In the past three months, Trump and his administration have boasted their swift upheaval of domestic and international programs from cutting funds for climate and environmental programming to dismantling the Agency for International Development. The overturn of federal R&D programming has destabilized the U.S. as a global innovation leader and has heightened China’s chance of becoming one. Arbitrary tariffs and criticism of the WTO and IMF have left a significant impact on the U.S. dollar – an impact that, if left unaddressed, could take upwards of a decade to resolve. American isolationism, however, is not new under Trump, only intensified. The U.S. has been trending isolationist since the 2008 economic recession and through previous Democratic administrations. American citizens are similarly disinterested in the U.S. role in international politics. Other global powers, like China, are seeing the benefit of multipolarity. For a new President to reverse this trajectory, they will need to work to gain not only bipartisan support, but to re-establish the U.S. as a key global player, international humanitarian aid and investments will need renewed.
The End of American Internationalism? (Mathew Burrows, Robert A. Manning – Stimson Center)
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