Pandemic presents stern test for Trump worldview

‘America First’ not promoting global cooperation

When terrorists struck the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, Nicholas Burns was the U.S. ambassador to NATO, and one memory still stands out: how swiftly America’s allies invoked Article Five of the organization’s charter, that an attack on one member was an attack on all.

It was a kinship among nations nurtured over decades and a muscular display of collective defense that has defined much of the post-World War II era. It is also a worldview Burns finds starkly at odds with President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy as NATO’s members and other countries suffer from the deadly weight of the coronavirus pandemic.

America First has been a ready applause line for Trump, but now it is also a philosophy being put to a life-or-death test, with much of the world still looking to the U.S. for leadership and assistance.

Burns, a Harvard professor and a former top U.S. diplomat who served Republican and Democratic presidents, said it was “entirely reasonable and rational” to focus inward “in the first weeks of the crisis in March. The president’s job is to protect the people of the United States.

“Having said that, I think it is abundantly clear that we cannot succeed in fighting the pandemic and confront the global economic collapse if we are not cooperating globally.”

Trump’s guiding foreign policy mixed with his “I alone can fix it” ethos has made him an unpredictable partner for America’s allies, who continue to struggle with how to manage the president and fortify strategic ties with the U.S.

During the pandemic, Trump has been accused by allies such as Germany and Canada of disrupting shipments of medical supplies, saying that the U.S. needed them first. But he has also offered to provide ventilators to other nations, both among allies and foes.

“President Trump has done a masterful job in the face of an unprecedented crisis — safeguarding the health and well-being of the American people by ensuring our citizens have what they need first — then providing assistance to allies through a historic coordination of international efforts,” Hogan Gidley, the deputy White House press secretary, said in a statement.

For much of his presidency, though, Trump has been alliance averse. He has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate treaty while threatening to do the same for NATO. And he has rattled some of the United States’ longest allies with aggressive rhetoric on trade deals and military alliances alike.

Now China has also moved to fill a gap in humanitarian aid in the form of supplies. Trump has become more bellicose toward China, saying the country withheld critical information about the coronavirus outbreak and would pay an unspecified later price for it.

“This pandemic crisis shows the inherent limits to the ‘America First’ foreign policy,” said Richard Haass, a top diplomat in both Bush administrations and president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Sovereignty is not a guarantee of security. Borders aren’t impermeable; oceans aren’t moats. We were vulnerable to an infection that began in Wuhan, and it proves globalization is a reality rather than a choice.”

Had Trump truly implemented America First, he said, the nation would have been better prepared.

“A true American First national security policy would have had in place more testing, ventilators, PPE,” Haass said. “It would have been more self-reliant.”

But Steve Bannon, a former senior adviser to Trump, said America First does not mean America alone.

“It means prioritizing national interest and that strong allies matters,” he said. “You don’t turn your back on them. America doesn’t need to abandon a leadership position. It needs to be the global leader.”

Bannon said the crisis also underscored the lack of U.S. capacity to manufacture medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, businesses that have located primarily in China and India because of lower production costs.

The notion of America First flourished during World War I and was promoted by Republicans and Democrats alike until World War II.

After World War II, when the U.S. emerged as a superpower, the country took on an expansionist view of how spreading American ideals and building alliances could ensure peace and the U.S. standing in the world.

The grandest show of influence was the Marshall Plan, when the U.S. spent about $800 billion in today’s dollars to rebuild Western Europe after World War II, an investment that built alliances that endure today.