A renowned scholar of American diplomacy once slapped his 4-year-old in a fit. Coolly, she responded, “You shouldn’t do this.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“You don’t have that many friends.”
That’s the best take on President Trump’s foreign policy, especially when it comes to America’s oldest friends. Mr. Trump’s favorite target is Angela Merkel, Germany’s eternal chancellor. But he is an equal-opportunity ruffian, who has bullied the leaders of Britain, France and more.
He has routinely clobbered them with threats of tariffs and sanctions. As if running a protection racket, he has told “obsolete” NATO: Pay up, or we pull out. Now he is withdrawing 9,500 American troops from Germany, the linchpin of the American-built European order. Possibly next in line is South Korea, where the United States expended over 36,000 lives to repel Mao Zedong’s armies.
In his latest assault on Europe, Mr. Trump is going after Russian gas and Chinese mobile technology. To be fair, he has a point. The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, slated to pump around two trillion cubic feet annually into Germany, will ensure Russian energy dominance for decades. And Huawei’s bargain-priced 5G equipment might well be a Trojan horse that could enable the Chinese state to extract vital intelligence and intellectual property.
Nor is Mr. Trump the first Europe-basher. All American presidents have tried to strong-arm the Europeans over trade and defense. And after the Cold War, Europeans have been much better at slashing military spending than boosting it to counter Russian rearmament. President Barack Obama also inveighed against “free riders.”
But there is a blatant difference between now and then. Before, there was never any doubt that the United States and its friends would hang together. Now this historic relationship is at a tipping point. For all of Europe’s backsliding, the main blame must lie with Mr. Trump.
The United States now finds itself on a treacherous new stage: Call it the “two-and-a-half-power world.” America it is still on top. But China, the No. 2 power, is arming and extending its reach around the globe to try to dethrone the United States. An economic waif, nuclear Russia is only a semi-great. Still, President Vladimir Putin is superbly playing a weak hand in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
America should get with the program. To stay No. 1, it should follow four rules.
Rule 1: Keep your friends and recruit more. They may be free riders, as smaller players always are, but they add muscle, influence and cachet. “America First” does not. Bullies steal your lunch; they are never elected class president.
Mr. Trump confuses coercion with clout. For him, “Make America Great Again” does not mean leading, but exploiting the show. It isn’t “win-win,” but “I win if you lose.” Europeans want Nord Stream 2? Then forget about doing business in America. If Berlin goes with Huawei, say goodbye to the U.S. intelligence-sharing that has foiled many a terror plot in Germany. This is not smart diplomacy.
Rule 2: Keep and increase authority by providing essential services like common security, free trade and navigation — and by upholding a rules-based order that favors mutually beneficial cooperation.
“America First” means sacrificing the future for short-term gain. The history of sanctions, Mr. Trump’s favorite sport after golf, offers a nasty lesson. Victims may buckle, but they will soon sever the tie that binds. Sanctions devalue themselves by forcing nations into self-sufficiency. Ciao, America.
Rule 3: Promote your own interests by taking care of others’. What’s good for them is good for America because a supply-side foreign policy legitimizes U.S. leadership.
Yet Mr. Trump sees multilateralism as a plot against America. “America Alone” is worse. Though hungry for gas and 5G, the Europeans are a second-order headache compared with Chinese and Russian expansionism. In this two-and-a-half-power world, plus lesser upstarts like Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey and Kim Jong-un’s North Korea, America needs more, not fewer, friends.
Finally, rule 4: Always harness the largest-possible coalition. Coax, don’t compel. Return to the diplomacy America has so wisely practiced in the past.
Remind Ms. Merkel that European 5G suppliers — Nokia and Ericsson — can also deliver. The somewhat higher price will be mitigated by the gain in common security. And if Ms. Merkel panics over losing the lucrative Chinese market to Beijing’s retaliation? Then assure her that America is not out to destroy Euro-Chinese trade as such but to keep strategic industries out of President Xi Jinping’s hands. America’s allies will nod in assent.
So, what are the chances?
“Europe should view Trump as an anomaly,” John Bolton, Mr. Trump’s defrocked national security adviser, told the German magazine Der Spiegel last week. “It is not going to be that hard to get back to normal.” Amen.
“Home alone” has not been the American way, certainly not since 1945, when the United States took on responsibility for the liberal world order. Even Mr. Trump’s base would rather be at the helm than hunker down in the hold.
Josef Joffe is a member of the editorial council of the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
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