Trump thinks he is King of the World: He’s Mistaken

Would dairy farmers in Wisconsin, or the sugar barons of Florida, like new competition from a zero tariff New Zealand or Brazil?

Whatever our personal opinions, it is not for us here in the UK to pass public judgement on the Trump cabinet, and Trump actions inside the USA. That is a matter for the American people. His campaign spelled out what he would do if he won. He got the mandate he sought, and the latest US opinion poll shows his approval rating at 53%, 69% admiring him for being tough, 63% see him as energetic, and 58% regard him as effective. The Wall Street Journal reports that his base is delighted with him.

But it is very much our business to assess, comment on, critique and oppose Trump’s geopolitical policies because they affect us, our economy, security, key alliances, how the world functions in state-to-state relations, and whether international institutions and international law continue to be relevant or are binned.

The man in the White House gives the impression of believing he is akin to being King of the World, both by divine right (God saved him from a bullet for his purpose) and the exceptionalism that most Americans attach to themselves and their state. Donald J Trump speaks, threatens and the world obeys...or so he appears to think.

Trump does have great power to wield, can disrupt and destroy the world order that his country laid down at Breton Woods in 1944, and every US president has followed ever since. Whether he has any idea of the probable consequences of his actions, and the sheer impossibility of accomplishing some of his declared international major objectives is open to doubt.

The world rules-based order regulates the conduct of states with each other- respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, underpinned by norms and rules in a network of political, economic and trade laws embedded within international institutions. In practice, it is far from perfect and the Hegemon that made the rules, the USA (and others) has frequently broken them. But by and large the framework of an international legal system for states’ conduct, especially in their treatment of peoples, and in economic and trade relations, has worked and been beneficial.

The World has changed since Bretton Woods

Many sovereign states that exist today were not present at Bretton Woods, being still under colonial rule. Among those who did attend none could contest the might and clout of the United States, the only combatant to emerge from World War II more powerful and richer than when entering the conflict. Britain was skint. The USSR ravaged by unprecedented levels of destruction. The world order, its institutions and its rules are a construct of the USA.

Today, in a world very different from that of 1944, there is opposition to the US world order. China and Russia openly dislike it and want to replace it as a means of diminishing United States global power and influence. The new states constantly point out that they were not there when the rules were made, and want changes. None of them have managed to upend it, or change it. Then along comes Donald J Trump and does the job for them.

The rule of territorial integrity and sovereignty swept away with direct threats to “take” Greenland and the Panama Canal, not to mention the unilateral assumed right of America to negotiate and decide the fate and future of Ukraine. The international crime of ethnic cleansing is seemingly of no importance in Gaza if it can get the real-estate mogul that is the other part of Trump excited at the possibility of profit from development. Trade treaties with neighbours Mexico and Canada not worth the paper written on. The World Trade Organisation, painfully, slowly but finally successfully built to bring certainty, stability and growth in trade between all countries large and small, rendered helpless. Over eighty years of work undone in a few weeks. What a man!

While western leaders, if such is a not a questionable description of those sitting in ministerial office, are in a panic, Putin smiles, Xi Jinping is as calm as ever, no doubt noting that the Trump doctrine fits well into his Taiwan policy, and the wee fella in North Korea must wonder, remembering Trumps’s interest in resort development there, if now is the time to get a deal allowing him to keep his nukes with all those sanctions lifted as the Trump organisation adds another resort to its portfolio.

New Doctrine – Same Old Doctrine

The Trump doctrine is not new. It is the old system of great powers deciding the fate of others to suit the great powers. The Monroe doctrine of 1823, when the USA told European powers to stay out of the Americas north and south, the 1848 Berlin Conference when Africa was carved up, and the 1878 Congress of Berlin when Britain, Austrian and the Ottoman Empire gained at the expense of Russia, are examples. In all of them it was the interest of the great powers that mattered, without others being consulted, or any consideration of the consequences of that practice. The 1878 Berlin Congress is illustrative of that last point. The people in the Balkans, seeking to be free of Ottoman control, were ignored, and the scene was set for future crisis.

That was a world in which the great powers could impose their will on others. It doesn’t exist now. Power in the world is more dispersed than ever before. However much he wants to be, Trump is not the 21 century Bismarck. The USA has power that can hurt others, but others have power that can hurt the USA. The USA can destroy today’s institutions, but others can fill the vacuum he creates with the creation of regional alliances, and economic blocs, and have already done so – BRICS, EU, Trans Pacific Partnership, and African reginal and all-African organisations are examples; and there is the counter-vailing power centre of China where, unreported in the West Xi Jinping has been meeting leaders of states from all parts of Asia, assuring them of the recognition of their sovereignty, of economic co-operation and non-interference in their internal affairs, demonstrating another way a great power can operate to its advantage in this changed diverse world.

Trade is not the superpower weapon Trump thinks it is

A Boomerang comes to mind

The flow of goods and services under the rules of the WTO are vital to the living standards of hundreds of millions of people. If by weaponizing trade Trump destroys the WTO, and punishes trading partners with high tariffs, the rest of the world, from necessity, cannot just sit, wail, and take it. Counter measures will emerge. How about new regional and region-to-region trade agreements that mirror the positive rules of the WTO enabling trade to flow as previously between them, and open up new markets as states start looking elsewhere than America, and lock out goods from USA? That would go down like a lead balloon in the US farm industry which has great reliance on exports, and for its multilateral engaged giant companies.

Trump’s base may be delighted by his threats and actions on trade, but there are other voices in the USA who are aware of the dangers to their country of his policy, and they are speaking out. His reciprocal tariff ban – imposing the same tariffs on foreigners that they impose on the USA – has invited biting scorn. One commentator has asked: if New Zealand has zero tariffs on dairy produce, and Brazil on sugar tariffs, “someone should ask Wisconsin dairy farmers and Florida sugar barons if they are ready to face open competition” for the first time? Even amidst the applause for Trump’s attack on USAID, a number of Republican House members and Senators from the farming states are seeking exemptions for food aid within the programme, because USAID buys enormous amounts of their products.

In picking their counter-tariff strategies and their power over the supply of rare metals, other countries can pick out sections of the US economy where pain for its businesses and citizens will translate directly into political pain for its politicians in Congress and in the States. When, if, that happens, the King in the White House will start to be seen as a lesser mortal, with pressure on him to change his tune.

Then there is the Achilles heel of the United States: its enormous and ever-growing debt of $36 trillion, which Trump’s domestic tax cutting policies will add to substantially, making its ability to borrow essential to its economic survival. I wonder if Trump has ever contemplated the fix he and his country would be in if the rest of the world decided not to continue lending it vast sums of money?

There are other areas of Trump foreign policy which, once the present partner governments of the US replace panic with analysis and counter-actions, he will be forced to do something unusual for him: realise and admit he has been wrong, and cannot get his own boorish selfish way. Ukraine, Nato, Gaza, and threats to the ICC are among them, and are subjects for a future essay.