Is anti-globalisation Trump turning his back on Asia?
US President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy and security so far has been unprecedented, leaving other countries perplexed as they try to adjust their policies to the anti-globalisation billionaire.
And unlike his predecessor Barack Obama, who placed Asia strategically at the heart of his administration’s foreign policy in light of the region’s robust economic growth and in anticipation to the rise of China, Mr Trump appears to place less importance on the region.
As a result, everyone is “grappling with the reality of a very different US”, Vali R Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said during an event on US defence and foreign policy organised by the United States-Indonesia Society (USINDO) in Jakarta recently.
A former adviser to Hillary Clinton when she served as US secretary of state, Mr Nasr said some of the fundamental qualities that make up the United States, and with which people have been familiar for decades, no longer seem to be there, so everyone has to rethink their own foreign policies.
He said the Trump administration did not believe much in the importance of allies or diplomacy in the normal sense, or in the way that America has demonstrated global leadership under previous administrations including that of Mr Obama.
“The country that Trump is looking to pivot to is Russia but not in the same way as Obama pivoted to Asia,” Mr Nasr said, adding that Mr Trump seemed to think that in terms of security, Russia is the natural ally of America.
He said Mr Trump’s definition of security was not the kind of security that American foreign policy has promoted in the past. The real estate tycoon, he said, appeared to think of security purely in very narrow terms as physical security in the US and without involving actors of foreign policy. However, the notion does not have much support at home, given that a large number of Americans that don’t identify with this type of security.
“Trump’s foreign policy on security is rather to protect America from fundamental threats, mainly trade,” Mr Nasr said, adding that this goes against the notion that free trade is good, an idea that Washington has promoted enthusiastically in the past.
The anti-globalisation Trump doesn’t believe in the strategic value of free trade, and sees it as generally harmful to US interests.
“He has made it clear that he is not committing to free trade, by cancelling the TPP [Trans Pacific Partnership] and wanting to renegotiate Nafta [North American Free Trade Agreement], but more significantly, he believes that he should disrupt it,” Mr Nasr said during an earlier interview with Asia Focus and other media outlets.
Four Asean member states were among the TPP signatories and Indonesia had expressed keen interest in joining. One of Mr Trump’s very first acts as he began to tear apart the legacy of the Obama administration was to pull the US out of the TPP. Without the participation of the 12-country pact’s biggest economy, the deal is almost certainly dead.
Another Trump executive order that has caused worldwide turmoil imposed a 90-day ban on all refugees and on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — on security grounds. A federal jugde ordered a halt to the ban, a decision that was upheld last Friday by an appeal court, and the fight is now expected to go to the US Supreme Court.
Mr Nasr said the ban would have been “more credible” if countries that are providers of terrorist foreign fighters were on the list, given that Mr Trump has identified the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as his main concern.
While Indonesia was not affected with the ban, the Indonesian government said it deeply regretted the policy, despite acknowledging that the issuing of the policy was the sovereign right of the United States.
Arrmanatha Nasir, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement that the policy was likely to have a negative impact on global efforts to fight terrorism and on the handling of refugee issues.
“It is wrong to associate radicalism and terrorism with a particular religion,” Mr Arrmanatha added.
Mr Nasr acknowledged that the executive order would make it more difficult to cooperate and collaborate with other countries in the fight against terrorism as counterterrorism measures generally require very close cooperation.
When asked if the ban would increase threats of terror attacks to American interests abroad, given that previous bomb attacks in Indonesia occurred in places that represented American interests, Mr Nasr said he did not see this as very likely.
“I don’t think that what Trump said will have an impact on Indonesia’s fight against terrorism. It’s an impact on America. It’s a very local frame. Yes, it encourages anti-Americans but at the same time, that particular policy is very local,” he said.
“Generally it does help the anti-American forces’ rhetoric, but it is most dangerous in countries like Syria and Iraq. It is in those places that are most problematic.”
Indonesian terrorism expert Rakyan Adibrata said that even if the United States was keen on implementing “extreme vetting” or refugees and other applicants for immigration, it could learn from other western countries. Germany in particular opened its doors to people from warn-torn countries such as Syria and Iraq, as the policy showed the country’s commitment to democracy by upholding civil rights and protecting the refugees’ right to live.
Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, he said, were examples of countries where the US was involved in their conflicts and as a champion for democracy, it should remain open to refugees from those countries.
“Even if [Washington] still wants to impose extreme vetting, it should still open a special channel for people fleeing wars which the US had some involvement in triggering,” Mr Rakyan told Asia Focus.
“Even if [Washington] still wants to impose extreme vetting, it should still open a special channel for people fleeing wars which the US had some involvement in triggering” RAKYAN ADIBRATA Indonesian terror expert