Wrong: Trump is Not An Isolationist

Ted Galen Carpenter

Security, Americas

Despite the accusations from Trump's critics, Washington remains as hawkish and interventionist as ever.

An increasingly popular accusation among members of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment and their allies in the news media is that Donald Trump’s administration is abandoning America’s global leadership role and placing the country into an isolationist cocoon. The latest proponent of that thesis is New York Times columnist David Brooks, who asserts flatly that “America is withdrawing from the world.” He adds that the negative results of that course “are there for all to see.” Brooks cites as examples China’s increasingly aggressive treatment of Hong Kong, a variety of Russian misdeeds, and Iran’s (but notably not Saudi Arabia’s or Israel’s) disruptive behavior in the Middle East. He contends that America’s alleged abandonment of the “liberal international order” will likely lead to even more widespread unfortunate consequences.

There are several problems with the argument that Brooks and his ideological brethren are propounding. First, the concept of a liberal international order is at best aspirational and at worst fictional. The reality is that it has been little more than a convenient façade for U.S. hegemony exercised through Washington’s network of military alliances and U.S.-dominated international political and economic institutions. The United States and its allies have routinely violated the supposed norms of a rules-based international order whenever such action seemed convenient.

Second, the notion that Trump’s foreign policy has been a dramatic departure from those of his predecessors since World War II is a myth. That is especially true regarding security issues. Although the president’s rhetoric toward Washington’s longtime allies has sometimes been abrasive and less collegial, his actions have differed little from the post–World War II norm. There certainly is no credible evidence that he is orchestrating a withdrawal from Washington’s multitude of global security commitments and initiatives.