Michael Mandelbaum
Michael Mandelbaum is Professor
Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies and the author, most recently,
of Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era.
WASHINGTON,
DC – To say that US President Donald Trump’s administration made waves
in its initial weeks would be an understatement. Large protests across
the United States and around the world attended his inauguration, and
have continued since. Meanwhile, Trump has already declared war on the
adversarial American press, and held acrimonious telephone conversations
with friendly countries’ leaders.
But to make sense of
the new administration’s overall performance, worried and perplexed
observers inside the US and around the world should follow five general
guidelines, rather than focus too much on discrete events.
First, all new US
administrations are messy at the beginning: they stumble, create
confusion, and say and do things that they later retract, or at least
regret. Some officials will not be up to the job, and will leave the
government after a few months.
Many of the missteps
that occur early in a presidency stem from a flaw in the US political
system. New presidents take office without a full team in place, and
must wait for their cabinet nominees and other officials – the people
who actually run the government – to be confirmed. During Trump’s first
two weeks, his administration consisted of just a few aides rattling
around in the White House. Like its predecessors, the Trump
administration will settle down and settle in – unless it doesn’t.
A second guideline is
to keep a close eye on foreign policy. Owing to the checks and balances
built into the American constitutional order, presidents have much
wider latitude in how they engage with other countries than they do in
steering domestic affairs.
To be sure, Trump’s first weeks portend disturbing changes to US foreign policy.
For 70 years, the US has maintained global security through its network
of alliances, and kept the international economy humming through free
trade. During the campaign, Trump attacked both of these crucial roles.
Should his administration abandon them entirely, the world will become a
poorer, more dangerous place.
And yet most of the
new president’s principal foreign-policy appointees inspire confidence.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis is a sober, experienced, and widely
respected former general with an internationalist outlook. Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson, while never having served in government, gained
extensive experience working with other countries when he was CEO of
ExxonMobil, a large multinational energy company.
In fact, the new administration’s ability to maintain continuity and international stability will depend on it not
following the example set by its predecessor. During Barack Obama’s
presidency, senior officials were marginalized, and foreign policy was
generally determined by an inexperienced president and his even less
experienced young White House acolytes.
A third fact to keep
in mind is that Trump’s most serious opposition will not come from his
noisiest opponents. Public demonstrations will not throw the Trump
administration off course, and they could even steel its resolve to
pursue the policies that have raised the most objections. It is worth
remembering that the protest movement against the Vietnam War was even
more unpopular than the war itself. Like President Richard Nixon, Trump
may try to exploit the public’s distaste for disruptive and occasionally
violent protests to bolster support for his policies.
Another loud source
of opposition is the mainstream press, which has attacked the Trump
administration earlier and more forcefully than any new presidency in
memory. Still, the press’s capacity to stymie Trump is limited, because
it lacks credibility outside of the coastal states and large
metropolitan areas where people already oppose him.
Meanwhile, Trump’s
formal opposition – the Democratic Party – is weak, demoralized, and
divided. But his administration could face formidable opposition from
different quarters. For starters, he cannot govern without Congressional
Republicans, many of whom will frustrate any effort he makes to abandon
America’s long-standing alliances.
Trump may also have
to deal with opposition from business leaders, who have remained largely
silent, but could grow tired of his wrathful tweets. Ultimately,
business leaders have a duty to their companies’ health, and they will
try to block any policies that threaten it. Multinational corporations
with expansive international operations will resist initiatives that
could spark trade wars.
At the end of the day, no Republican president – not even Trump – can
afford to ignore the captains of American industry and finance.
A fourth lesson to take to heart is that American democracy will survive.
Fearful pronouncements about the rise of incipient (or actual) fascism
are misplaced. The basic institutions of American governance have
survived greater challenges than any that Trump may pose.
Although America in
2017 is deeply divided, Americans remain committed to the central tenets
of democracy: free, fair, and regular elections and the protection of
political, religious, and economic liberty. It is unlikely that Trump
will attempt to overturn any of them; and even if he does try, he will
fail. When he leaves office, the US will essentially be what it was when
he entered it: the world’s most powerful democracy.
Finally, a key
question to consider is whether the Trump administration will be
“normal.” A normal president pursues predictable policies that are
generally supported by those who voted for him, and opposed by those who
did not. Trump’s cabinet and Supreme Court nominations fit this
description.
An administration
operating outside the bounds of normality will pursue policies that even
its supporters and well-wishers oppose, and which could do serious
damage to the country, and the world generally.
Will Trump’s
presidency be normal? At this point, we must defer to the
twentieth-century Chinese communist leader Zhou Enlai's purported
response to AndrĂ© Malraux’s question about what he thought of the French
Revolution: it’s “too early to say.”
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