A Post-Trumpian America on the Global Stage
Nirvana Khan (SFS ‘24) is a journalist for the Eastern Europe and Russia section and a guest writer for the Caravel's opinion section. The content and opinions of this piece are the writer’s and the writer’s alone. They do not reflect the opinions of the Caravel or its staff.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at the APEC Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam on November 10, 2017 (Wikimedia Commons).
Leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the entire world was watching with bated breath. Sure, in the many countries that President Trump has incensed or alienated during his term, viewers were fearful for what four more years of a Trump administration could mean. But even in those countries, an increasing number of world leaders were hoping for that outcome. Many ‘strongman’ world leaders were reluctant to acknowledge Biden’s victory the week of November 3—demonstrating that Trump’s brand of leadership isn’t going away anytime soon.
Throughout his administration, Trump has overturned almost every precedent of U.S. foreign policy. His cozy friendships with traditional rivals such as North Korea and Russia, his aggressive rhetoric against strategic partners such as China and Mexico, his snubbing of longtime allies in Europe, and his refusal to renounce controversial figures like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonarol and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were all unprecedented decisions. In terms of understanding loyalty, however, the formula has proven pretty simple. Nationalist leaders, who characterize themselves as ‘strongmen’—and whom others may call ‘dictators’ or ‘fascists’—tend to prefer Trump’s America. They are by and large men who capitalize off of populist rhetoric and a cult of personality, and the vast majority of them are threats to democracy in their respective countries.
Why is this similarity strong enough to overcome centuries of frostiness in some cases and Trump’s own xenophobic rants in others? One explanation is that, though Trump weaponized much aggressive rhetoric against states like China, it may be just that—rhetoric, without any substantive action to back it up. In fact, Xi Jinping’s reluctance to recognize Biden as the president-elect confirms Biden’s own assertion that he will be even tougher on China than Trump despite the latter’s “tough on China” branding. But there’s an even more sinister line of thought: Professor Yan Xuetong at Beijing's Tsinghua University says that Xi Jinping’s administration prefers Trump "not because Trump will do less damage to China's interests than Biden, but because he definitely will damage the U.S. more than Biden."
Of course, the refusal of many of these leaders to acknowledge Biden’s victory doesn’t signify any kind of long-term resistance in recognizing Biden as the president-elect. What it does signify is that the wave of nationalist rhetoric that Trump rode into office on is still alive and kicking in many parts of the world, and it’s a wave that will be tough for a Biden presidency to counter as it attempts to make inroads in American foreign policy.
Before the election, on a televised interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Biden said that Russia was “the biggest threat to America right now in terms of breaking up our security and our alliances.” His plan of attack is to “keep [NATO’s] military capabilities sharp while also expanding its capacity to take on nontraditional threats, such as weaponized corruption, disinformation, and cybertheft… impos[ing] real costs on Russia for its violations of international norms and stand[ing] with Russian civil society, which has bravely stood up time and again against President Vladimir Putin’s kleptocratic authoritarian system.”
Thus the goal of a Biden presidency, foreign-policy wise, will be a ‘return to normalcy’—an oft-repeated refrain of the campaign—and regain America’s diplomatic upper hand. When it comes to Russia, North Korea, Turkey, and even China, the U.S. wants to right the ship and take on a stronger tone.
But this will be much easier said than done now that the cracks in the United States’ armor have been put on display; “strongman” leaders have seen how successful their bluster and aggression can be even in a global hegemon like America. Making enemies fear the U.S. and allies trust the U.S. again will require a lot of time that Biden and those of his school of thought may not have. After all, this election has shown that presidents can be voted out just as easily as they are voted in.
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