Trump’s ‘America First’ philosophy has created a less stable world

by Dr.Fareed Zakaria

https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2019/5/16/trumps-america-first-philosophy-has-created-a-less-stable-world

President Trump has seemed largely uninterested in foreign policy. He got excited briefly when he thought he could win a Nobel Peace Prize and hyped the danger of an imminent North Korean attack — so that he could play the peacemaker. When it became clear that a deal was not to be had easily, Trump lost interest and scarcely mentions the subject anymore.

Beyond North Korea, his foreign policy has largely been one of subcontracting (a familiar style for a real estate developer). Middle East policy is farmed out to Israel and Saudi Arabia. The administration simply backs whatever those nations want. Policy toward left-wing regimes in Latin America — Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — has been delegated to saber-rattlers such as national security adviser John Bolton and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). The rest of Latin America is dealt with solely through the lens of immigration —  in other words, subcontracted to senior policy adviser Stephen Miller.

 

The one common aspect of Trump’s foreign policy, however, has been that it has provoked a vigorous nationalist response abroad. Take China, where the government has gone on the offensive and denounced what it sees as the United States’ aggressive trade demands. Beijing’s state-controlled television network recently featured a commentary that tied U.S. tactics to previous foreign efforts to subjugate China. “If you want a trade war,” the anchor said, “we’ll fight you until the end. After 5,000 years of wind and rain, what hasn’t the Chinese nation weathered?” That clip, in addition to being aired on China’s main TV news channel, has been watched online more than 99 million times.

In Iran, the Islamic Republic has been able to withstand the economic storms caused by U.S. sanctions because it has been able to pin the blame on Trump’s anti-Iran strategy, not the regime’s economic mismanagement. Washington has always underestimated nationalism, especially in the case of Iran. Many of Iran’s foreign policy moves stem from its geopolitical position, not some fundamentalist Shiite ideology. Last year, Ardeshir Zahedi, who served as foreign minister under the shah, published an open letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, essentially defending the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy. Iran’s nuclear program, it is worth recalling, began under the shah.

 

The manner in which the Trump administration deals with almost every country provokes a nationalist, anti-American response. One of the great achievements of U.S. foreign policy over the past 30 years was that Mexico had gone from being an anti-American, revolutionary country to a pro-American partner. In 2015, before Trump’s election, 66 percent of Mexicans had a favorable view of the United States, according to a Pew Research Center survey. By last year, that number had dropped to 32 percent. Confidence in the U.S. president plummeted in that same period from 49 to 6 percent.

The pattern recurs almost everywhere. In Canada, confidence in the U.S. president went from 76 percent in 2015 to 25 percent in 2018. In France it’s worse, from 83 percent under President Barack Obama to single digits under Trump. In fact, in the Pew report, which surveyed 25 countries, only two places expressed greater confidence in Trump than his predecessor: Russia and Israel.

Countries around the globe are becoming more assertive and anti-American, even ones that embrace Trump’s ideology. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban proudly says that he is building an “illiberal democracy” in his country. In recent years, he has destroyed democratic checks and balances, demonized immigrants (of whom there are few in Hungary) and mouthed anti-Islamic rhetoric. Shunned by Obama, Orban was warmly welcomed this week at the White House by Trump. And yet, Orban has rebuffed U.S. overtures and aligned with China and Russia when it has suited his purposes.

It makes perfect sense. In his 2017 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Trump called for “a great reawakening of nations,” urging countries to use patriotism and self-interest as their guides in foreign policy. Trump’s north star has been a narrow conception of national interest, rejecting the idea that there are larger international interests and, by implication, denigrating the idea of cooperative, win-win solutions.

Well, Orban is simply doing what Trump urged, as are the Chinese, the Iranians and so many others. And since the United States is still the world’s leading power, and Trump’s style has been to be aggressive and undiplomatic, the easiest response is a nationalist, anti-American one, feeding public anger, stoking bad historical memories and locking countries into a win-lose mindset.

It is a world with more instability, less cooperation and fewer opportunities for the United States. And it is a direct, logical consequence of Trump’s philosophy of “America First.”

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group

National service can mend the country

The following column is adapted from Fareed Zakaria’s commencement address at Ohio State University on May 5, 2019.

It’s graduation season in America and a good time to be leaving college and looking for a job. Despite this week’s stock market tremors, the U.S. economy is on solid footing. Now in its 120th month of expansion, the economy shows few signs of bubbles about to burst. Unemployment is way down, inflation is contained, wages are finally moving up, and, perhaps most significantly, productivity is up. Some of these trends might prove ephemeral, but there is no denying that economic indicators are firmly positive.

These good numbers, however, are unlikely to change another set of numbers regarding the geography of growth. I was honored to be the commencement speaker at Ohio State University last weekend, and I predicted that graduates looking for a job would get one — in a city.

Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution has calculated that over the past decade, the 53 largest American metro areas have accounted for 71 percent of all population growth, two-thirds of all employment growth and a staggering three-quarters of all economic growth. In fact, half of all job growth in the United States took place in just 20 cities.

Meanwhile, small towns and rural America have lost residents and contributed barely anything to economic growth. The numbers would look worse if not for the fact that the boom in fracking has created many jobs in rural regions.

The congressional Joint Economic Committee recently issued a report warning about these trends. Young educated people are fleeing small towns and rural areas to find opportunities in big cities. The resulting brain drain then depresses growth in left-behind areas, which in turn drives more educated people out. It’s a classic spiral: up for cities, down for rural areas.

This two-track economy has produced a two-track culture, with urbanites and rural Americans increasingly living in their own distinct worlds of news, entertainment and consumer goods. The Arby’s customer and the Starbucks patron view each other with suspicion and distrust. They live different lives and disagree deeply about politics, a trend that is reflected in Washington. As measured by voting records, Congress is now more polarized than previous historical highs in the aftermath of Reconstruction.

Why is this happening? The economic trends are easier to explain, having to do with the digital revolution and globalization. Brain work is more valuable, brawn work less so. The cultural forces have to do with the rise of identity politics and a backlash against a more multicultural society and immigration. But whatever the causes, these trends seem likely to continue and may even intensify as artificial intelligence and automation render routine low-skilled work obsolete.

We see the forces that are pulling America apart. The question we should be focused on is: What can we do to bring the country together? Surely, this has become the question of our times.

One answer that I have been increasingly drawn to is national service. The idea may be one of the few ways to bridge the vast and growing chasm in America. I was heartened to see two Democratic presidential candidates, Pete Buttigieg and John Delaney, endorse it. Donald Trump once spoke warmly about national service on the 2016 campaign trail, suggesting that Democrats had been all talk but that he would do extraordinary things to boost it. Of course, once in office, he actually tried to slash spending on such programs.

There are many ways to design a national service program. A voluntary system would probably work better, with incentives such as loan forgiveness and tuition support at its core. A 2013 study argued that current programs could feasibly be scaled up to include 1 million volunteers without taking jobs from existing workers, yielding societal benefits worth about four times the costs. The programs that already operate in this space, such as AmeriCorps, do good work and have stunningly high approval ratings from their alumni: Ninety-four percent say they gained a better understanding of differing communities; 80 percent say the program helped their careers.

As Mickey Kaus noted in a prescient 1992 book, “The End of Equality,” John F. Kennedy, one of America’s richest heirs and a graduate of Choate and Harvard, famously served in World War II on a PT boat alongside men who had held jobs such as mechanic, factory worker, truck driver and fisherman. Imagine if in today’s America the sons and daughters of hedge-fund managers, tech millionaires and bankers spent a year with the children of coal miners and farmers, working in public schools or national parks or the armed forces.

National service will not solve all of America’s problems. But it might bring us together as a nation. And that is the first crucial step forward.

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group

Who understands our times, Bernie or The Donald?

April 13, 2019

by Fareed Zakaria.com

https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2019/4/11/who-understands-our-times-bernie-or-the-donald

There are many explanations for Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory in this week’s election that have to do with Israel’s particular situation — its economic boom, stable security climate and the prime minister’s political talent. But he is also part of a much larger phenomenon: the continued strength of populist nationalism around the world — and the continued inability of left-of-center parties to respond to it.

 

The case for populist nationalism goes something like this. It’s a nasty world out there. People are trying to take our jobs, undermine our security, move into our country. The cosmopolitan urban elites don’t care; they benefit from these forces. So we need a tough guy who will stand up for the nation and against the liberals in our midst.

In some variant or another, this is the argument made by Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Narendra Modi, Viktor Orban, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Jair Bolsonaro, the Brexiteers — and, of course, President Trump.

In 1972, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote that nationalism “expresses the inflamed desire of the insufficiently regarded to count for something among the cultures of the world.” He placed the roots of modern nationalism in Germany, a country obsessed with finding its place in the sun. But the sentiment — a kind of victim mentality — can be found in almost all modern variations, even among rich and powerful nations.

Look at Putin’s claim that Russia has been pushed around by the West since the Cold War, the Chinese obsession with their humiliation since the opium wars, the Israeli right’s complaint that the world is biased against Israel and Trump’s constant refrain that all foreigners — from Mexicans to Chinese to Europeans — take advantage of the United States. These leaders promise to rectify the situation and restore their countries’ proper standing in the world.

Trump’s embrace of the word “nationalism” illustrates the simultaneous attacks on domestic elites (with their politically correct language) and on perfidious foreigners. “We’re not supposed to use that word,” Trump said in October. “You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, okay? I’m a nationalist. Nationalist. Nothing wrong. Use that word. Use that word.”

When asked the next day what he meant by the term, Trump responded, “I love our country. And our country has taken second fiddle. . . . We’re giving all of our wealth, all of our money, to other countries. And then they don’t treat us properly.”

Netanyahu, for his part, has long argued that Israel deserves a much better “place among the nations,” a phrase that was the title of his 1993 book that argued for a robust Israeli nationalism that is aggressive and unapologetic. Though Israel’s strength and security have grown immeasurably, as its historical enemies — Saudi Arabia and Syria, among others — have either become buddies or basket cases, the argument that the world is against it has somehow persisted.

In fact, despite the pose of victim hood adopted by most of these populists, nationalism is probably the most widely held ideology in the world today. Which American politician today does not speak up for the United States? The real debate is whether nationalism should be informed and influenced by other values such as liberty and equality and, if these two sets of values conflict, which one should be preferred. That’s why the most ardent capitalists — from Friedrich Hayek to Milton Friedman — have always been in favor of globalization and economic freedom above nationalist protections and controls.

The danger for liberals is that they underestimate the power of these raw, emotional appeals. For centuries, liberals have assumed that nationalism was a kind of irrational attachment that would grow weaker as people became more rational, connected and worldly. In fact, Berlin wrote, like a twig that is bent in one direction and has to snap back, as globalization grew in its reach, nationalism would be the predictable backlash.

Populist nationalists understand the core appeal of their ideology. I recently asked a Bolsonaro supporter whether the Brazilian president’s economic policies (which are free-market-oriented and reformist) or his cultural nationalism was the key to his appeal. The supporter’s answer: Nationalism is the party’s core; the economics is simply about efficiency and growth.

Meanwhile, liberals in the United States still don’t seem to get it. The Democratic Party continues to think the solution to its woes is to keep moving leftward economically. This week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) revealed his new Medicare-for-all plan, which was immediately co-sponsored by four other presidential candidates. The plan will probably require an additional $2 trillion to $3 trillion in annual tax revenue.At the same time, Trump tweets about the Democrats’ love of “open borders” and insists he will protect the country and enforce its laws. What if Trump understands the mood of our times better than Sanders?

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group

 

On legal immigration, Trump might be right

April 7, 2019

by Dr . Fareed Zakaria

https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2019/4/4/on-legal-immigration-trump-might-be-right

 

President Trump’s threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border has confused even his allies. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said it “would be bad for everybody.” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) remarked, “I’m not sure that’s a particularly good idea, and I’m not sure it gets the desired result.” Most assume the threat is part of the usual Trump style — bravado and bluff — and will eventually get dialed back, and there are already indications that this is happening.

But on the broader issue of legal immigration, Trump seems to be shifting his position. In his State of the Union address in February, he said, “I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally.” Immigration hardliners did not take this well.

The president has since reasserted the idea. The day after the State of the Union, Trump told reporters: “I need people coming in because we need people to run the factories and plants and companies that are moving back in.” And Politico reported this week that Jared Kushner is quietly developing a proposal to increase legal immigration into the United States.

If this is Trump’s new and improved immigration position, the president might find his way to a powerful compromise — real crackdowns on illegal immigration, coupled with reform and actual increases in legal immigration. This also happens to be a smart policy idea.

A recent essay in the journal International Security points out that by 2050, the United States is projected to be the only major world power with an increase in its population . The four authors, all university professors, tie this factor to more dynamic economic growth and also the United States’ continued ability and willingness to play a major military and political role.

The data on other major powers is striking. United Nations projections show that by 2050, China and Russia will have a 20 percent drop in people of working age. Germany’s working-age population will drop by 17 percent, and Japan’s by 29 percent. This will probably translate into slower growth, less economic vitality and greater passivity on the world stage, the report says.

The United States’ working-age numbers are set to rise by 12 percent in the same period. In fact, only three other major developed countries will see increases in their working-age cohort: Australia, Canada and Britain. But all four countries are expected to enjoy this boost only because of immigration. Without immigration, by 2050, the U.S. working-age population would actually shrink by 4.5 percent. Canada’s would plummet by 20 percent.

China, on track to be the greatest economic, political and technological competitor to the United States, faces a demographic challenge that’s even more dire than was previously anticipated. Last year, China’s birth rate fell to its lowest level since 1961, a year of widespread famine. It appears that the Communist regime’s efforts to reverse the nation’s long-standing “one child” policy have not worked. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in January that for China’s population, “the biggest event in the first half of the 21st century is the arrival of negative growth,” according to the South China Morning Post.

Amid all the noise in this country about immigration, it’s easy to forget the big picture. Immigration means a more robust economy. It usually means younger workers, which translates into greater dynamism and more innovation. Most Nobel Prizes are awarded to scientists for work they did when they were young. Most companies are founded by people when they are young. Younger populations are more risk-seeking, adventurous and entrepreneurial.

Despite the rhetoric around it, legal immigration in the United States is actually not that high. Before he became chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Kevin Hassett published a piece in National Review ranking wealthy countries on their ratio of new immigrants to total population in 2010. The United States had the third-lowest figure, higher only than Japan and France. Canada and Germany had more than twice as many new immigrants as a share of the population, and Norway and Switzerland had more than four times.

During the past two decades, many of the United States’ crucial competitive advantages have been copied by the world to the point that other nations do it better — with well-regulated market economics, technological investments, infrastructure, mass education. What does America have left to truly distinguish itself?

Over the past half-century, the United States has handled immigration better than most countries. It takes in people from everywhere, assimilates them better, integrates them into the fabric of society and is able to maintain an environment in which the new immigrants feel as invested as the old. This will be its core competitive advantage in this century.

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group
Washington Post
April 4, 2019

Venezuela–Will Moscow make a mockery of The Monroe Doctrine?

March 29,2019

Venezuala– Will Moscow make a mockery of The Monroe Doctrine?

by Dr. Fareed Zakaria

https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2019/3/28/is-venezuela-where-trump-finally-stands-up-to-putin

President Trump faces a crucial test of his foreign policy and his resolve over Venezuela. His administration has made absolutely clear that the United States no longer considers Nicolás Maduro to be president, publicly backing Juan Guaidó, the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, as the country’s interim leader. Trump has gone so far as to urge the Venezuelan military not to follow Maduro’s orders. These declarations are much stronger than the “red line” President Barack Obama drew around Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

So far, Trump’s pressure has not worked. Maduro has dug in, and the Venezuelan military has not abandoned its support for him. While U.S. sanctions may be hurting, they could also have the effect of creating a siege mentality that reinforces the regime’s hold on the nation. This is what happened to varying degrees with Cuba, North Korea and Iran.

Venezuela is a complicated, divided country, and Maduro, as heir to the legacy of Hugo Chávez, does have some support in poor and rural areas. But far more significant in bolstering the regime has been Russia’s open and substantial support. Moscow now admits that it has sent military personnel to Venezuela. Two Russian military planes arrived in the country last weekend, carrying about 100 troops.

This is just the latest in a series of moves by Moscow to shore up Maduro. Over the past few years, Russia has provided wheat, arms, credit and cash to the flailing government in Caracas. Estimates of Russia’s total investment in Venezuela vary from $20 billion to $25 billion. Russia now controls almost half of the country’s U.S.-based oil subsidiary, Citgo, which has been a major source of government revenue. The Venezuelan military uses Russian equipment almost exclusively.

The Venezuelan gambit appears to be personally significant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In recent years, as the Venezuelan economy has tanked and political instability has grown, even most Russian companies have abandoned the country, viewing it as too risky. But, as Vladimir Rouvinski writes in a report for the Wilson Center, Russian state-controlled oil giant Rosneft has persisted and even ramped up its support for Maduro. The company is led by Igor Sechin, who has close ties to Putin and is often called the second-most powerful man in Russia.

In other words, Putin is all-in with his support for Maduro. He is doing this in part to prop up an old ally, and because it adds to Russia’s clout in global oil markets, but above all because it furthers Putin’s central foreign policy objective — the formation of a global anti-American coalition of countries that can frustrate U.S. purposes and usher in a more multipolar world. Putin’s efforts seem designed to taunt the United States, which announced the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning foreign powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere.

The big question for Washington is: Will it allow Moscow to make a mockery of another U.S. red line? The United States and Russia have taken opposing, incompatible stands on this issue. And as with Syria, there is a danger that, if Washington does not back its words with deeds, a year from now, we will be watching the consolidation of the Maduro regime, supported with Russian arms and money.

The administration has been tough on Russian involvement in Venezuela. Trump himself has even declared, “Russia has to get out.” But that is an unusual statement from Trump, who has almost never criticized Putin and often sided with Russia on matters big and small.

As former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul has written in The Post, Trump has a remarkably consistent pattern of supporting Putin’s foreign policy. Trump has threatened to withdraw from NATO and has announced the removal of U.S. troops from Syria. He has publicly disagreed with his own intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow meddled in the 2016 elections, saying, “President Putin . . . said it’s not Russia. . . .I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

The big question for Washington is: Will it allow Moscow to make a mockery of another U.S. red line? The United States and Russia have taken opposing, incompatible stands on this issue. And as with Syria, there is a danger that, if Washington does not back its words with deeds, a year from now, we will be watching the consolidation of the Maduro regime, supported with Russian arms and money.

The administration has been tough on Russian involvement in Venezuela. Trump himself has even declared, “Russia has to get out.” But that is an unusual statement from Trump, who has almost never criticized Putin and often sided with Russia on matters big and small.

As former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul has written in The Post, Trump has a remarkably consistent pattern of supporting Putin’s foreign policy. Trump has threatened to withdraw from NATO and has announced the removal of U.S. troops from Syria. He has publicly disagreed with his own intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow meddled in the 2016 elections, saying, “President Putin . . . said it’s not Russia. . . .I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

(c) 2019. Washington Post Writers Group

BREXIT Marks the END of Great Britain

March 16, 2019

by Dr. Fareed Zakaria

https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2019/3/14/brexit-will-mark-the-end-of-britains-role-as-a-great-power

One of the great strengths of democracy is that bad policies are often reversed. That’s a consolation when we look at the flurry of pandering programs being enacted as the populist wave works its way through the Western world. When a new government is elected, things can be undone. Except for Brexit, which, if it goes through, might prove to be the most profound legacy of this decade.

Britain, famous for its prudence, propriety and punctuality, is suddenly looking like a banana republic as it makes reckless decisions, misrepresents reality and now wants to change its own self-imposed deadline. But if it does leave the European Union, it would be bad news for be bad news for Britain, Europe and the West.

As Martin Sandbu writes in the Political Quarterly, Brexit has always been “a solution in search of a problem.” To me, the best evidence of this is that Britain’s Euroskeptics generally want to leave the E.U. because they see it as a statist juggernaut. In virtually every other member country, Euroskeptics dislike the E.U. because they see it as a free-market juggernaut. So either all of those other countries have it backward, or Britain’s Conservatives have gone nuts.

When I asked my Post colleague Anne Applebaum what historians would look at when trying to understand the road to Brexit, she suggested it all centers on the Conservative Party.

The Tories could probably claim to be the most significant political party of the 1900s, governing Britain for most of the century, producing Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and other iconic Western statesmen.

But after the Cold War, as left-wing parties abandoned socialist ideas and moved to the center, the right faced an identity crisis. It needed to find the kind of clarity and purpose that anti-communism and freedom had provided. In the United States, this mobilized the Republicans to emphasize social and cultural issues such as abortion, gay rights and immigration, which they coupled with an almost religious fury against liberals.

In Britain, Conservatives found themselves in the same mushy middle that Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron inhabited. So, as Applebaum noted, they went radical — on Europe. Of course, there were always Euroskeptics, but they had been a small, eccentric minority within the party. By the midpoint of Cameron’s premiership, they were able to hold the party hostage and force Britain to walk the plank.

We’re all weary of the drama, but keep in mind: Brexit would be a disaster. As Sandbu points out, Britain’s economy is competitive and productive only in high-value manufacturing and services, both of which depend on a deeply integrated market with Europe. Although Britain can and will adjust, Brexit would probably mean a path of slower growth and less innovation for the country and its people.

The foreign policy consequences of Brexit are being discussed least but might prove to be the most consequential. If Brexit does occur, within a few years, Scotland and Northern Ireland would probably loosen their ties to Britain to maintain their association with Europe. The United Kingdom would then be reduced to just England and tiny Wales, not really fitting into any of the three economic blocs of the 21st century — North America, Europe and China. London, a city that has shaped global affairs for 250 years, would become the West’s Dubai, a place where lots of money sloshes around but of no great geopolitical consequence.

Europe would also lose a lot with Brexit. Britain has a large and vibrant economy. But more important,Britain has been a crucial voice in the community for free markets, openness, efficiency and an outward-looking foreign policy. It has been one of the few European countries that has maintained and deployed a powerful army, often for broader global purposes.

As non-Western countries such as China rise, the central question of international relations is: Can the international system built by the West — which has produced peace and prosperity for 75 years — last? Or will the rise of China and India and the revival of Russia erode it and return us to what Robert Kagan calls “the jungle” of international life — — marked by nationalism, protectionism and war? 

After BREXIT–Great Britain is no longer GREAT

The world order as we know it was built over two centuries, during the reigns of two liberal, Anglo superpowers — Britain and then the United States. Brexit would mark the end of Britain’s role as a great power, and I wonder whether it would also mark the day that the West, as a political and strategic entity, begins to crumble.

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group

Washington Post March 14, 2019