Unraveling Triadic Relationship in Trump’s Foreign Policy: Internationalism, Nationalism, and Trumpism
Keywords:
US foreign policy, American foreign policy community, nationalism, internationalism, TrumpismAbstract
This article provides a new framework for analyzing the dynamics of U.S. foreign policy establishment in the Trump administration. Since Trump became the President of the United States in 2017, the foreign policy establishment has changed drastically to the point that it now consists of three ideologies: internationalism, nationalism, and Trumpism. Though the three ideologies may contradict, they coexist and, above all, take the helm of American foreign policy. The nature of competing yet coexisting three ideologies is defined as “triadic relationship”. This article argues that internationalism and nationalism are sometimes eclipsed by Trumpism, but they are not be completely silenced once overshadowed by Trumpism. Rather, when Trumpism reaches its goals, it will “juggle back” enabling nationalism and internationalism to resume their duties. Moreover, the distinctions between internationalism, internationalism, and Trumpism are not clearly drawn in the sense that internationalism and Trumpism can only be associated with security issues whereas nationalism is connected to economic ones. Instead, any ideology can compete in the security or economic realm, and briefly dominates U.S. foreign policy in a "juggling back and forth" way. In conclusion, the triadic relationship, along with the concept of juggling back and forth, can clarify the complexities of President Trump’s foreign policy and the dynamics inside the foreign policy establishment.
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Acharya, A. (2014). The End of American World Order. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Allison, G. (2018). The Myth of the Liberal Order: From Historical Accident to Conventional Wisdom. Foreign Affairs, 97(4), 124.
Anton, M. (2019). The Trump Doctrine. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/20/the-trump-doctrine-big-think-america-first-nationalism/
Art, R. J. (2009). America's Grand Strategy and World Politics. London: Routledge.
BBC. (2017). Trump executive order pulls out of TPP trade deal. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38721056
Bolton, J. (2018). The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-legal-case-for-striking-north-korea-first-1519862374
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Cai, W., & Parlapiano, A. (2020). A Guide to the Case For and Against Removing Trump. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/22/us/politics/impeachment-articles-arguments.html
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Chua, A. (2018). Tribal World: Group Identity Is All. Foreign Affairs, 97(4), 25-33.
Chua, A. (2019). Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations New York: Penguin Books.
Cohen, E. A. (2020). America’s Long Goodbye: The Real Crisis of the Trump Era. Retrieved from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/long-term-disaster-trump-foreign-policy?fbclid=IwAR0oG7ogA902sqWf-HycdnylSu8Thlppk3qYrPZ69KjxcpPC4AoYLVTNkmk
Cooper, Z. (2017). U.S. Strategy in Asia: Mixing Economic Nationalism with Security Internationalism. In R. Huisken (Ed.), Regional Security Outlook 2018. Canberra: CSCAP.
Cowen, T. (2016). Here's the Economist Whose Ideas Guide Trump. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2016-08-01/peter-navarro-is-the-economist-whose-ideas-guide-trump
Cramer, K. J. (2016). The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Dombrowski, P., & Reich, S. (2018). Beyond the Tweets: President Trump's Continuity in Military Operations. Strategic Studies Quarterly, 12(2), 56-81.
Drezner, D. W. (2016). Donald Trump’s big foreign policy speech, explained. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/27/donald-trumps-big-foreign-policy-speech-explained/
Eatwell, R., & Goodwin, M. (2018). National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. London: Penguin Random House.
Fuchs, M. H. (2019). America Doesn’t Need a Grand Strategy. Foreign Policy(Fall 2019), 40-45.
Gaddis, J. L. (2009). What Is Grand Strategy? American Grand Strategy After War. Triangle Institute for Security Studies and Duke University Program on American Grand Strategy.
Gaddis, J. L. (2018). On Grand Strategy. London: Penguin.
Grieco, J. M., Ikenberry, G. J., & Mastanduno, M. (2015). Introduction to International Relations: Enduring Questions and Contemporary Perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Haas, P. (1992). Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination. International organization, 46(Winter), 1–35.
Ikenberry, G. J. (2011). Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jacobs, L. R., & Page, B. I. (2005). Who influences US foreign policy? American political science review, 99(1), 107-123.
Jaffe, G., & Dawsey, J. (2018). Trump names former ambassador John Bolton as his new national security adviser. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-names-former-ambassador-john-bolton-as-his-new-national-security-adviser/2018/03/22/aa1d19e6-2e20-11e8-8ad6-fbc50284fce8_story.html
Lee, M. M. (2020). Crippling Leviathan: How Foreign Subversion Weakens the State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Lippman, D. (2019). Bolton unloads on Trump’s foreign policy behind closed doors. Retrieved from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/18/bolton-trump-foreign-policy-1501932
Locker, M. (2016). John Oliver Takes on Donald Trump on Last Week Tonight. Retrieved from http://time.com/4240734/john-oliver-donald-trump-last-week-tonight/
Mashayekhi, R. (2019). Here Are All the ‘Best People’ That Have Quit Trump’s Economic Team. Retrieved from https://fortune.com/2019/06/07/trump-economic-council-kevin-hassett/
Mead, W. R. (2001). Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. London: Routledge.
Mead, W. R. (2017). The Jacksonian Revolt: American Populism and the Liberal Order. Foreign Affairs, 96(2).
Mearsheimer, J. (2018). The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Mearsheimer, J., & Walt, S. (2016). The Case for Offshore Balancing: A Superior US Grand Stategy. Foreign Affairs, 95(4), 70-83.
Milevski, L. (2016). The Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic Thought. New York: Oxford University Press.
Naftali, T. (2020). Trump Hijacked U.S. Foreign Policy During His Impeachment. Retrieved from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2020-03-13/trump-hijacked-us-foreign-policy-during-his-impeachment
Navarro, P. (2015). Parsing the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Retrieved from https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/238473-parsing-the-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement
Nye, J. S. (2015). Is the American century over? Cambridge: Polity Press.
Nye, J. S. (2017). Will The Liberal Order Survive: The History of an Idea Foreign Affairs, 96(1), 10-16.
Pettypiece, S., Lee, C. E., Alexander, P., & Edelman, A. (2019). Trump fires John Bolton as national security adviser. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-fires-national-security-adviser-john-bolton-n1051986
Posen, B. R. (2018). The Rise of Illiberal Hegemony:vTrump's Surprising Grand Strategy. Foreign Affairs, 97(2), 20-27.
Reints, R. (2018). Obama Says Trump Is ‘a Symptom, Not the Cause’ of Political Unrest. Retrieved from https://fortune.com/2018/09/07/obama-trump-speech/
Rose, G. (2019). The Fourth Founding: The United States and the Liberal Order. Foreign Affairs, 98(1), 10-21.
Samuels, D. (2016). The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html?_r=1
Suporn, T. (2019). The U.S. - China Power Rivalries in the Obama Era: The Limits of American Alliance and the Challenges of (Not) Choosing Sides in Southeast Asia. International Journal of East Asian Studies, 23(1), 304-322.
Tenpas, K. D. (2020). Tracking Turnover in the Trump Administration. Retrieved from Washington, D.C.: https://www.brookings.edu/research/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/
The New York Times. (2016). Transcript: Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/us/politics/transcript-trump-foreign-policy.html
Thompson, J. (2017). Understanding Trumpism: the New Presidentʼs Foreign Policy. SIRIUS, 1(2), 1-6.
Tierney, D. (2019). Obama and Trump: Foreign Policy Opposites or Twins? Retrieved from https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/12/obama-and-trump-foreign-policy-opposites-or-twins/
U.S. Department of State. (2019). A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision Retrieved from https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Free-and-Open-Indo-Pacific-4Nov2019.pdf
Waed, A. (2019). John Bolton left because Trump wouldn’t let him start a war. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/10/20859357/john-bolton-trump-war-north-korea-iran
Walt, S. M. (2018). The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of US Primacy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Westad, O. A. (2019). The Sources of Chinese Conduct: Are Washington and Beijing Fighting a New Cold War. Foreign Affairs, 98(5), 86-95.
White House. (2017). Presidential Memorandum Regarding Withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations and Agreement. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-memorandum-regarding-withdrawal-united-states-trans-pacific-partnership-negotiations-agreement/
Woodward, B. (2018). Fear: Trump in the White House. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Zakaria, F. (2016). Populism on the March: Why the West is in Trouble. Foreign Affairs, 95(6), 9-15.
Zakaria, F., & Ferguson, N. (2017). The Liberal International Order? London: Oneworld Publications.
Zenko, M., & Lissner, R. (2017). Trump Is Going to Regret Not Having a Grand Strategy. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/13/trump-is-going-to-regret-not-having-a-grand-strategy/
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Published
2019-12-30
How to Cite
Suporn, T. (2019). Unraveling Triadic Relationship in Trump’s Foreign Policy: Internationalism, Nationalism, and Trumpism. Thai Journal of East Asian Studies, 23(2), 38–57. Retrieved from https://so02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/easttu/article/view/241335
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