Category Archives: Multilateralism

Did the Osaka G20 Bring Global Governance Progress – Part Two

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So, the Vision 20 principals, Colin Bradford, Brookings, Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia and myself, at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy thought it would be valuable to take a second gaze at the G20 Osaka Summit. This look, of course, occurring following the conclusion of the Summit.

There is little question that the G20 was dominated by the Donald Trump’s ‘reality TV show’ – the meeting and joking with Putin, the dramatic meeting over tariffs with Xi Jinping. And, finally, but certainly not least, the dramatic ‘handshake summit’ with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un at the DMZ. In the end, there was little bandwidth left for any coverage of the collective meetings of the G20, or examination of the Leaders’ Declaration. The Oska G20 reflects the shape – read that as the fragmenting – of the Global Order. But the V20 principals thought to try and draw some conclusions where we could on the state of the order in this chaotic ‘Age of Trump’.

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The Consistent ‘Dismantling’ Strategy of President Trump

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The above has become the iconic image of Trump with other allied leaders. For some time, now, the ‘Experts’ have been trying fully to capture the core, and the operating mechanics of Trump foreign policy.

This started before Trump’s surprise election. It has continued on since that time.  Understanding Trump’s foreign policy and his various initiatives have become rather more critical as time goes on. We see Trump and his close colleagues trying to advance Trump policy at the regular summits, most evidently the G7 (the picture above); at summits of his own making most notably the Singapore Summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, and a soon to be convened NATO Summit to followed by Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia in Helsinki.   

So where are we? And where is Trump leading? Describing Trump foreign policy means an effort to capture what Trump means by his ‘America First’ strategy.  It seemed early on that America First was built on a foundation of some form of U.S. unilateralism and strong skepticism over the multilateral institutions in trade and political alliances that served as the heart of the liberal international order. Most of us saw the irony of this: after all the United States had been the chief promoter and ‘construction boss’ for building the liberal international order. As our colleague John Ikenberry declared in FA in his article, “The Plot Against American Foreign Policy”, there is yet another irony: 

A hostile revisionist power has indeed arrived on the scene, but it sits in the Oval Office, the beating heart of the free world. Across ancient and modern eras, orders built by great powers have come and gone—but they have usually ended in murder, not suicide.

There was some degree contention by analysts to assess what degree of aggressiveness – how forward or uninvolved – Trump foreign policy would be. This assessment was not so much against America’s rivals but with America’s allies.  As time has passed though, it seems there is a growing sense that Trump is mounting a serious, even concerted effort to dismember the liberal order.  Continue reading →

A Threat to the Entire Order – A ‘First Glance’

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Philip Stephens, opinion writer at the FT concluded his examination of the current state of the liberal international order by saying:

I am sometimes asked what I consider to represent the biggest threat to global peace and stability. A nuclear North Korea looks dangerous, but containable. Mr Kim is not a madman. So the temptation is to reply that the risk is found in China’s rise or in Russian revanchism. The real answer is Mr Trump’s retreat.

Having just completed a podcast with my colleague Bruce Jones, the Vice President and Director – Foreign Policy, Brookings (the podcast at Oxford’s Global Summitry should be up next week)  I decided to find a small hole to crawl into it. 

All right so that comment is a bit exaggerated. But the point is:  ‘America First’ is not just about Trump skepticism over the global economy and the continuing attack on the value of the multilateral trade regime.  No, it is also a mighty scepticism over the value of the multilateral security arrangements.  Let’s just contemplate for a moment the likely Trump bullying over the upcoming NATO Summit. 

But meanwhile his eagerness to question the deployment of U.S. forces in Korea and to accept apparently without consultation the suspension of ‘war games’ with his Korean allies leads to  a general expert view, that of course may be wrong – that a big winner on the Peninsula  after the Singapore Summit is a non-attendee – China. A Stephens suggests: 

Absent from the Singapore summit, Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, was nonetheless a big winner. In Mr Trump’s world of everyone for themselves, China will replace the US as the pre-eminent power in east Asia. Japan, Taiwan and, in time, South Korea itself, may choose to take a tip from Mr Kim. If you want to be safe, build a bomb. 

What an unhealthy result that would be. 

Image Credit: cnn.com

The G20 – It’s Relevant But Different it Appears in the ‘Age of Trump’

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 I suspect we’ll hear, once the dust settles a little on the chaos of the G20 Hamburg Summit, a litany of allegations that the Hamburg Summit reveals the irrelevance of the G20 in the Age of Trump.  Au contraire my ‘ill-observant friends’.That is certainly not the conclusion one should draw from this most recent G20 Summit, even in the ‘Age of Trump’.

There is likely to be varying views of the progress arising from the Hamburg Summit.  Our colleague Jonathan Luckhurst at Rising Powers in Global Governance posted a blog titled, “Hamburg G20 Summit Reaffirms Decentralizing Global Authority”.

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‘Shaking the Temple’ – Trump and the Liberal Order

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With the change in US Administrations we face possibly the most dramatic change in US foreign policy since the end of World War II.  The global leader has seemingly become the rogue seeking dramatic change in the Liberal Order the US has as much or more responsibility for over the last seventy years plus.

As has quickly become clear, however, we do not know if President’s Trump rhetoric of the campaign will be followed by actions matching the rhetoric.  There is some reason to think that his and his administration’s actions will not match some of the more highly nationalist expressions of his ‘America First’ rhetoric.  One need only look at Trump’s early statements and actions on China – phoning the Taiwan President, then questioning the ‘One China Policy’ only to reaffirm the policy in a call with China President Xi Jinping – to raise questions even doubts over the election rhetoric. But even without dramatic foreign policy actions it is not hard to see Trump and his Administration as possibly the greatest challenge to the Liberal Order that any of us have witnessed.

I will be periodically examining US foreign policy, and the policy toward the Liberal Order it and by key actors -supporters and detractors alike – hoping to assess the impact of the policies and actions on the Liberal Order. The first entry is the piece I was invited to post at the US-China Focus website.  There will be others. In addition, as Senior Editor of Oxford’s Global Summitry: Politics, Economics, and Law in International Governance, I intend to post a series of podcast interviews with experts and former officials on: ‘Shaking the Global Order: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump’.   I will back to you on additional posts and the podcast series.

 

 

Image Credit: abcnews.go.com