On 13 Dec 2024, Democrats found it simple to portray Donald Trump as an exception to the standards and procedures that had mostly guided US foreign policy for many years after his first election. However, Joe Biden’s administration currently seems to be an elegiac attempt to reestablish American dominance of a rules-based global system. In contrast, Trump’s second term is set to fully embrace the zero-sum transactionalism that order was designed to replace. The rest of the world does not expect the old United States to return, and Democrats need to adapt to this new reality.
Trump was not the only one responsible for this change. There has long been a decline in trust in American leadership, both domestically and internationally. In addition to undermining trust in Washington as a guardian of international security, the invasion of Iraq and the excesses of the so-called war on terror provided a convenient pretext for leaders in Beijing and Moscow to justify autocracy and behavior that went against the rules-based order.
The globalization-driven wealth concentrations and the 2008 financial crisis encouraged opposition to the post-Cold War adoption of democratic capitalism. These challenges came from groups of nations that provided an alternative to American hegemony, as well as from autocratic populists within liberal democracies. Technology, especially the rise of unregulated social media, accelerated these trends by providing autocrats with tools for monitoring and control. It also made it easier for conspiracy theories, false information, and hate speech to proliferate, dividing people globally.
Biden responded to this dilemma with policies that were schizophrenic. When Biden first said, “America is back,” he was pointing to a return to normalcy following the unusual Trump years. However, that became impossible due to the disintegration of the rules-based system that had already occurred throughout the first two decades of this century. Even though Biden utilized the well-known language of American dominance within a rules-based order to convey his plans, his policies frequently acknowledged that fact.
This brought to light the hubris and hypocrisy that have frequently defined parts of American foreign policy that operate beyond the law and feed the narratives of both populists and autocrats. They contend that while we might not be pure, no one is. Think about the conflicts in US foreign policy lately. With exceptions for autocratic allies in cities like Riyadh and New Delhi, the proclamation of a conflict between democracy and authoritarianism was made.
The Inflation Reduction Act’s industrial policy and a complex system of export and investment restrictions aimed at containing China ran counter to calls for the kind of coordinated action needed to manage the rise of new technologies and fight climate change. The extensive use of sanctions was justified by reference to international rules, but these initiatives only served to unite governments with disparate ideologies, including those of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, as well as alternative alliances like the BRICS.
Realist responses to the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s frontal assault on the West were more responsible for NATO’s expansion and allies’ mobilization behind Ukraine than were pleas for democratic unity. Washington’s policies were frequently a reaction to the lack of a liberal order, even though they were presented as a defense of it.
Unconditional backing for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demolition of Gaza and his military escalation in Lebanon was Biden’s most notable foreign policy decision in his last year in office. Administration insiders frequently claimed in the immediate wake of October 7 that Biden was attempting to “hug Bibi” to continue having sway over Israel’s policies.
The US was adopting a reflexive policy of support for Israel, which ignored how much the Israeli government and the world had changed. This approach was a grave misreading of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition and the current situation. Even untrained observers could see that Washington’s support for Israel was not governed by any rules-based order; that calls for humanitarian aid, military restraint, and a negotiated cease-fire in exchange for hostages were undermined by Biden’s refusal to use any US leverage; and that Netanyahu had every reason to disregard calls for de-escalation due to his own political interests.
Trump has been able to capitalize on the populist disenchantment with US national security strategies. He has continuously attacked free trade, unaccountable “deep states,” perpetual wars, free-riding friends, and the damage that globalization has caused to the working class. Ironically, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to support the policies that led to these results for a considerable amount of time.
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The New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs (NYCFPA) is a policy, research, and educational organization headquartered in New York State with an office in Washington D.C. NYCFPA is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, institution devoted to conducting in-depth research and analysis on every aspect of American foreign policy and its impact around the world. The organization is funded by individual donors. The organization receives no corporate or government donations.