of the liberal world order. He has broken The Plot Against with 70 years of tradition by signaling the end of U.S. support for the European American Foreign Union: endorsing Brexit and making common cause with right-wing European Policy parties that seek to unravel the postwar European project. In his inaugural address, Trump declared, “From this moment on, Can the Liberal it’s going to be America first,” and he Order Survive? announced his intention to rethink the central accomplishments of the U.S.-led G. John Ikenberry order—the trade and alliance systems. Where previous presidents have invoked the country’s past foreign policy triumphs, s the world witnessing the demise Trump describes “horrible deals” and of the U.S.-led liberal order? If so, allies that “aren’t paying their bills.” His Ithis is not how it was supposed to is a vision of a dark and dangerous world happen. The great threats were supposed in which the is besieged by to come from hostile revisionist powers Islamic , immigrants, and crime seeking to overturn the postwar order. as its wealth and confidence fade. In The United States and Europe were his revisionist narrative, the era of Pax supposed to stand shoulder to shoulder Americana—the period in which the to protect the gains reaped from 70 years United States wielded the most power of cooperation. Instead, the world’s most on the world stage—is defined above all powerful state has begun to sabotage by national loss and decline. the order it created. A hostile revisionist Trump’s challenge to the liberal power has indeed arrived on the scene, order is all the more dangerous because but it sits in the Oval Office, the beating it comes with a casual disrespect for the heart of the free world. Across ancient norms and values of liberal and modern eras, orders built by great itself. The president has questioned the powers have come and gone—but they legitimacy of federal judges, attacked the have usually ended in murder, not suicide. press, and shown little regard for the U.S. President Donald Trump’s every Constitution or the rule of law. Facts, instinct runs counter to the ideas that have evidence, scientific knowledge, due dili­ underpinned the postwar international gence, reasoned discourse—the essential system. Trade, alliances, international law, elements of democratic political life— , environmental protection, are disparaged daily. One must look torture, and human rights—on all these long and hard to find any utterances by core issues, Trump has made pronounce­ Trump about the virtues of the nation’s ments that, if acted on, would bring to political traditions, the genius of the an end the United States’ role as guarantor Founding Fathers, or the great struggles and accomplishments of liberal democracy. G. JOHN IKENBERRY is Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at This silence speaks loudly. And in . February, when asked on Fox News

May/June 2017 1 G. John Ikenberry why he respected Russian President DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU GOT Vladimir Putin even though he is “a Trump’s dark narrative of national decline killer,” Trump dismissed 250 years of ignores the great American accomplish­ national ideals and the work of generations ment of the twentieth century: the build­ of Americans who have strived to reach ing of the liberal international order. the moral high ground, responding, “What, Constructed in the years following you think our country’s so innocent?” World War II, the order is complex and The profundity of this political sprawling, organized around economic moment is greater still because it occurs openness, multilateral institutions, security amid a wider crisis across the liberal cooperation, democratic solidarity, and democratic world. The centrist and internationalist ideals. For decades, the progressive governing coalitions that United States has served as the system’s built the postwar order have weakened. first citizen, providing leadership and Liberal democracy itself appears fragile, public goods—anchoring the alliances, vulnerable in particular to far-right stabilizing the world economy, fostering populism. Some date these troubles to cooperation, and championing the values the global financial crisis of 2008, which of openness and liberal democracy. Europe widened economic inequality and and Japan helped build the order, tying fueled grievances across the advanced their fortunes to multilateral organizations industrial , the original and enlightened U.S. leadership. The patrons and beneficiaries of the order. bilateral alliance with the United States is In recent years, Western publics have enshrined in Japan’s constitution. Nato increasingly come to regard the liberal played a critical role in Germany’s postwar international order not as a source of rebirth and, half a century later, its peaceful stability and solidarity among like-minded reunification. Over time, more states states but as a global playground for signed up, attracted to the fair-minded the rich and powerful. Trump is less a rules and norms of the order. A system of cause than a consequence of the failings alliances now stretches across the globe, of liberal democracy. But now that he is linking the United States to Europe, East in office, his agenda promises to further Asia, and the Middle East. undermine its foundations. Compared with past orders—imperial If the liberal international order is and anarchic systems of various sorts, to survive, leaders and constituencies from the Greek and Chinese worlds of around the world that still support it the classical era to the nineteenth-century will need to step up. Much will rest on European imperial system—the liberal the shoulders of Prime Minister Shinzo order stands alone. Choose your metric. Abe of Japan and Chancellor Angela But in terms of wealth creation, the Merkel of Germany, the only two leaders pro­­vision of physical security and of consequence left standing who support economic stability, and the promotion it. Trump has abdicated responsibility of human rights and political protections, for the world the United States built, no other international order in history and only time will tell the full extent of comes close. The liberal order may have the damage he will wreak. its shortcomings—costly and ill-advised wars have been fought in its name, and

2 The Plot Against American Foreign Policy vast economic and social injustices policymakers have begun to talk about remain—but it has empowered people building an eu nuclear weapons program. across the world who seek a better life China, meanwhile, has already begun to within a relatively open and rules-based step into the geopolitical vacuum Trump global system. is creating: in January, for example, in a When Trump sees the United States speech at the World Economic Forum, “losing” to other countries, then, he in Davos, Chinese President Xi Jinping misses the bigger picture. As the most launched Beijing’s bid for leadership of powerful state in the system, the United the world economy. As the order unravels, States has agreed to restrain itself and Trump may succeed in bullying some operate within an array of regional and U.S. partners into a slightly better deal global institutions. In 1945, at the meeting on trade or defense burden-sharing, but in San Francisco that established the un, he will squander a 70-year investment President Harry Truman declared, “We in a system that has made the United all have to recognize, no matter how great States more secure, more prosperous, our strength, that we must deny ourselves and more influential. the license to do always as we please.” The United States became, in effect, a DANGEROUS IDEAS user-friendly superpower. Its power was Trump’s revisionism is dangerous loosely institutionalized, making it more precisely because it attacks the logic predictable and approachable. The country that undergirds the United States’ may spend more on security than its global position. There are voices in partners, but they host and subsidize the administration—Secretary of U.S. forces and offer political solidarity. Defense James Mattis and National Washington receives geopolitical access Security Adviser H. R. McMaster— to Europe and East Asia, where it still that do not appear to share Trump’s wields unrivaled influence. It gives up destructive instincts. But the worldview a little of what Trump sees as unused of the president and his base has long leverage, but in return it gets a better been clear, and it represents a frontal deal: a world of friendly states willing assault on the core convictions of the to cooperate. postwar U.S. global project. Trump’s transactional view of The first is internationalism: the inter­national relations misses the belief that the United States can best larger, interdependent logic of the advance its economic, political, and U.S.-led system. The United States security interests by leading the order remains the linchpin of this order, and engaging deeply with the major and if it withdraws, the architecture of regions of the world. This was the bargains and commit­ments will give hard-earned lesson of the twentieth way. Countries that expected to live century. From the 1930s onward, the within this system will need to make United States has faced the prospect other plans. On the campaign trail, of a world divided into competing Trump said that it might be time for , blocs, and spheres of influence Japan and South to get their own controlled by hostile great powers. nuclear weapons, and some European The building of the postwar order

May/June 2017 3 G. John Ikenberry was driven by a bipartisan aspiration For decades, Trump has displayed a more to reject such a world. mercantilist, or zero-sum, understanding Yet when Trump looks beyond U.S. of trade. In his view, trade is a game of borders, he does not appear to see an winners and losers, not an exchange that order—defined as a strategic environ- generates mutual gains. Small wonder, ment with rules, institutions, partners, then, that the new administration withdrew and relationships. Not surprisingly, from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (tpp) therefore, he sees no larger significance and has pledged to renegotiate the North in U.S. alliances. He has made it clear American Free Trade Agreement. Even that the United States’ commitment to the European Union, according to Trump, allies and regions is contingent. It is a represents merely a tool Germany uses business proposition, and allies need to “beat the United States on trade,” as to pay up. he said in an interview in January. The second fundamental conviction A third conviction underpinning U.S. that Trump rejects is the U.S. commit- global leadership has been the United ment to open trade. This responsibility States’ support for multilateral rules and dates back to the 1934 Reciprocal Trade institutions. This is what has made U.S. Agreements Act, which started the slow power so unique—and legitimate. After process of reopening the world economy World War II, the United States proceeded after the Great Depression. Ever since, to create a global web of institutions and trade has played a central role in U.S. regimes. As a result, other countries foreign policy. It has strengthened the realized that they could benefit from U.S. U.S. economy and driven the postwar ascendancy. Global institutions fostered ascendancy of the liberal democratic cooperation and allowed Washington to world. As the historian Paul Johnson attract allies, making its global presence has argued, in the decades following more acceptable and durable. These World War II, the open trading system institutions helped the international ushered in “the most rapid and prolonged order solve common problems. And economic expansion in world history.” when the ended, no anti- Since then, it has provided the economic American bloc formed. To the contrary, glue that has bound Europe, East Asia, countries gravitated toward a global and the rest of the world together. The liberal internationalist system. The un, , championed the Bretton Woods monetary system, by the United States, has developed arms control regimes, environmental elaborate trade rules and dispute- agreements, human rights conventions— settlement mechanisms that make the these features of the order are easy to system fair and legitimate, and the take for granted, but they would not exist organization has given the United without a persistent U.S. commitment. States tools to defend itself in trade Trump has shown little respect for conflicts with countries such as China. this accomplishment. He has signaled Every postwar president has regarded that he is willing to rethink the United this open system as integral to the States’ financial and political commitment prosperity of the United States and to to the un. He disdains international law its larger geopolitical goals—until Trump. and endorses torture. Trump has yet

4 foreign affairs The Plot Against American Foreign Policy to grasp what past presidents learned, immigration not only threatens national sometimes the hard way: that working security; it also poses a cultural danger, through the un and the U.S. alliance as it plants the seeds of multiculturalism system leverages U.S. power. When the and accelerates the decline of a white United States embraces multilateralism, Christian society. What has made the it gains greater public acceptance in U.S. experience with immigration work other countries, particularly in Western so well is the notion that the U.S. polity democracies, making it easier for their is based on civic nationalism, not ethnic governments to support U.S. policy. nationalism—that the United States’ An “America first” attitude toward political community is defined by the global rules and cooperation will breed Constitution, by citizenship, and by a generation of anti-Americanism—and shared values, not by ethnicity or religion. it will take years to undo the damage. Trump’s advisers speak the language of Fourth, Trump disdains the multicul- ethnic nationalism, and the world has tural and open character of American taken note. Protests against the new society. U.S. power is often denominated administration’s immigration policies in units of gdp and military spending. have broken out in cities all over the But American society itself has been a world. The United States’ great myth sort of hidden asset. The United States about itself—that it offers refuge to is a nation of immigrants, and its openness the tired, the poor, and the “huddled has attracted people the world over. masses yearning to breathe free”— Racial, ethnic, and religious diversity remains a powerful source of the United makes the U.S. economy more dynamic, States’ appeal abroad. But Trump is and countless familial and cultural linkages threatening to extinguish it. tie the United States to the rest of the Finally, every U.S. president from world. Immigrants come to the United to Barack Obama has States to make their mark, but they do maintained that an enduring community not entirely leave the old world behind, of liberal democracies exists, and that and the resulting networks boost U.S. democracies possess a unique capacity to influence in real, if intangible, ways. cooperate. During the Cold War, there was This aspect of U.S. leadership is an authentic belief—felt in Washington often forgotten, but it becomes visible but also in European and Asian capitals— when threatened, as it is today. The that “the free world” was more than a Trump administration’s flagship policies temporary alliance to defend against the on immigration—building a wall along . In 1949, as he introduced the Mexican border, banning immigrants the text of the treaty for the proposed from six Muslim-majority countries, Atlantic alliance in Washington, U.S. and temporarily barring all refugees— Secretary of State Dean Acheson argued have sent an unmistakable message to that the world’s democracies shared the world. But more worrying than the “fundamental” bonds—“the strongest kind specific policies themselves are the of ties, because they are based on moral ethnonationalist, nativist ideas behind convic­tion, on acceptance of the same them. For some of his advisers, such as values in life.” Initially, this community Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, comprised only the United States, Western

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Europe, and Japan, but since the end of signed the Atlantic Charter, a declaration the Cold War, it has expanded. of their shared commitment to building a Trump disdains this vision of the order, better world after the war ended. They refusing to distinguish between liberal pledged to establish an international democratic friends and autocratic rivals— system based on the principles of in January, he said that he trusts Merkel openness, cooperative security, and social and Putin equally. In response, some and economic advancement. Today, the western Europeans now view the Trump leaders of the liberal democratic world administration—and therefore the United should present a charter of their own, to States—as a greater threat than Putin’s renew their support for an open and Russia. In February, for example, an rules-based order. editorial in the German newsmagazine Der The United States’ friends and allies Spiegel called on Europe to “start planning need to make it tough for Trump to its political and economic defenses. pursue an “America first” agenda. They Against America’s dangerous president.” need to show that they are indispens- able partners, increasing their military IF NOT AMERICA . . . spending and taking the lead on issues If the liberal international order is to such as climate change, nuclear prolif- survive, leaders and citizens in the eration, trade cooperation, and sustain- United States and elsewhere will need able development. Abe and Merkel, the to defend its institutions, bargains, and new leaders of the free world, will have accomplishments. Those seeking to to sustain liberal internationalism for as defend it have one big advantage: more long as Trump is in office. Abe should people, within the United States and keep promoting liberal trade agreements, abroad, stand to lose from its destruc- modeled on the tpp, and Merkel, as the tion than stand to win. leader of the country that perhaps most The defenders of the order should start embodies the virtues and accomplishments by reclaiming the master narrative of the of the postwar liberal order, is uniquely last 70 years. The era of U.S. leadership positioned to speak as the moral voice did not usher in the end of history, but of the liberal democratic world. U.S. it did set the stage for world-historical allies also need to engage in what the advances. Since the end of the Cold War, Japanese call gaiatsu—“foreign pressure.” over a billion people have been raised out The French government had the right of poverty and hundreds of millions of idea when it proposed placing a surtax children have been educated. The world on U.S. goods if the Trump administration has been spared great-power war, and a pulled out of the Paris climate agreement. sense of common responsibility for the The United States needs allies in part well-being of the planet has emerged. because they will push back when it In trying to reclaim this narrative, goes off track. politicians and public intellectuals should Those seeking to rebuild the world’s take their lead from U.S. President troubled trading system will need to think Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime about how it can once again strengthen Minister Winston Churchill. In 1941, the national economies. Since World War II, two leaders met in Newfoundland and policymakers have used trade agreements

6 foreign affairs The Plot Against American Foreign Policy to increase the flow of goods and invest­ trade with economic stability and policies ment. The Harvard economist Dani aimed at ensuring full employment. But Rodrik has argued that governments with the collapse of the Soviet Union, should instead view trade agreements the liberal order expanded across the as exercises in which governments globe, and sowed the seeds for today’s provide access to one another’s “policy crisis: it lost its embedded, protective space” to manage open trade. The goal is qualities and was increasingly seen as a not primarily to lower barriers to trade neoliberal project aimed at facilitating and investment; it is to cooperate to the transactions of globetrotting stabilize the flows, and in a way that capitalists. protects the interests of workers and the Today, the defenders of the order middle class. In his last address to the will need to recapture its essence as a un General Assembly, in September, security community, a grouping of Obama hinted at this agenda, calling countries bound together by common on countries to preserve the gains values, shared interests, and mutual from global economic integration while vulnerabilities. Trump will do a lot of cooperating in new ways to reduce the damage to this order, but the decisions of ravages of “soulless ,” combating others—in the United States and abroad— inequality within countries and strength­ will determine whether it is ultimately ening the position of workers. The destroyed. “The best lack all conviction, challenge ahead is to build on these visions while the worst / Are full of passionate of how the open world economy might intensity,” William Butler Yeats wrote adapt to the deep economic insecurities in the aftermath of World War I. If the across the advanced industrial world. liberal democratic world is to survive, The liberal international order is in its champions will have to find their crisis for reasons that predate the Trump voice and act with more conviction.∂ administration. It has lost something critical in the decades since its birth during the Cold War—namely, a shared sense that a community of liberal democ­ racies exists and that it is made physically safer and economically more secure by staying united. Across the democratic world, the first generation of postwar policymakers and citizens understood that the liberal order provided the political and economic space in which countries could prosper in safety. The political scientist John Ruggie has described this order as “embedded liberalism”: inter­national agreements, embodied in the , gave govern­ ments discretion to regulate their econ­ omies, allowing them to reconcile free

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