Econ_June_09

The Economist

June 9th 2018

ANADA is a fairly laid-back place. On

the morning ofMay 25th, a Friday, Jus-

tin Trudeau, the prime minister, looked re-

laxed, dressed in jeans, having walked to

his office opposite the parliament building

inOttawa. Mr Trudeau talked to

The Econo-

mist

about the trade negotiations with the

United States, explaining that his job was

to stand up for Canadian interests, that

President Donald Trump understood this,

and that the two had “a very goodworking

relationship”.

But Canada is also a place that depends

on the United States for two-thirds of its

trade. There was nothing relaxed about Mr

Trudeau’s response when, a fewdays later,

Mr Trump slapped tariffs on steel and alu-

miniumfromCanada, Europe andMexico,

ostensibly for reasons of national security.

Mr Trudeau said the idea that Canada was

somehow a national-security threat to the

United States was “quite frankly insulting

and unacceptable”. France’s president, Em-

manuel Macron, called the tariffs “illegal”

andwarned: “Economic nationalism leads

to war. That is exactly what happened in

the 1930s.” When Canada hosts the

summit in Charlevoix, Quebec on June

8th-9th, it risks looking like the

G6+1

Mr Trump came to power arguing that

the world was a mess and American for-

eign policy an abject failure. His “America

First” viewwas that itwas no longerAmer-

ica’s job to clean up that mess, but to pur-

sue its own interests. Itwas time for Ameri-

ca’s enemies to fear it, for its allies to pay

their fair share and for the country to be

more selfish in pursuingwhat it wanted.

The American foreign-policy establish-

ment he turned his back on returned the

compliment, and was dismayed by his

election victory. Some among its number

nevertheless harboured hopes that having

campaigned in bile, the president would

govern in beige, constrained by the reali-

ties of office, “grown-ups” in his team and

the persuasion of his allies.

It didn’t happen. Just over 500 days into

his presidency, Mr Trump is up to his ears

in foreign-policy controversy and showing

no signs of being constrained. He has ap-

pointed his second secretary of state, the

hawkish Mike Pompeo, and his third na-

tional security adviser, the ultra-hawkish

John Bolton. In the past three months, in

addition to imposing tariffs on his allies, he

has abrogated the nuclear deal with Iran,

set the stage for a tradewarwithChina and

offered Kim JongUn ofNorth Korea a sum-

mit, which is due to take place in Singapore

on June 12th.

Trade experts, policy veterans and dip-

lomats from almost all America’s allies

have looked on aghast. Mr Trump’s voters

are thrilled. In foreign policy, perhaps

more than anywhere else, he is doing ex-

actlywhat he saidhewoulddo: pulling out

of the Paris climate agreement and the Iran

deal, moving America’s embassy in Israel

to Jerusalem, getting tough with China.

Many in business are more or less on

board, too; happy with growth at home,

they give the president the benefit of the

doubt overseas—andwhen it comes toChi-

na-bashing, plenty of them are all for it.

Some allied governments, notably those

of Israel and Saudi Arabia, are delighted.

There are three perspectives from

which to lookat this. Themost prevalent in

the foreign-policy establishment and the

chancelleries of Europe is despair. The

rules-based order ushered in after the sec-

ond world war, which provided both the

greatest-ever increase in human wealth

and global trade and a whole human life-

time without worldwide armed conflict, is

being dismantled. No goodwill come of it.

The second perspective could be called

“Yes, but”. Yes-but-ism doesn’t exactly re-

ject despair, but tempers it with various ca-

veats: thatMr Trump’s outragesmaynot be

as profound, unprecedented and perma-

nent as they might seem; and that the old

rules-based order was already failing in a

number of respects.

The third perspective is openness to

surprising success. This holds that Mr

Trump’s one-offmixture of ambitions and

style means he might be able to achieve

things that people working in old ways

within the old system simply could not.

These are perspectives, not camps.

Present at the destruction

OTTAWA AND WASHINGTON, DC

America’s president is undermining the rules-based international order. Can any

good come of it?

Briefing

Donald Trump and the world