The two words came eight minutes into President Trump’s Inaugural Address, and were delivered with the now-familiar gesticulations. “America first,” he declared, his right arm bouncing with each word, his index finger and thumb pinched together, followed by an exclamatory point of the finger: “America first.” With those words, Trump broke sharply with how U.S. Presidents have defined America’s relationship with the international community across seven decades since the Second World War.
Even as Franklin Roosevelt, in his fourth and final inaugural, called for “total victory in war,” he warned that “we can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust—or with fear.” In his first inaugural, Dwight Eisenhower pledged to build the “strength that will deter the forces of aggression” in Korea, but also claimed that “we reject any insinuation that one race or another, one people or another, is in any sense inferior or expendable.” John F. Kennedy’s summons that a new generation of Americans would “bear any burden” in defense of liberty was matched with an exhortation to his “fellow-citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” As Ronald Reagan issued a battle cry against Communist “enemies of freedom,” he pledged in his first inaugural that America would “be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope” to oppressed populations around the world.
Fast forward to Trump. “Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families,” he decreed, from the west front of the Capitol. “We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world”—and then came the caveat—“but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.” It’s a world view that quickly collapses under its own contradictions. “America is not respected around the world anymore,” he claimed during the campaign, and yet the first days of his Presidency demonstrate that an “America first” agenda risks alienating the United States from much of the world.
As one of President Barack Obama’s two foreign-policy speechwriters, I saw how Obama restored the global standing of the United States after the Bush years through the policies he pursued, which removed most U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan while the U.S. targeted Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, embraced diplomacy to address global challenges, engaged old adversaries like Iran and Cuba, and positioned the United States as a leader in the fight against climate change. As important as his deeds, however, were the words he used to convey his vision to audiences around the world. Having written his own memoir, Obama focussed on the narrative arc that would hold the speech together. “Get the story right, and the lines will follow,” he would tell our team, which was led by the chief foreign-policy speechwriter, Ben Rhodes, and the chief domestic speechwriter—Jon Favreau in the first term and Cody Keenan in the second.
In his foreign-policy speeches, Obama spoke of America as a partner with other countries and peoples. The line that often followed was that the United States wanted to work with others in a spirit of “mutual interest and mutual respect.” Obama showed that respect by honoring others’ achievements and sometimes by literally speaking their languages. He recognized the indispensable role that the U.S. plays in world affairs; in speeches such as his lecture upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, he issued a robust defense of America as the guarantor of global stability in the post-Second World War order. But, he was clear, U.S. foreign policy was not immune from criticism. In Laos, where the United States dropped more than two million tons of bombs during the Vietnam War, he went further than any other American President to date in recognizing what had once been called a secret war. “I stand with you in acknowledging the suffering and sacrifices on all sides of that conflict,” he told a Laotian audience.
Words matter, and the words of a U.S. President matter immensely in shaping how the world perceives America. When Kennedy said, in West Berlin, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” millions behind the Iron Curtain knew that the United States was committed to their freedom. In George W. Bush’s final year—after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and his absolutist approach to the war on terrorism (“You are with us, or you are with the terrorists”)—fewer than half of twenty-three countries polled had a positive view of the United States, according to a June, 2008, survey by the Pew Research Center. Just months into the Obama Presidency, Pew found that seventy per cent of a similar bloc were favorable to America.
International affairs are not a popularity contest. But when the United States is held in high esteem an American President is in a stronger position to advance U.S. interests. Showing respect for other countries and being willing to acknowledge America’s imperfections also give a President added credibility to speak hard truths abroad. In Cairo, Obama said in his speech to the Muslim world that denying the Holocaust “is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful,” and that threatening Israel or engaging in anti-Semitism only succeeds in “preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.” Speaking to the Cuban people at Havana’s Grand Theatre, he insisted that “citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear, to organize, and to criticize their government.” With the Cuban President Raúl Castro looking on from a box seat, Obama added, “Voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections.” Engaging other countries in a spirit of mutual respect was pivotal to many of Obama’s most significant foreign-policy achievements. The deal to halt Iran’s nuclear-weapons program was only possible because of intensive diplomacy with allies like the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the European Union, but also with Iran, Russia, and China.
In contrast, it’s already clear that much of the world is loudly rejecting Trump and his “America first” vision. Even before his election, only fourteen per cent of Canadians, nine per cent of Europeans, and nine per cent of Japanese said that they had confidence in Trump on matters of world affairs, according to a Pew survey last summer. Never before has a U.S. President triggered so much animosity among so many nations in so short a time as Trump did in his first week in office. Having previously blamed the Mexican government for intentionally sending “killers and rapists” to the United States, his move to start construction of a border wall and talk of new tariffs on Mexican imports to pay for it have plunged U.S.-Mexico relations to their lowest point in decades. His executive orders to suspend the admission of refugees to the United States, and to halt all immigration from seven Muslim countries—all in the name of fighting “radical Islamic terrorism”—send a message to the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims that Trump sees them as inherently suspect.
Like his Inauguration, Trump’s arrival in foreign capitals will likely spark large-scale protests. The British Prime Minister Theresa May’s invitation to Trump to visit London has already provoked outrage across the U.K. At the NATO summit this spring, in Brussels, Europeans will remember that he called the city a “hellhole,” has said NATO is “obsolete,” and that he hopes to have a “fantastic relationship” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. When Trump visits Tokyo, protesters will recall his threat that the U.S. might need to “walk” away from its treaty obligations with Japan because, if the United States were attacked, Japanese would just “sit home and watch Sony television.” When he visits Seoul, South Koreans will remember his threat that “they’re going to have to defend themselves” against North Korea if they don’t pay the United States a greater share for their defense.
In this sense, Trump has already muzzled himself as a credible voice for America on the world stage. Even if they were inclined to do so, neither Trump nor senior officials in his Administration will have the moral authority to urge other nations to guarantee equal treatment for women, or for religious and ethnic minorities; or to accept desperate refugees from war-torn countries; or to respect a free press. A leader who stokes mistrust and fear at home will not be able to inspire people to high ideals abroad. Autocratic regimes will eagerly quote Trump’s proclamation that “it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.”
Trump’s dark nationalism will also complicate his ability to deliver the greater security and prosperity that he has promised Americans. Allies may be less likely to hand over terrorist suspects to the United States if they may be sent to the prison at Guantánamo Bay. (Trump pledges to “fill it up.”) Governments of Muslim countries may be less inclined to coöperate openly with Washington against the Islamic State, which Trump has called “a purely religious threat.” The “terrific” trade deals he seeks will prove elusive when he has already made it clear that the United States “will follow two simple rules: buy American and hire American.” How ironic that a businessman who has spent decades meticulously cultivating his own image now threatens to undermine America’s brand as “the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope” that Reagan celebrated.
Six days after Trump’s victory, Obama departed for his last foreign trip in office, visiting Greece, Germany, and Peru. In Lima, he held the final town-hall meeting of his Presidency, in a gymnasium at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, where hundreds of students from across Latin America sat in folding chairs and metal bleachers. “There are those who argue that democracy is incompatible with development because you need order, you need somebody from the top to tell people what to do in order to achieve,” the President told one student. “Oftentimes, politicians can feed into that sense that everything is changing so fast, let’s go back to our old identities, identities of race or tribe or nationality.”
“Young people are in a position to change the world faster than ever before,” he said. “And I am confident that if you are respectful of people and you look for what you have in common with humanity, if you stay true to the values of kindness and respect and reason and trying to live together in peace, that the world will keep getting better.” Behind the bleachers, a few White House staffers listened quietly. We knew that it would be years before the world hears an American President speak like that again.