U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords last month was widely denounced as a blow to global climate change cooperation. However, it has also been used by some observers to mark a turning point in President Trump’s vision of American global leadership. The Cipher Brief’s Fritz Lodge spoke with Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Stewart Patrick about what this decision meant for Trump and for the position of the United States as the “indispensable nation.”
The Cipher Brief: What does President Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement tell you about his approach to international Diplomacy?
Stewart Patrick: I think it epitomizes his orientation, which is basically highly nationalist and transactional. The President has embraced a narrative in which other countries have been taking advantage of the United States for too long. He has no concept of the enlightened self-interest of having the United States serve as the guardian or defender of the international order, so he looks skeptically at previous institutions and alliances and agreements that have been made.
In this case, he basically is walking away from the most important multilateral agreement of the 21st Century, and the consequences for his leadership, credibility, and for the planet at large are dire.
At the same time, it’s an incredibly backward looking step. Let’s just say that there is very little hope this move will improve the economic situation of coal workers. Instead, he is taking this step because international agreements – especially those targeting the environment – are easy targets for him to please his domestic base.
Another thing that is telling about his nationalist approach is the president’s curious justification for why he pulled out. It was not simply that this was going to allegedly hurt the American economy. Trump also claimed that this decision was made in part to protect and preserve American sovereignty, which was being jeopardized by the Paris Agreement. That is a completely ridiculous assertion.
The agreement was crafted explicitly by the Obama Administration as a voluntary bottom-up approach in which each country came to the table with intended contributions. That compromise was partly due to the difficulty of getting a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocols, as well as the difficulties inherent to getting a piece of legislation like this through congress. So it really wasn’t necessary for President Trump to pull out of this agreement, because he could have simply decided not to meet its goals.
The manner in which this withdrawal was done and the fact that it was done signals a retreat from global leadership, but I don’t think that is a problem for this president, because I don’t think he aspires to global leadership. You barely hear that phrase uttered.
I would say that we are now seeing a retreat to a pre-1941 mentality on the part of at least the nationalist advisors in the White House, and that is an era in which the United States pursued a much more insular foreign policy. It also opens the field for others to exert their own leadership.
In the past, it appeared that the United States was the “indispensable power,” now it seems that the U.S. is all too dispensable. You saw this very quickly after the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Agreement in the statements from China and the European Union that they would move full speed ahead with the Paris Accords themselves.
TCB: What are the most troubling international responses that you’ve seen to the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and to President Trump’s conspicuous focus on bilateral meetings at the G20? If there is an erosion of U.S. global leadership, how fast is it happening?
Patrick: The Paris Accords, and the incredibly uncomfortable conversations that President Trump has had with America’s allies and closest partners, are really showing the countries of the world that they can no longer rely on the United States either to provide them security or to provide them with leadership.
Increasingly, there is a recognition that one of the biggest threats to the international order is the failure of this administration to be a solid and reliable security partner or to protect and encourage the liberal economic order.
There are conceivably ways that Donald Trump could have had some of these tough conversations. Obviously burden-sharing debates within NATO are valid, and dissatisfaction with the global trade regime is widespread. But there are unilateral ways of saying we’re not going to play by these rules, and then there are more multilateral ways of trying to renegotiate some of those rules in a more constructive fashion. The Trump Administration appears to prefer the former, although the administration does appear to be taking a more multilateral approach toward renegotiating NAFTA.
There may be a way to move forward to make sure that the world economic system is more worker friendly and equal, but it is unclear that Donald Trump is moving meaningfully towards that goal.
TCB: If the administration’s behavior continues in the same pattern, what would you see as the worst case scenario?
Patrick: One scenario, on the economic front, would be a descent into tit-for-tat protectionist policies in which you had U.S. retaliation against what it considers unfair trade policies emulated by others and a gradual reduction in the quantity and quality of overall trade globally. This could also result in the creation of more self-contained regional economic blocs, which the United States would not benefit from.
The worst case scenario on the security front is a fundamental rupture in the transatlantic alliance. I think we’re still quite far from there, in part because I think that a lot of people wonder whether the Trump Administration’s policy is lasting or specific to him. In other words, when he leaves office, will there be an opportunity to return to the pre-Trump norm? The problem is that – even if this is not permanent – there is a tremendous amount of damage that the current president can do before elections in three and a half years.
There is just a fundamental lack of trust right now, and part of it has to do with a fundamental lack of process. The lack of process in terms of any form of coherent foreign policy from Washington makes it very difficult for other countries to know how to engage this president. It’s possible that the president will settle down and become more predictable, but the problem is that there are competing centers of power within the White House, and you have a very anemic State Department where major positions have not been filled. There’s much less guidance for officials to be able to tell friends, allies, or potential adversaries where the United States is actually headed.
We are really seeing what happens when there is a vacuum of leadership. Not simply a rejection of past orthodoxies, but also a situation where you have no clear sense of what strategy the administration is pursuing.
TCB: Let’s say that the Trump Administration decides to change tack and attempt to reclaim the traditional U.S. global leadership role, what would that look like? What would they have to do to win back the trust of international partners?
Patrick: The first thing that needs to be done is to reassure the core of the liberal western order that its concerns are being met, and that the United States has an incentive which is greater than simply a counterterrorism agenda. And that allies can count on the United States being there from a security sense. Otherwise, we are going to begin to see them hedge against the U.S. security architecture with possible adversaries like China and Russia.
I also think that to do this, the administration will have to drop much of its nationalist and populist rhetoric, which I think runs against European Union values. A key aspect of the transatlantic relationship is U.S. support for the EU in some variety, and one thing that is significant about Donald Trump is that he appears to see the European Union – as an entity – as a threat to the United States. I think he believes it to be an unnatural union, and that really needs to change for things to improve.
TCB: Last thoughts?
Patrick: The other thing that has been really remarkable about the [Trump] presidency is not only its lack of support for the traditional institutions of the postwar west, but also its almost total silence with respect to human rights and democracy.
I think that is extraordinarily damaging. I also don’t believe that it’s sustainable over the long term given U.S. political culture. Domestically, the notion of cozying up to foreign dictators is going to be unsustainable, and internationally, it’s going to be disastrous to the historical brand of the United States.
We are now seeing a real disappointment and disillusionment abroad in terms of the global image and role of the United States. The notion that the United States has always stood for something – a set of universal ideals that it protects or supports – has always been an important part of U.S. diplomatic influence. Sacrificing that and ceding any pretense to the moral high ground is disastrous, because then one is left asking what the United States actually stands for in the world.
