Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has backed up the protectionist – and even isolationist – rhetoric of his campaign with concrete action. In a flurry of activity, the president has confirmed his intent not to pursue ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade treaty, signed two executive orders trying to ban immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries, and repeatedly threatened to renegotiate or even cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), amongst other initiatives. Now, this apparent retreat from free trade and global leadership may be provoking an international realignment, as global powers like China rush to take advantage of the strategic and economic vacuum, which a more isolationist American might leave behind. The Cipher Brief’s Fritz Lodge spoke with Gary Hufbauer, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, about some of the ways that other countries might take up the mantle of free trade and globalism.
The Cipher Brief: Are we seeing a convergence of interests and strategic alignment forming between new leaders of free trade and globalism, in opposition to some of the protectionist – or even isolationist – impulses that we have seen in countries like the UK after Brexit and here in the United States?
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