Of all the global consequences of President Donald Trump’s first
half-year, surely one of the most surprising is the rise in multilateral
diplomacy.
After all, this is the guy who came into office pledging to put America
First. He downgraded the security guarantees of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization to a
definite maybe -- and only if its members ponied up more defense dollars. The Iran nuclear pact was
“the worst deal ever,”
and the Paris accord on climate change wasn’t much better. The
Trans-Pacific Partnership was dead on arrival. Japan and South Korea’s
free-riding days were over. The North American Free Trade Agreement was
toast. The U.S.
would ignore
the rules of the World Trade Organization. And from its proposed cuts
in foreign aid and United Nations peacekeeping to the empty offices and
embassies of the State Department, the Trump administration has made
clear how little it thinks of
soft power and diplomacy.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the disintegration of the
international liberal order. It’s started to reconstitute itself -- only
not with the U.S. at its center. Unfortunately, that has less to do
with a realization among our allies and partners that the burden must be
more equitably shared than with the increasing
recognition
that Trump is not, as some U.S. diplomats liked to say about third
world dictators during the Cold War, “someone we can do business with.”
That sentiment found its most trenchant expression in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
declaration,
following Trump’s May trip to Europe, that the continent “must really
take our fate into our own hands.” The net result of the Trump
administration’s antipathy to free trade and cooperation on climate
change and refugee resettlement was a united front against the U.S. at
both the Group of Seven and
Group of 20 meetings.
Jilted by the U.S., the other 11 members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are
moving ahead on their own. Canada and Mexico are working together
more closely than ever to save Nafta. Asian nations are hedging their bets between the U.S. and China. Trump’s tough talk on Mexico has
prompted it to reach out to its hemispheric rival Brazil on defense cooperation.
In conclusion: But even bilateral agreements require a degree of discipline and
coordination that Trump has yet to display. For now, Trump’s reflexive
trashing of President Barack Obama’s policy choices without offering any
coherent alternatives has left the U.S. on awkward ground. It’s one
thing for other countries to fill a diplomatic vacuum created by a
gradual U.S. withdrawal; it’s another for them to do so in the wake of a
scorched-earth retreat. If and when the U.S. recovers its strategic
senses, it might find itself reduced to occupying a much less attractive
seat at the multilateral table.
Read more: The New World Order Is Leaving the U.S. Behind - Bloomberg
