By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

America’s Allies Must Save Themselves: How to Pick Up the Pieces of the World Order Trump Is Breaking

Since returning to the office, U.S. President Donald Trump has assailed the world order created by the United States after World War II. He has challenged the sovereignty of allies and partners by threatening to acquire Greenland, annex Canada, and seize the Panama Canal. His global trade war is designed to benefit the United States at the expense of all its trading partners. He has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization. In dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Trump administration has abandoned long-standing bipartisan commitments to international development. And his treatment of Ukraine - his attempt to hound the Ukrainians toward a peace deal rather than use American might to compel Russia to the table - humiliated the weaker and wronged party and courted the aggressor.

Trump believes that might makes right. As he posted in April on Truth Social, “THE GOLDEN RULE OF NEGOTIATING AND SUCCESS: HE WHO HAS THE GOLD MAKES THE RULES.”

The world order and the institutions the United States created after World War II were all designed to resist that logic, and to ensure that the strong could not simply do what they can and force the weak to suffer as they must. But Trump has no time for such high-mindedness. Instead, he has vindicated the cynical view that the United States was never the altruistic and idealistic power it claimed to be.

For those who still believe in a principled and generous United States, this is a traumatic moment of cognitive dissonance. The reality of Trump’s administration - the contempt for law both at home and abroad, the bullying, the abrogation of agreements and treaties, the threats against allies, and the cuddling up to tyrants - is plain to see. But it still seems incredible. Some observers search for a benign explanation. Perhaps, they imagine, Trump is playing four-dimensional chess and his outrageous actions are just part of a shrewd master plan. Others cling to the hope that something will change the course of events, a plot twist to keep things on track before the show goes off the rails.

But hope is a dangerous comforter in times like these. Trump is the new normal in Washington. At least until the next presidential election, there does not appear to be a reversal in sight.

This does not mean that U.S. allies should surrender to Trump’s intimidation. Together, they can exert considerable influence and contend with the havoc unleashed by Washington. Those countries that share the values for which the United States once stood, but currently does not, should band together to preserve what worked best in order Trump is intent on burying. As French President Emmanuel Macron said last week, U.S. allies should build a coalition of countries that “will not be bullied.”

At a European Union meeting in Berlin, November 2023

 

On Their Own Feet

In the era of “America first,” the United States is not, and does not purport to be, the reliable security partner it once was. Allies around the world have recognized they have to do more to defend themselves. They must acquire more advanced weapons systems, deeper stocks of ammunition and equipment, and recruit more personnel. At the same time, they have to increase their “sovereign autonomy,” notably their ability to operate without the concurrence or cooperation of the United States. They also must develop and strengthen alliances with like-minded partners other than the United States.

Such moves would not constitute a rejection of the United States but rather follow from precisely what the Trump administration is inviting allies to do. In an interview in April, Vice President JD Vance praised the French leader Charles de Gaulle, who, despite protests from Washington in the 1960s, ensured that France, unlike the United Kingdom, retained complete sovereignty over all its military capabilities, including its nuclear arsenal. As Vance put it, de Gaulle understood “that it’s not in Europe’s interest, nor America’s interest, for Europe to be a permanent security vassal of the United States.”

The message from Washington has shifted markedly. Trump is not the first president to say allies should make a larger contribution to mutual defense. But to many allies, he seems to be saying they should spend more because they may well be on their own.

Consider Trump’s treatment of Ukraine. In the early months of his second term, Trump appeared to have effectively changed sides in the war in Ukraine, favoring Russia and bullying Ukraine into accepting a peace on the terms preferred by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately for Trump, three months of appeasement have not ended the war. He may eventually stand up to Putin, or he could simply leave Ukraine to its fate.

Apart from Ukraine, European countries face the most urgent threat from Russia. The European members of NATO have the economic capacity to match and outmatch Russia if they choose to do so. As Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently asked, “Why do 500 million Europeans need 330 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians?”

NATO and all U.S. allies, including Australia, recognize the need to spend more. But Washington and allied capitals differ on how that extra cash should be spent. The United States naturally wants additional purchases of American weapons. But allies fear that although buying more U.S. equipment and munitions may please Trump, it will not deliver greater independence. Indeed, a buying spree of U.S. weapons systems may result only in the purchaser becoming even more reliant on the United States.

The long-term solution for U.S. allies is to be able to deter aggressors with sovereign capabilities, ideally in the sense that they have been produced domestically but certainly in the sense that they can be deployed and operated without the concurrence of the United States. At the moment, that is not possible. U.S.-supplied F-35s, for instance, are so functionally dependent on American software and spare parts that it is difficult to see how they could be used, or used for long, without Washington’s consent.

This kind of dependence, common in most modern weapons systems, was often irksome for U.S. allies but not regarded as a big problem. NATO allies could trust that they would never fight alone, so dependence on an indifferent United States was merely a theoretical concern. But today, with the White House demanding that the United States’ allies be able to fend for themselves, the circumstances are very different. It is no surprise that the EU’s recently unveiled 150 billion euro defense procurement plan largely excludes U.S. companies. At the same time, Portugal has announced it is no longer planning to acquire F-35s, and Canada is reassessing its plans to purchase 88 F-35s. Europe’s challenge is not just to find the money to fund rearmament but also to overcome national rivalries to agree on several standard-bearers for the defense industry, much in the same way that France and Germany came together to create Airbus in 1970. Another inspiring example for Europe (and other U.S. allies) can be found in Ukraine, where the local defense industry has produced one disruptive, innovative, and much less costly capability after another, as demonstrated by the stunning drone attacks that Ukrainian forces launched earlier this week on Russian air bases.

 

The Quest for Sovereign Autonomy

In Europe, U.S. allies are geographically close to one another and have strong strategic and economic ties. The situation is very different in the Indo-Pacific. On the one hand, China is far stronger relative to its Asian neighbors than Russia is to its European ones. On the other hand, although Trump has given the Europeans cause for concern that they could be on their own, he has not yet suggested that the United States would abandon its allies in Asia.

The obvious flash point is Taiwan, where the signals from the Trump administration are decidedly mixed. Trump himself has said that Taiwan is difficult to defend and has complained about its semiconductor manufacturing industry, claiming the island “stole the chip business” from the United States and should pay for U.S. protection. But speaking recently at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Trump has made it clear that “Communist China will not invade Taiwan on his watch” and that the United States would work to make the costs of an invasion too high for China, ensuring that peace in the Taiwan Strait was the only option.

That confidence is belied by events on the ground. Chinese exercises around Taiwan look more and more like rehearsals for an invasion. Hegseth himself acknowledged in his speech that an attack could be imminent. Taiwanese politics are unstable, with no consensus on the need to increase defense spending, and there are a range of coercive measures short of kinetic conflict that could enable Chinese leader Xi Jinping to win Taiwan without firing a shot.

Notwithstanding Hegseth’s fighting words in Singapore, Taiwan is both closer and far more important to Beijing than it is to Washington. If Ukraine is not Trump’s war (as he so often insists), he would likely not risk war with China over Taiwan - a war that, even if it remained conventional, would destroy much of the U.S. and Chinese navies. With more than 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States, China could replace its losses long before the United States was able to do so. A Chinese takeover of Taiwan will cause U.S. allies in the region to lose confidence in the notion of an American security umbrella and the effectiveness of U.S. deterrence, which is measured not just in firepower but also in willpower.

Although they would be immediately threatened, Japan and South Korea each have the economic power to considerably increase their defense capabilities. South Korea is already a major defense exporter. And both countries host U.S. military bases with significant capabilities. But if they lose confidence in Washington’s will to fight in Asia, those bases could become liabilities, making it harder for each country to manage its own defense and diplomacy without the concurrence of the United States. The same logic that Vance used to praise de Gaulle’s France would be applied to Japan and South Korea. There is no substitute for establishing sovereign autonomy. Both countries could conclude that it would be best to possess a nuclear deterrent of their own.

Elsewhere in Asia, Southeast Asian countries are too diverse in their geopolitical orientations to collaborate on defense. Several, such as Laos and Myanmar, are already closely aligned with China. Others benefit from having to hedge between China and the United States. But all would likely fall within China’s sphere of influence if the United States were to abandon the region.

Consider the case of the Philippines, a formal treaty ally of the United States. The Philippines has been subjected to increasing incursions from China as Beijing asserts its claims in the South China Sea. But even though the United States has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, it has done little more than protest as China builds and militarizes artificial islands and even spar directly with Philippine vessels. In the absence of firm U.S. support, the Philippines will inevitably feel compelled to accommodate China’s demands.

In recent years, Australia has become more dependent on the United States, even as the United States has become less dependable. This dynamic is most glaring when it comes to the formation of AUKUS, a 2021 security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Australia canceled a program to build 12 diesel-electric submarines with France in favor of eight nuclear-powered but conventionally armed attack submarines to be built with the United Kingdom. These vessels will not be ready, however, until the 2040s. To bridge the gap between the retirement of Australia’s aging submarine fleet and its future acquisitions, officials agreed that the United States would sell Australia three to five Virginia-class submarines by around 2032. But U.S. legislation about AUKUS specifically states that the submarines cannot be sold unless the president certifies that their sale will not degrade U.S. underwater capabilities. Given the U.S. Navy is about 20 attack submarines short of what it says it requires and U.S. shipbuilders are constructing only about half as many submarines as the U.S. Navy needs to replace old ones, it seems unlikely that Australia will ever get any Virginias of its own in the era of “America first.”

When the AUKUS submarine deal was agreed to in 2021, an understandably angry French foreign minister said, “Australia has sacrificed sovereignty for the sake of security. It is likely to lose both.” AUKUS may be a cautionary tale for other allies. Sovereignty and autonomy are more important than ever. Compromise them at your peril.

Ukrainian forces in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine

 

“Trade Wars Are Good and Easy to Win”

In trade, too, Trump has sought to upend existing partnerships and alliances. His bullying tariff policy is intended to assert American power and extract significant concessions from others, all at the expense of the trading system the United States helped build. “These countries,” Trump said in April, “are calling us up, kissing my ass. . . . They are dying to make a deal.”

My view, based on experience with Trump, is that pandering to him is precisely the wrong way to go. Trump’s agenda is to use tariffs to force importers to move their production to the United States. Of course, this approach defies basic principles of economics. Take Canada, from which the United States imports about 40 percent of its aluminum. The production of aluminum requires prodigious quantities of cheap energy. Canada has vast hydropower resources, and as a result, the energy costs of its large aluminum industry are a third of those of the U.S. aluminum industry. Canada has a natural comparative advantage. The 50 percent (up from 25 percent) tariff Trump has imposed on aluminum will increase the price of aluminum within the United States, benefiting only U.S. aluminum producers at the expense of consumers and manufacturers.

Trump does not believe in comparative advantage. Rather, if a country has a trade deficit, it’s a loser. If it has a trade surplus, it’s a winner. I remember meeting him in Manila in November 2017 when I was prime minister of Australia. He was complaining bitterly about the size of the U.S. trade deficit with China. He asked me what would happen if he banned all Chinese imports. I quietly replied, “A global depression.” That might be a price he is willing to pay, but the rest of the world should not let U.S. policy send the global economy into a tailspin.

Those countries that still believe in free trade need to work together to promote new free-trade arrangements (and extend existing ones) that do not involve the United States. Consider, for instance, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the successor to the TPP. Trump withdrew from the TPP after reaching the White House in 2017. Most believed the deal was dead. Several TPP members, including Japan, were very skeptical about the possibility of concluding an agreement without the United States. Some were anxious that such a move would offend Trump. I was able to persuade Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he should not be concerned on that score. Moreover, the United States could one day change its mind; by keeping the deal alive we would, effectively, preserve the possibility of an American return.

By early 2018, the Trans-Pacific Partnership had lost one member and gained two additional members; the now 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership was born. The United Kingdom has acceded to the trade pact, and several other major economies, including China, South Korea, Indonesia, and Taiwan, have expressed interest in joining. The CPTPP was the most significant international trade agreement ever negotiated since the completion of the Uruguay round of talks in 1994 that resulted in the creation of the World Trade Organization. It was agreed even as a protectionist tide was rising in countries around the world. Unlike traditional trade deals, the CPTPP doesn’t simply reduce tariffs on goods but sets binding rules on digital trade, e-commerce, data flows, and the protection of intellectual property. It enforces core labor rights, including the right to form independent trade unions, and prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of characteristics such as race, religion, and gender. And it obliges parties to avoid favoring their state-owned enterprises in a way that disadvantages foreign competitors. The CPTPP stands as a bold reply to Trump’s rejection of multilateral trade leadership. Its members showed that they could reduce their exposure to U.S. political instability and trade unilateralism, and at the same time demonstrate that global rule-setting can proceed without American participation or consent.

U.S. allies need to find alternatives to the power of the U.S. market. The Europeans already have their vast free-trade zone, but they are seeking to establish more free-trade relationships with others. EU-Australian trade negotiations, begun in 2017 but suspended in 2023 over agricultural exports, have been revived. And as Macron said in Singapore in May, the EU is seeking to forge new trade agreements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and perhaps even join or associate with the CPTPP.

Two staunch U.S. allies in East Asia - Japan and South Korea - are seeking closer relationships with China. As speculation about Trump’s tariffs swirled in March, the three countries’ foreign ministers agreed to “comprehensive and high-level” negotiations toward a free-trade deal. Such an agreement would help build “a predictable trade and investment environment” amid the volatility unleashed by Washington. Trump can take credit for bringing these three countries closer together; given their historical enmities, that would be a considerable (if unintended) achievement.

 

A Darkening World

China stands to gain immensely from the vagaries of Trump’s foreign policy. It has always bristled at how the United States and its dollar dominate the global system of trade and finance. That preeminence is being shaken not by anything China has done but by Trump’s actions. The chaos in the bond markets after Trump’s tariff announcements in April showed that there is waning confidence in U.S. stability and power.

Consider the folly of Trump’s treatment of Australia. The United States enjoys a large trade surplus with Australia; in Trump’s terms, the United States is already winning this bilateral relationship. It has no better ally or trade partner. And yet he chose to impose an across-the-board ten percent tariff on Australian goods and a 25 (now 50) percent tariff on Australian steel and aluminum at the same time as Washington is trying to line up allies against China. A third of Australia’s exports go to China. In these circumstances, Canberra will be reluctant to hew more closely to Washington’s line. Slowing the growth of China’s economy (and its demand for Australian resources) is hardly in Australia’s interest.

Trump does not pretend he is trying to bring about truly fair trade or a level playing field. His goal is to reindustrialize the United States, to bring factories back from China, Europe, and Southeast Asia. And he wants to assert American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere even as he unwinds U.S. involvement in the rest of the world. Voters in the United States will have to decide eventually whether these are plausible or worthwhile goals, but U.S. allies should already have made up their minds.

U.S. allies often trusted in the United States and American values more in hope than in expectation. But that trust was real, and now it is fraying. Trump invites a different sort of trust in the United States: the certainty that Washington will seek to act ruthlessly in its self-interest and use its might to extract the best deal for itself. Future U.S. leaders may try to restore the country’s moral leadership, but trust once lost is hard to win back. Trade deals come and go, but if the light on the hill shines only for Americans, Trump will have ushered in a darker world for everybody else.

 

 

For updates click hompage here