[Trump’s World] - United States: "Trump is a disruptor in an era that required disruption"

INSTITUT MONTAIGNE - Wess Mitchell, in your analysis for the Washington Post, you endorse a highly rational interpretation of the Trump administration’s agenda. Isn’t this in stark contradiction with the abrupt U-turns and seemingly impulsive decisions that have occurred almost daily since January 20? 

Wess Mitchell - I believe that the Trump administration is pursuing a rational strategy aimed at national renewal. In doing so, it is responding to the opportunities and constraints facing America at present, which are both geopolitical and economic in nature.

The geopolitical environment is first characterized by the threats posed by several major powers (China, Russia, Iran) and by the fact that the U.S. military is not presently equipped to contend with all of these opponents simultaneously. The most serious of these opponents is China. Thus the United States needs to achieve a denouement of the crises in the Middle East and Europe in order to concentrate militarily on the primary theater, which is the Indo-Pacific.

Trump’s strategy also makes sense given the U.S. economic situation. The imperative for the United States is to re-industrialize to meet the threat from China. But to do that, we must first renegotiate the basic bargain between America and her allies. The old bargain (since World War Two) was: we provide security and open our markets to allies on a non-reciprocal basis, and in exchange, allies support U.S. foreign objectives and recycle their surpluses into our bond and equity markets to fuel US consumption. That bargain made sense in 1950 when the US accounted for half of global trade, but it does not make sense now that we are ten percent of global trade. I see Trump’s trade diplomacy as an effort to restructure the incentives so that the United States can pursue reindustrialization while maintaining the status of the dollar.

In both cases (security and trade), the goal is strategic consolidation : to rebalance the ledger of benefits and burdens in a way that will make the US position sustainable.

IM - We live in a transitional era. In historical tipping points like ours, the personality and temperament of individuals-since they are unique-matter. That is a factor that can divert the course of events regardless of structural constraints. Moreover, no reputable economist seems to support the possibility of re-industrializing the United States. Finally, aren’t the attacks on institutions and the academic and scientific world absolutely at odds with the project of domestic consolidation and industrial development?

WM - Certainly, this is not at all an endorsement of a purely structural approach! Personalities matter a great deal in history. A rational approach must begin with the balance of power. But how a nation responds to the incentives it faces is determined by the actions and "esprit" of its people and especially its leaders. Consider your own Charles De Gaulle : By force of personality, he altered France’s trajectory as a great power-to such an extent that his name became synonymous with not just a set of policies but with an entire era, a certain vision for what the French nation was and could become.

I view President Trump in a similar light. He is articulating the case for national renewal, rooted in a vision of America’s past achievements and future potential. His personality aligns with this vision: Stamina, a willingness to take risks, an unapologetic patriotism. These are certainly not the hallmarks of the political establishment, which in recent years has embraced a program of national apology and cultural self-abasement. Trump intuitively grasps the public’s rejection of the status quo and, by personality and outlook, embodies its precise opposite. He is a disruptor in an era that required disruption. His personality aligns with the logic of his strategies.

This is intolerable from a domestic perspective and dangerous for national security. How is a nation sovereign if it cannot produce semiconductors, propellers for its ships or vital medicines?

As for your question about academic institutions : I disagree with the premise. National strength arises not only or mainly from material factors ; it is also a reflection of the spiritual qualities of national institutions. Many U.S. college campuses have become nurseries for radical causes that are neither supported by the American public nor conducive to the maintenance of a meritocratic republic. Why should federal funds-taxpayer dollars-pay for programs that castigate America’s founding, encourage antisemitism, or hold the country’s constitution to be an illegitimate project ? Conditionalizing federal funding on the abandonment of these kinds of things is, to my mind, entirely in keeping with a logic of national renovation. It is also commonsense.

IM - Thus tariff policy must be understood through the lens of reindustrialization. How is that reconciled with the total abandonment of decarbonization and green transition objectives?

WM - The United States would never be able to reindustrialize while pursuing a decarbonization program of the kind envisioned under the Paris accord. Notice that China commits verbally to the Paris benchmarks while building two new coal-fired power plants per month. Look at the negative impact of green initiatives on European economies, especially in manufacturing sectors. Also remember that the fifth industrial revolution involving Artificial Intelligence will require a massive expansion in energy consumption that is orders of magnitude greater than traditional industry. The way the US will achieve that is through tapping into its vast natural gas reserves and pursuing a program of broad deregulation, not by following in Europe’s footsteps in renewables-which, by the way, only increase your dependency on China’s rare earth minerals.

IM - If the United States must face too many adversaries simultaneously, it seems counterintuitive to antagonize its own allies, as seen in Asia with the friction against South Korea or Japan…

WM - In my view, the Trump administration is seeking to rebalance U.S. alliances in order to meet the challenge of strategic simultaneity. It makes sense for the United States to ask allies to bear the bulk of the burden for conventional defense in their own neighborhoods. Why should Americans care more for the defense of Asia and Europe than Asians and Europeans ? It also makes sense for the United States to expect its allies to show reciprocity in trade, especially when one considers that their security is also intimately linked to the success of U.S. reindustrialization.

Trump’s approach is similar to previous U.S. presidents who sought to renegotiate the basic bargain with allies at moments of systemic flux. I think his message to allies is similar to the Nixon Doctrine, which called on allies to be the first responders in crises in their own neighborhoods. I see the logic behind Trump’s trade diplomacy as being similar to President Nixon’s negotiation of the Smithsonian Agreement in 1971 and President Reagan’s logic in renegotiating currency valuations under the Plaza Accords in 1985. The goal is not to destroy alliances but to renovate them to meet the demands of a new era.

IM - And how does this distinctive negotiation method align with U.S. expansionist appetites in Canada and Greenland?

IM - And what if Canada or Greenland are not inclined to serve U.S. interests? Does Trump respect the sovereignty of other countries?

WM - I think Canada and Greenland share the U.S. interest of protecting North America from economic and military penetration by outside powers like China. Canadians and Greenlanders ultimately decide what is best for themselves. Both have strong ties to the United States and I expect that will continue well into the future. 

IM - In the Washington Post you employed the notion of "sequencing." In this case, shouldn’t priority be given to rendering Russia powerless, then concluding an agreement with Moscow? How should one understand Trump’s chosen sequencing, at least in the initial phase? Isn’t it contrary to elementary Machiavellian logic, which holds that it is better to kill one’s adversary outright rather than leave him half-dead? How do you assess Trump’s approach to Ukraine?

WM - Historically, sequencing has taken both military and diplomatic forms. The ideal situation would be that the Ukrainians inflicted a defeat on Russia that convinced Putin to forego further attempts at westward conquest and perhaps reorient Russia’s energies toward its Asian frontiers. But that seems unlikely at this point because the Russians have used the period since the start of the war much more wisely than the West when it comes to building up their military resources to sustain the conflict. The Russians are slowly winning in Ukraine. And in my view it is unwise in any event to talk about goals like regime-change in Russia.

It therefore makes sense for the Trump administration to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Even that will likely require U.S. pressure at times, including by continuing to arm the Ukrainians and preparing other forms of leverage.

The administration has done a good job of increasing the geopolitical constraints on Putin by persuading the Arab states to increase oil production (which puts pressures on Russian revenues), persuading the Europeans to increase defense spending (which puts a time pressure on Putin because the military balance will now begin to shift against him), and persuading the Armenians and Azeris to make peace (which puts pressure on Putin to reorient attention to other frontiers where Russia is losing influence).

The strikes on Iran may facilitate a sequencing strategy. In the space of a few days, a country that had previously been thought capable of dominating the Middle East lost the flower of its military capabilities. Iran is still dangerous but will take time to rebuild. If the US can help bring an end to the wars in Ukraine and Levant, it will be in a position to shift greater military resources to Asia, which in turn will lend weight to its diplomacy with China. The goal is not to definitively "solve" the conflicts in these other regions, which is probably impossible, but to "park" them long enough for the US to concentrate effectively elsewhere. As Napoleon said, "Strategy is the art of making use of time and space", and the former is more precious than the latter.

IM - How might internal tensions within the Trump administration play out?

WM - In my view, they are exaggerated. Every administration has internal debates. But in the Trump administration I see a consensus on several important things : The goal of national rejuvenation and the need to fully utilize the current window of opportunity to make major structural changes. And in foreign policy, agreement that China is the top threat.

IM - How will the United States respond if Israel continues its strikes? How do they regard China?

WM - In my view, the U.S. goal in the Middle East should be a regional balance of power in which the factors of stability-Israel and the moderate Arab states-are able to counterbalance Iran and its proxies to an extent that would allow the US to reduce (but not fully remove) our presence in the region. The first Trump administration laid the foundation with the Abraham Accords. U.S. diplomacy appears to me to be very active now in, for example, engaging with the Arab states to promote the goal of normalization, engaging with all parties in Syria to create a Turkish-Israel condominium, supporting Israel efforts to pull Lebanon out of the Iranian orbit, and so forth. So the dynamic surrounding Israeli strikes must be viewed in this wider context.

In addition to deterring war, I think these moves also strengthen U.S. diplomacy with China. The goal in my mind should be for the US to engineer a relationship with China in which we and our allies are manifestly prepared for the worst case scenarios while simultaneously working to stabilize the relationship wherever possible.

IM - In this environment, what is left for multilateralism and global issues? The United States now appears to be "free riders" on issues like climate change. Are there domains where multilateralism remains undeniably crucial?

WM - I do not ascribe to the view of some Europeans that multilateralism is an end in itself. Institutions reflect and ratify power realities-they do not constitute a form of power in their own right. The international institutions that exist today are a byproduct of the moment in which they were created, in the decades following World War Two. They have to be viewed dispassionately, through the lens of national interests. To promote "global issues" usually means in practice that the nations of the West undertake self-injurious actions (burdening their industries with expensive climate regulations, for example, or supporting wealth transfers from their own citizenry to the developing world) while our strategic competitors, China and Russia, skirt the rules and fortify their own positions for more vigorous competition. The most effective form of multilateralisim today is the old-fashioned kind : forming coalitions and alliances on the basis of national interest.

IM - But surely some institutions remain useful to the United States, like the 1968 Non‑Proliferation Treaty or the International Atomic Energy Agency, especially to monitor Iran?

WM - These entities are not objectionable per se, but no one should expect them to be solvent with respect to the problems we face. The Trump administration has continued U.S. support for NPT in principle, for example - but it has relied on the diplomatic and military power of America and its allies for dealing with the real problems of proliferation, for example in Iran.

IM - The implacable unilateralism of the United States harms its interests as much as European moralistic multilateralism! If the alliance with Washington is no longer deemed reliable, the United States will lose all credibility. And it needs allies-there won’t be any left if it listens to no one.

WM - I do not see the Trump administration as abandoning alliances, if that is what you mean. My view is that the administration’s objective is to renovate alliances so that they better match the strategic realities of today. The agreement by European nations at the NATO meeting in the Hague to increase defense spending by historic amounts, and the Turnberry agreement in trade, are both significant accomplishments in this respect. In my view this rebalancing of benefits and burdens will ultimately make alliances stronger in the metric that matters most, which is not optics or a hollow spirit of bonhomie as was present under Biden but in the alliance’s ability to deliver tangible outcomes that render the West better able to defend itself.

IM - What will be the outcome? Will it be a world of spheres of influence? What might the terminal stage of this history look like-if the notion of a terminal stage even makes sense?

WM - I do not perceive a coherent trajectory to history in the manner envisioned by Immanuel Kant-and for that matter, by Henry Kissinger, who after all was a Kantian at heart. He believed until the end that the world was progressing toward an eventual golden era of world federation in which the nation-state would be supplanted and war would cease. I take instead the view of Edmund Burke-and your institute’s namesake, Montaigne !-that universalist dreams of this kind are impeded by certain unchanging constraints : above all, geography and human nature. Man is a fallen creature and there will be no apotheosis, at least on earth, no grand Kantian culmination.

We will instead likely see a long continuation of the competitive struggle that has been the leitmotif of the human story from its inception. We are clearly in the advanced stages of the World Crisis of our time. I am not optimistic about the stability of the present situation. The reason is because Russia and China both harbor unresolved claims on the material distribution of resources in the status quo. They are classic revisionist powers who have territorial claims that cannot be satisfied without a concomitant defeat by the prevailing power, the United States.

The US has important advantages in this competition, but only if it-and hopefully, eventually Europe as well- abandon certain self-injurious mindsets and policies of the past thirty years.

IM- Could one not argue that ideological conflict persists, but now pits nationalisms rather than rival political systems? Trump’s coalition advances a certain civilizational project-just as do Russia, China, or India. Will the next ideological struggle be a confrontation of nationalisms?

WM - Perhaps - but as Raymond Aron wrote, there are different kinds of nationalisms, and the differences matter. China, Russia and Iran embrace a form of nationalism that contains contradictory elements : that of the nation, understood as the dominant ethnic group (Han, Rus, Persian) and that of an ancestral empire from which the present-day polity derives its vision of future success. Thus they confess a mission as a "civilizational state", which is inherently particularist, while pursuing a plan for national greatness rooted in an imperial idea that entails the subjugation of smaller nearby nations. But what is the positive vision ? At most they can offer further-off countries the promise of "non-interference". But there is nothing to attract by way of example, since the end goal is by definition immutable.

Nationalism in America and to an extent Europe is something different - it is credal in nature. It is rooted in an ascent to certain civic ideals rather than ethnicity. Unfortunately, this has given rise to the notion that national identity in the West is elastic to the point of meaninglessness - that it is merely a matter of paperwork. There has been a tendency among Western elites to denigrate national identity as an antedilluvian concept that stands in the way of the neoliberal dream of a world without nations and borders. As a result, since the Cold War we have not only failed to cultivate a proper sense of pride in national heritage and achievement in Western publics, but in many ways have sought the demise of these sentiments.

In this, too, I see a rationality and consistency of purpose in the administration’s policies, which is to rouse and revive the nation, in both a geopolitical and domestic sense, for a new era of great-power competition.

Interview collected by Hortense Miginiac
Copyright image : Alan-Ducarre