How Donald Trump's worldview sits with the international community
Donald Trump鈥檚 acceptance speech Thursday night as the GOP's presidential candidate for the 2016 election has garnered both praise for its forcefulness and dismay for the fearful picture it portrayed of a broken country.
Beyond US shores, however, his words were received with widespread 鈥� though by no means universal 鈥� consternation, as both average citizens and officials in other nations wondered what it could mean for the global system, should Mr. Trump become America's 45th president.
鈥淭he US has been the bedrock of international order,鈥� says Jeremy Shapiro, the director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations. 鈥淲hen people see Trump ending that strategy, it threatens the linchpin, it means the Western liberal order can鈥檛 survive if he gets into power.鈥�
In Trump鈥檚 75-minute speech, a core message was 鈥淎mericanism, not globalism, will be our credo.鈥澛�
Trump holds the view that 鈥� by its international relationships,鈥� an outlook he's held for decades, as Thomas Wright, director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at The Brookings Institution, wrote in Politico.聽
Particularly contentious of late has been Trump鈥檚 opinion on NATO. On Wednesday, he told The New York Times that the United States might be willing to walk away if other nations failed to fulfill 鈥�,鈥� saying that other countries were carrying an insufficient portion of the financial burden.聽
His comments prompted what Stephan Haggard, a professor at University of California, San Diego鈥檚 School of Global Policy and Strategy, has described as 鈥渁n .鈥� NATO鈥檚 Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, for example, took the unusual step of wading into the fray, saying that, while he would not 鈥渋nterfere in the US election campaign,鈥� he would emphasize that 鈥� is a key value for NATO.鈥�
In The New York Times' interview, reporters asked if the United States, under a President Trump, would come to Baltic states' aid if Russia invaded Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania 鈥撀燼s NATO's Article 5 demands. Trump refused to commit, citing his concerns regarding other nations not having paid their dues.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the Estonian president, tweeted the following day about his country's role in the sole invocation of that Article in the history of NATO: after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not too much to say that if polls showed Trump winning today, what he said about NATO would have caused an international crisis,鈥� says Mr. Shapiro, of the European Council.聽
Others, however, take a much more sanguine view of the isolationist doctrine that Trump is espousing, suggesting that a change in direction would be welcome. Writing in an op-ed for The Guardian, Simon Jenkins says 鈥渁 jolt of realpolitik from an isolationist Republican would be no bad thing.鈥�
鈥� to point out that Obama鈥檚 global antics have been ham-fisted,鈥� writes Mr. Jenkins. 鈥淥bama鈥檚 fascination with the drone as a weapon of aggression, his failed 'reset' with Russia, the decline in relations with China, and the clumsy remarks about Brexit all illustrated an ineptitude as self-appointed global policeman.鈥�
In its article on the speech, China鈥檚 state news agency, Xinhua, made barely a mention of Trump鈥檚 foreign policy ideas.聽Trump spoke of China's 鈥渙utrageous theft of intellectual property,鈥� their 鈥渋llegal product dumping,鈥� and 鈥渄evastating currency manipulation.鈥� He also lamented 鈥渉orrible trade agreements鈥� with that country, among others, saying they would all be renegotiated.
Yet apart from a brief mention of Trump's "inflammatory remarks" on the campaign trail, just about the most critical remark in Xinhua was that the candidate 鈥� to explain how he would manage to realize all his promises.鈥�
The Yonhap news agency of South Korea, another country whose trade agreement Trump lambasted, was less reticent in its coverage, spending almost every word dwelling on Trump鈥檚 determination to renegotiate and force allies to pay more for defense agreements.
Russia is one country that might be expected to celebrate a Trump presidency, given the Republican candidate's assertions that he would get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yet Russia's TASS state news agency's English website has yet to post an article on Trump's speech, and Sputnik, an online news source with government affiliations, headlined one of its own pieces, "Why one shouldn't be deluded by ."
鈥淚 think in general there鈥檚 a complacency that Trump won鈥檛 win 鈥撀爐hat鈥檚 holding down the fort,鈥� says Shapiro. 鈥淚f he does win, there鈥檒l be a general panic round the world.鈥� Even if the United States were to pull back from the world stage, however, "eventually it will all settle," he says.聽
