“We have no eternal allies, and we have no
perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests
it is our duty to follow”.
Lord Palmerston.
Alphen,
Netherlands. 2 May. If one wants to understand the Donald J (‘J’ for Julius?)
Trump world-view one had better be armed with an MBA rather than the
international relations degrees I hold. Trump’s 27 April “America First” speech
was less foreign policy and more the kind of doctrine beloved of American
presidents since Harry S. Truman in the late 1940s. As one would expect
European policy wonks went into dismissive over-drive. The current mantra of
much of the European policy herd is that anything Trump says must be by
definition dumb. Rather, I have considered the provenance, the content, and the
implications of Trump’s world view as seen possibly from the White House next
January.
First, let me
deal with the title; America First.
Perhaps it was an unhappy accident. After all, it is a natural political leap
for a populist, rabble-rousing, nationalist of the political Right to call for
America first in the midst of a US presidential campaign. This is not least
because it implies that President Obama has put everything but America first
and that Hillary Clinton would do likewise. If no accident then the Trump
Doctrine harks back to the America First Committee established on 4 September
1940, almost a year to the day after the outbreak of World War Two in Europe. The
committee comprised hard-line isolationists desperate to keep the United States
out of what the group saw as another European ‘civil’ war.
However, to my
mind there is little evidence in the speech that Trump was aware of the
historical irony of adopting America
First. There are many current accusations
against Trump that stand up to evidential analysis, but isolationism is perhaps
the least weighty. No, to understand how Trump sees the world it is vital to
understand the man and the group from which he hails.
Donald J. Trump
is a New York businessman, an entrepreneur, a risk-taker and deal-maker. He is
most decidedly not a member of the Washington policy establishment, and
certainly not a member of the Washington foreign policy establishment. Read the
speech and it becomes rapidly apparent that Trump sees foreign policy as an
extension of business; a series of transactions in which the powerful succeed
because they are by definition smart and ruthless, and the weak must accept both
their place and their fate.
Professor Mary
Beard in her fascinating new history of Rome makes a comment about Caesar
Augustus that could equally apply to Trump’s world-view today: “The emperor’s
did not make the empire, the empire made the emperors”. Trump is a business
emperor and his empire has made him. He has succeeded in business precisely
because he understands the space between power and weakness and how best to
exploit it and the billions of people who live in that space.
Therefore, President
Trump would have no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies. And, whilst Trump
uses the ‘love’ word a lot, he ‘loves’ only to the extent that an ally is an
ally (i.e. a supplicant) and for how long. Consequently, there is absolutely no
room for sentimentalism in Trump’s world-view, no shared values, no special
relationships, and no historical worth. A President Trump would be willing to
be friends with anyone who supports his power, and an implacable, ruthless foe
of those who do not. Critically, he would be utterly dismissive of those who
seek to sit on a fence between the two, which is where much of the European
elite would seek to ‘hide’. Equally, if a foe sees the error of his or her ways
and accepts Trump First then a Trump presidency bear no grudges.
That is why a
Trump presidency would likely endeavour to re-kindle the ideas of Viscount
Palmerston at the height of British imperial power the chimera of which still
lingers in some parts of the British and American bodies politic. As such he
would define the American interest in the same way any successful hard-bitten New
York businessman would; as an extension of himself. That is why unlike Ronald
Reagan there are no members of the Washington foreign policy elite on his team to
soften the edges of the Trump Doctrine.
Trump’s
hard-edged world-view is also why so many European commentators are bleating.
Trump would bring to an end the comforting transatlantic relationship as
Europeans have come to know it. That is what Trump clearly implied in his disparaging
remarks about NATO. Indeed, to Trump Europe is evidence of all that is wrong in
his mind about socialised, welfare junky European state. To Trump Europeans are
an inefficient, free-riding, ‘socialist’ drag on American leadership and thus would
not fit to be either a partner or an ally of his America. To Trump the EU is a
failed ‘business’ led by yesterday’s ‘men’ unable or unwilling to cope in the
twenty-first century world, constantly asking the American taxpayer to foot a
security welfare bill so Europeans can continue to live a life they can no
longer afford.
Furthermore, by
focussing on the Trump Doctrine many Europeans hope that a President Clinton
would be ‘better’ precisely because she would allow them to continue in their
free-riding ways. She would not. Even if she wanted the coming Congress would
not let her. Yes, she would be softer in her rhetoric. However, she too has
little time for a Europe that wallows in its copious self-delusions.
The ultimate
irony of a Trump Doctrine would be the absence of one. A presidential doctrine
is traditionally linked to American grand strategy; the organisation of America’s
immense means in pursuit of global ends. Instead, the foreign policy of Donald
J. Trump would be more akin to a form of super-mercantilism, a series of
iterative trade-offs for marginal gain.
Therefore, to
understand the Trump Doctrine all one need do is add the missing bit to last
week’s speech. The title should have read; America First, China Second, Russia
Third, Europe, maybe, Fourth.
Europeans had
better start thinking about how to do ‘business’ with a Trump White House. If
not, we’re fired!
Julian
Lindley-French
