and Columbia, with a wide range of sanctions using public resources that were never intended to be used for such purposes. He has sought to silence National Public Radio and defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He is attempting to eliminate the independence of legally independent agencies established by Congress, including the Federal Reserve. The administration is attempting to bypass due process rights of immigrants. Many of these undemocratic actions have been found to be unconstitutional and have been halted by the courts. Indeed, no president has issued so many executive orders so quickly, and none has had such a high percentage of his executive orders found to be illegal. However, Trump’s allies in Congress have attempted to pass legislation to remove the courts’ enforcement power, and this provision was included in the omnibus budget reconciliation bill that recently passed the House. Free speech in America is already being chilled. Universities are rewriting their policies to try to avoid coming into the crosshairs of the administration, eliminating the words “diversity” and “affirmative action,” and are adopting draconian policies to deter student activism.

In an article forthcoming in Foreign Affairs in July, Robert Keohane and the late Joseph Nye muse that Trump’s second administration may mean “the end of the long American Century.” The United States remains the most powerful country on Earth, and Donald Trump’s ability to sow chaos reflects the country’s extraordinary economic capabilities. Keohane and Nye’s famous study Power and Interdependence explored the uses of asymmetric interdependence. Most of our major trade partners are more dependent on the US market than the United States is on their market, so the United States has always had the ability to push them around. Our military allies are more dependent on US protection than the United States is on their capabilities. The United States issues the dollar, which is the global reserve currency, so other countries are dependent on US policies and assistance in ways that the United States has not been dependent for more than a century. However, all of this dominance and influence is based on a long-term policy of restraint. The United States has the strongest network of allies because it refrains from using its resources to push them around, and those allies multiply US capabilities. Countries have invested in trade relationships that make them dependent on US markets because US commitments to predictable policies have been credible. The dollar plays the central role in international finance because US institutions have been credible. The United States historically acted through multilateral international institutions that were based on the consent of the members, rather than through bilateral arm twisting. In addition, there is an ideological component of US influence, which Nye called “soft power.” The United States exerts influence because it has a historic commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

Donald Trump’s administration threatens to undo eighty years of careful work that built US global influence after the Second World War. Reacting to the Trump administration’s retreat from democracy, the new Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, said in February that it would be necessary for Europe to achieve “real independence from the USA.” The European Union is maintaining a multilateral trade regime with most of the rest of the world that excludes the United States; it is stepping up to replace the United States in the Ukraine conflict (see Piotr Klodkowski’s excellent analysis in this newsletter); and it is attempting to sustain multilateral cooperation to address climate change. Europe is still committed to economic development, human rights and democracy for poor countries. By turning away from Europe and democratic values, the Trump administration is alienating the United States’ closest friends and allies and most important economic partners. It is also turning away from what made US foreign policy American.

Randall W. Stone is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies.