Donald Trump

Coauthored with Anne Shannon, former intern in the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. After President Donald J. Trump’s election last fall, many experts predicted that 2017 would be a tumultuous year for international cooperation. During his campaign, Trump promised to “make America great again” by renegotiating or renouncing “bad” and “unfair” international agreements, and questioned the value of international institutions. Since January, Trump’s “America First” policies have seen the United States abdicate its global leadership role. Yet contrary to expectations, multilateral cooperation on pressing issues like climate change and migration has continued, as other states have stepped up to lead. Despite all the tumult, the world has recorded several important achievements for multilateralism alongside the setbacks. Climate Change Trump’s largest blow to international cooperation came in June when he announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. Early reactions suggested that other countries might respond in kind, reneging on their commitments and stalling overall progress on environmental governance. Nevertheless, this November’s climate conference in Bonn, aimed at finalizing aspects of the Paris Agreement, was a success. Participating states secured additional funding for climate initiatives and agreed to several objectives in the fields of agriculture, indigenous rights, and gender equality in climate governance. French President Emmanuel Macron, who has made combatting climate change a signature policy, hosted a separate global climate conference this December, raising additional funds to meet Paris commitments. And while the Trump administration signaled its intent to abandon the agreement, many U.S. states, cities, and companies have stepped into the void, pledging commitments of their own. The successes in Bonn and Paris, combined with near-unanimous international support for the Paris Accords, indicate that multilateral cooperation on climate change will continue without U.S. leadership, even if the politics look challenging. Global Trade Trump’s protectionist campaign positions suggested that global trade would take a beating in 2017. Experts warned of trade wars, predicting that a downward spiral of tit-for-tat measures could strangle economic growth. In fact, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), global trade in goods and services increased, growing 4.2 percent in 2017, almost twice the growth registered in 2016. Despite Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and threats to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), neither deal is dead yet. The remaining TPP members revived the idea of trans-pacific trade at the Asia-Pacific Economic Partnership (APEC) summit in November, making significant progress without the United States toward what is now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Even as extreme U.S. demands stall NAFTA renegotiations, U.S. public support for NAFTA increased in 2017, pressuring the Trump administration not to withdraw from the agreement. While the United States has abdicated global trade leadership, the European Union (EU) has made progress on several important agreements of its own, notably one with Japan, encompassing countries that account for over 30 percent of the world’s GDP. The EU-Japan agreement will reduce the ability of the United States to set world product standards and other regulations—disadvantaging U.S. exports in the process. In exercising his America First strategy, President Trump could actually hurt U.S. businesses. Reinforcing this possibility was the disappointing December WTO ministerial meeting in Argentina, in which parties failed to reach any significant multilateral deals. Migration Trump has continually and publicly expressed negative opinions about immigrants, particularly (although not exclusively) illegal ones. He demands a wall between the United States and Mexico and has signed several executive orders attempting to halt refugee admissions, as well as ban immigrants from various Muslim-majority countries. Nevertheless, international efforts to cooperate on migration issues have continued, notwithstanding certain setbacks. In December, Mexico held multilateral negotiations toward a Global Compact on Migration, despite the United States withdrawal from the negotiating process. In November, the African Union-European Union summit saw both blocs condemn the situation of migrants in Libya and pledge to work toward a joint migration task force. All is not rosy, of course. According to Amnesty International and other groups, EU governments remain complicit in the Libyan migrant crisis. Elsewhere, Australia closed a refugee camp on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, while Bangladesh and Brazil struggled to accommodate influxes of refugees across their borders. Nuclear Proliferation Despite Trump’s decision not to recertify the “terrible” Iran deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remains alive. Europe strongly condemned Trump’s decision, and along with China and Russia, pledged to remain committed to the JCPOA as long as Iran complies, even if the United States backs out. Were such a breakdown between the United States and other permanent UN Security Council members (as well as Germany) to occur, the U.S.-led sanctions regime against Iran could well disappear as European, Chinese, and Russian firms deepen business ties with Iran. The continued success of the JCPOA is also vital for the prospects of a peaceful resolution of tensions with North Korea. Indeed, some argue that the JCPOA could be a blueprint for a similar agreement with North Korea. By contrast, the United States would lose any negotiating credibility with North Korea if the Trump administration pulls out of the Iran agreement. International Institutions Global governance has held ground in 2017 in other, less publicized, ways. The IMF and the World Bank, unlike other multilateral institutions, have largely escaped Trump’s criticism. Although several senior administration officials have long histories of disliking the IMF and World Bank, savvy diplomacy by Jim Yong Kim and Christine Lagarde seems to have placated the Trump administration so far. President Trump has also backpedaled on some of his criticisms of international alliances and organizations. After repeatedly calling the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) obsolete on the campaign trail, Trump deemed NATO “no longer obsolete” in April after meeting Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump also toned down his rhetoric on the United Nations. In April he called the organization “unfair” and an “underperformer;” in September the president tweeted that the “United Nations has tremendous potential.” (Whether this rapprochement will withstand the UN General Assembly’s condemnation of the unilateral U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital remains to be seen.) America First’s Future Looking forward to 2018, it is difficult to predict how Trump’s America First agenda will affect global governance, particularly with a notoriously unpredictable president. It is possible that Trump will continue to renege on some campaign promises. Moreover, midterm elections in November could severely cripple his ability to pass nationalist-minded legislation. Still, he retains significant leeway, should he choose to use it, to undermine NAFTA, the JCPOA, and other international agreements through executive action. Regardless of the president’s choices, his actions cannot overturn a fundamental contemporary reality—namely, that transnational challenges require global solutions. The lesson of 2017 is that other states are willing to step forward to fill some of the leadership roles vacated by the United States. In pulling back from international cooperation, Trump is forfeiting the United States’ historically important role in shaping international norms and multilateral policies. Nations that are willing to pick up the slack, whether under authoritarian regimes (like China) or democratic leadership (like France), will shape international rules and institutions to conform to their own priorities, not necessarily American ones. And they will not be eager to give up their new-found influence if and when the United States decides it wants the reins of global influence back.

Two thousand seventeen had its fair share of big news stories. The same will be true of 2018. Some of those stories undoubtedly will be a surprise. Not many experts were warning a year ago of impending ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Yet it (sadly) became one of the biggest news stories of 2017. Maybe a year from now everyone will be talking about Egypt’s insurgency and a new financial crisis in the European Union (EU). Or maybe not. As Yogi Berra apparently didn’t say, “It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.” But a fair number of significant world events are ones we know are coming—call them the “known knowns.” Here are seven known stories to follow closely in 2018. Any one of them could turn into the dominant news event of the year—or fade completely away. We’ll know in twelve months which will sizzle and which will fizzle. Iran’s Bid for Regional Hegemony. Iranian leaders must be pleased with how 2017 played out. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad looks to be securely in power in Damascus. Ditto Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Islamic State lost much of its territory. The Iraqi government retook the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Houthi rebels have Saudi Arabia bogged down in a quagmire in Yemen. Iranian involvement figured prominently in all of these developments, which has entrenched Iranian influence across the region. But this success is not Tehran’s doing alone. Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy missteps have helped as well. Besides its ill-considered Yemen adventure, Riyadh led the effort to embargo Qatar for its alleged pro-Iranian sympathies and support for terrorism. That has pushed Qatar closer to Tehran and created a diplomatic headache for Washington. (Qatar hosts the largest U.S. airbase in the Middle East.) Still, Saudi Arabia likely retains President Donald Trump’s ear. The new U.S. National Security Strategy vows to “neutralize Iranian malign influence.” Contrary to his campaign pledge, Trump hasn’t pulled the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He instead opted to refuse to certify Iran’s compliance. That effectively kicked the issue over to Capitol Hill. Congress has now effectively kicked it back to him. While the White House wants to turn up the heat on Tehran, the question remains how far it will be willing to go. After all, Europe opposes torpedoing the JCPOA, and the White House has its hands full with North Korea. One thing you can be sure of: Iran will press its advantage wherever it can. North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions. Something has to give. Trump has vowed to prevent North Korea from gaining the capability to hit the United States with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. He’s backed that up with angry tweets and threats to unleash “fire and fury.” So far North Korea isn’t blinking. Pyongyang boasted after its ballistic missile test last month that it “can now reach all of the mainland U.S.” That’s probably not true. However, the trend is not America’s friend. Unfortunately, Washington’s options for compelling Pyongyang to back down aren’t promising. China either can’t—or won’t—use its economic leverage to make North Korea cry uncle. Meanwhile, the cost of U.S. military action would likely be steep—possibly even “catastrophic.” A diplomatic solution might still be forged. But that would almost certainly require recognizing North Korea as a nuclear weapons power—at the risk that Pyongyang will pocket any concessions and then renege on its commitments. It has done that before. Yes, the United States can rely on deterrence to keep North Korea at bay. That strategy worked against the far larger Soviet threat. The danger is that Kim Jong-un may be willing to take risks that Soviet leaders weren’t. Of course, an assassination, coup, or popular uprising could scramble everything—and not necessarily in a good way. However the situation plays out, the current level of tensions creates the possibility that war will begin not through calculation but miscalculation. Crisis in Venezuela. Venezuela should be a prosperous and vibrant country. After all, it has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Instead, the country is gripped by a horrific economic and political crisis. The fault lies squarely with President Nicolás Maduro. He has implemented disastrous economic policies and run roughshod over the country’s constitution. Hungry Venezuelans bitterly joke about being on a “Maduro diet,” medicine is in short supply, and Maduro’s allies have frustrated efforts to change things at the ballot box. As bad as things were in 2017 for Venezuelans, things could be even worse in 2018. The International Monetary Fund projects that inflation will exceed 2,300 percent next year. And Maduro has banned three opposition parties from participating in next December’s presidential election. Venezuelans have taken to the streets to protest Maduro’s dictatorial ways. More than one hundred protestors have been killed, but nothing has changed. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries. Latin American countries are divided over how to respond. The United States has already imposed sanctions on Venezuelan officials and may impose more. Trump’s suggestion that U.S. military intervention might be necessary drew rebukes from across Latin America and probably gave Maduro a much-needed propaganda victory. In all, Maduro isn’t likely to go unless Venezuelans make him go. Trump’s Effort to Transform Trade. President Trump has been complaining about America’s “horrible” trade deals since the mid-1980s, and he made it a central theme of his 2016 presidential campaign. But during his first eleven months in office he spent more time barking than biting on trade. True, he signed a presidential memorandum pulling the United States out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). However, he didn’t impose tariffs on China or withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, or the World Trade Organization (WTO), all steps he either implied or vowed on the campaign trail to take. That may soon change. The White House is moving to impose punitive actions on predatory Chinese trade practices, its demands for revamping NAFTA look to be unacceptable to Canada and Mexico, and it is waging a low-level war against the WTO. Trump’s push to counter what he calls “economic aggression” could create considerable turmoil abroad—and at home. America’s trading partners are likely to retaliate. No one knows how far such tit-for-tat actions might go. What is known is that some U.S. export sectors would be hurt. Meanwhile, Trump’s trade initiatives won’t fix what bothers him: America’s yawning trade deficit. The United States runs a deficit because Americans consume far more than they save. Tweaking trade deals won’t change that. To make matters worse, the tax bill he has championed will likely make the trade deficit larger. China’s Ambitions Abroad. Xi Jinping had a terrific 2017. He consolidated his hold on power and now ranks as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. The question is, how will he use his new status? To judge by his 205-minute speech to China’s National Party Congress in October, he won’t be sitting on the sidelines; he will be flexing his muscles. He used the terms “great power” and “strong power” twenty-six times in his speech. Xi’s assertive foreign policy will likely mix soft and hard power. He will be offering substantial aid to countries throughout Asia under the banner of the One Belt One Road initiative. Most countries will find it hard to pass up these funds, even if they sometimes come with substantial strings attached. Beijing will also be supporting sympathetic politicians and groups overseas, a tactic that has started to trigger a backlash. The vinegar supplementing the honey will be China’s continued effort to turn the South China Sea into a Chinese lake. Countries in Southeast Asia will be watching closely to see whether, and how, the United States pushes back on China’s effort to make itself the regional hegemon. A world order may hang in the balance. The Mueller Investigation. Americans aren’t the only ones watching to see what happens with the investigation Special Counsel Robert Mueller is conducting. Foreign capitals are as well. President Trump has called the investigation a “witch hunt,” and he dismisses allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia as “fake news.” Partisans on both sides think they know how the investigation will turn out. We’ll see who is right. What we know for sure is that Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has pled guilty to lying to the FBI, as has former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos. Mueller also has indicted Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort and Manafort’s business partner and senior Trump campaign staffer, Rick Gates. Trump’s lawyers predict that the investigation will wrap up shortly; history suggests it could drag on for months. At a minimum, the investigation distracts White House attention from policymaking and raises doubts overseas as to whether Trump has the political capital to carry through on his threats and promises. At the maximum, the investigation could plunge the United States into an unprecedented constitutional crisis. Whether we get either extreme or an outcome somewhere in between, America’s democracy is being tested. We’ll see if we live up to the framers’ expectations. Democracy Under Stress. Democracy is under siege. Just examine the rankings that Freedom House generates—global freedom has been declining for over a decade. The problem isn’t just that emerging democracies like Thailand and Turkey have slid back into authoritarian rule, though that’s bad enough. Many Western democracies are struggling as well. The EU is threatening to strip Poland’s voting rights in EU institutions because Warsaw has adopted anti-democratic laws, while Spain faces a secessionist movement in Catalonia. Centrist political parties across Europe have been losing vote shares to parties on the two extremes. Traditional center-left parties have had the most trouble, having suffered humiliating defeats in the Netherlands, France, and Austria among other places. But center-right parties are struggling as well, as recent elections in Britain and Germany attest. The United States still has a robust two-party system, but its democracy also seems far from its glory days. Congress struggles to carry out is most basic function, funding the government, Trump regularly violates longstanding democratic norms, and many Americans view members of the opposite party unfavorably. It’s not surprising, then, that some now see the United States as a “flawed democracy.” Authoritarian governments like China and Russia are both working, in different ways, to undermine free and fair elections across the globe. Is democracy doomed? No. It remains popular worldwide, even if it has become less so among young people in democratic countries. There will be important elections in 2018 that could reverse the negative trends, though they might also give us more “illiberal democracies.” Here’s the thing about democracy: it empowers the people. It’s up to them to use that power wisely. Corey Cooper and Benjamin Shaver contributed to the preparation of this post.

The Trump administration’s approach to ten critical global summits in the year ahead will show whether its pullback from multilateralism in 2017 was an aberration or the start of a new normal.

Considering how destabilizing Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy has been over the past year, the National Security Strategy (NSS) the White House released on Monday is surprisingly moderate. Written under the direction of clear-eyed National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, it frames “America First” as compatible with U.S. global leadership, promotion of human rights, support for fair trade, and engagement with international institutions. After its nationalist preamble (which may be as far as the President got), much of the document reads like its several post–Cold War predecessors. Far more telling was the president’s own speech at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington describing the new strategy. It encapsulates a sovereigntist worldview at odds with the very international order America helped to create. Three well-worn ideas dominated his address, echoing his campaign themes and the actions he has taken ten months into his still-young presidency. First, previous administrations, supported by Congress, had presided over decades of unmitigated failure. They signed one-sided trade deals that disadvantaged U.S. workers and companies, allowed wealthy allies to freeload on U.S. taxpayers, built nations abroad rather than restoring America itself, “left our borders wide open” to illegal and improperly vetted migrants, and “surrendered our sovereignty to foreign bureaucrats in faraway and distant capitals.” Above all, U.S. leaders “lost their belief in American greatness.” And the American people lost confidence in them. Second, “all that began to change” last year, thanks to the election of President Trump. The candidate had vowed to return the nation “to the wisdom of our founders,” including this fundamental truth: “In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign.” And in November 2016, Americans responded: “You rediscovered your voice and reclaimed ownership of this nation and its destiny.” Trump has since kept faith with his voters, if he does say so himself. “Upon my inauguration, I announced that the United States would return to a simple principle: The first duty of our government is to serve its citizens,” he declared Monday. “With every decision and every action, we are now putting America first.” These steps have included pulling out of the “job-killing” Trans-Pacific Partnership and the “very expensive and unfair Paris Climate Accord,” compelling “delinquent” NATO allies to “reimburse” the United States “while we guarantee their safety and… fight wars for them,” getting tough on Iran and North Korea, standing up to geopolitical “competitors” like Russia and China, and clamping down on illegal immigration (on the grounds that “a nation without borders is not a nation”). Third, this new sovereigntist outlook has put the United States back on the road to “greatness,” able to “compete and win again” against economic and geopolitical rivals, and to serve as a “shining example to the world.” In releasing this strategy, Trump added, “we are calling for a great reawakening of America, a resurgence of confidence, and a rebirth of patriotism, prosperity, and pride.” And it is the last of these that may be most important. For as the President helpfully explains, “As long as we are proud—and very proud—of who we are, how we got here, and what we are fighting to preserve, we will not fail.” This is a pretty story for Americans to tell themselves, even if pride goeth before the fall. Beyond that venerable adage, we might consider a few shortcomings of Trump’s actual national security policy, so often divergent from the parchment strategy released Monday. To begin with, while the NSS repeatedly trumpets American “leadership,” Trump’s erratic, transactional, and narrow-minded approach to diplomacy has shrunk the list of potential “followers.” As Angela Merkel ruefully noted this summer, the time has come for U.S. allies to recognize that they can no longer depend on the United States as they once did. Similarly, the Trump administration should not be surprised if its calls for international solidarity—over North Korea, for instance—fall on deaf ears, when it is so prepared to abdicate its own responsibilities—with the Paris climate deal being a case in point. Likewise, the NSS offers an attractive, Reaganesque vision of America as a “shining city on a hill” that promotes “human dignity” worldwide by “championing American values.” Such sentiments clang against the transparent cynicism of a president who cozies up to strongmen like Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi or the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and whose secretary of state has dismissed “values” as a burden in the pursuit of U.S. “policies.” “There can be no moral equivalency between nations that uphold the rule of law, empower women, and respect individual rights and those that brutalize their people,” the NSS adds, on behalf of a president who has done just that in dismissing criticisms against Russia’s Vladimir Putin. One’s incredulity increases when both the president and the NSS pledge that the United States will bolster “all levels” and “all instruments of its national power” in promoting and pursuing its security. This from an administration which asked Congress to cut the budget for the State Department and USAID by nearly 30 percent to offset an even greater militarization of U.S. foreign policy, and whose secretary of state is presiding over the piecemeal dismantlement of his own department and its crown jewel, the Foreign Service. The NSS likewise declares the administration’s intention to “reduce the debt through fiscal responsibility,” even as the White House shepherds through a tax bill that will saddle younger generations with financial obligations for decades to come. By their very nature, U.S. National Security Strategies tend toward generalities and provide an imperfect guide to actual government policy. Their purpose is primarily to communicate a worldview, as well as a set of priorities to explain broad lines of effort. What sets the 2017 version aside is its obvious disconnect with what the president actually believes—and the policies he is already pursuing.

The Donald J. Trump administration has released its National Security Strategy (NSS). Media attention and analysis of the document has rightly highlighted the prominence of Russia and China, identified as revisionist powers that “want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” Observers have also remarked upon the incoherence of a strategy that claims a role for “competitive diplomacy” and “advancing American influence” while slashing the budget and the personnel of the State Department. And of course, the elephant in the room is whether the president actually believes what the strategy outlines. But one lesser-discussed area worth further attention is the more prominent place given to India and the Indo-Pacific region in U.S. national security. The NSS describes its components in four sections—following the four “pillars” of the strategy—that lead the document: “protect the American people,” “promote American prosperity,” “preserve peace through strength,” and “advance American influence.” Following these pillars, a final section charts out “the strategy in a regional context.” This format differs from those of previous NSS documents which tended to interweave specifical regional priorities within the outlines of strategic goals. But the biggest departure from previous NSS documents is the placement of the Indo-Pacific discussion—at the very top of the regions considered, above Europe and the Middle East. This is the first mention of the Indo-Pacific in any NSS, although the George W. Bush 2002 document referred to the Indian Ocean sea lanes. The Indo-Pacific framework seems driven by China’s greater assertiveness throughout the region, and the NSS characterizes the region in terms reminiscent of the Cold War: A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region. The region, which stretches from the west coast of India to the western shores of the United States, represents the most populous and economically dynamic part of the world. The U.S. interest in a free and open Indo-Pacific extends back to the earliest days of our republic. (46) This section, while covering the challenges of China’s militarization of the South China Sea, Belt and Road investments, and North Korea, presents U.S. “allies and partners” as the centerpiece of American strategy, leading with South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The document welcomes “India’s emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and defense partner” and it calls for more cooperation with the “Quad”—Japan, Australia, and India. It also pledges to “expand our defense and security cooperation with India, a Major Defense Partner of the United States, and support India’s growing relationships throughout the region” (47). How did previous NSS documents feature India? In the Barack Obama NSS of 2015, the president’s prefatory letter mentioned the rebalance to Asia and unlocking “the potential of our relationship with India” as among the “historic opportunities” before the United States. That strategy emphasized U.S. interests in strengthening “our strategic and economic partnership” and honed in quickly on the shared values of the United States and India as “the world’s largest democracies” (24). The Obama NSS of 2010 had a more optimistic view of the geopolitical possibilities for the United States with China and Russia, and grouped India in with both as one of the “key centers of influence” in the twenty-first century. That strategy emphasized the development of the U.S.-India strategic partnership: The United States and India are building a strategic partnership that is underpinned by our shared interests, our shared values as the world’s two largest democracies, and close connections among our people. India’s responsible advancement serves as a positive example for developing nations, and provides an opportunity for increased economic, scientific, environmental, and security partnership. Working together through our Strategic Dialogue and high-level visits, we seek a broad-based relationship in which India contributes to global counterterrorism efforts, nonproliferation, and helps promote poverty-reduction, education, health, and sustainable agriculture. We value India’s growing leadership on a wide array of global issues, through groups such as the G-20, and will seek to work with India to promote stability in South Asia and elsewhere in the world. (43–44) The George W. Bush administration placed a high priority on transforming ties with India, and indeed it was the Bush administration that spearheaded the civil nuclear agreement so critical to ending decades of estrangement between New Delhi and Washington. In its 2006 NSS, the Bush administration’s first mention of India noted that “relations between India and Pakistan have improved” (14). Later references to India focused on the country’s role as a global engine of growth (26), a partner in the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate (27), and highlighted that the United States had “set aside decades of mistrust and put relations with India, the world’s most populous democracy, on a new and fruitful path” (35). And the Bush administration’s 2002 NSS contained more references to India (sixteen) than any of the subsequent documents. While the first reference to India came in the context of “the need for India and Pakistan to resolve their disputes,” further attention to India as part of the 2002 strategy looked at India’s “potential to become one of the great democratic powers of the twenty-first century” and sought to “transform” this relationship (10). So in terms of regional focus, the Trump administration’s adoption of the larger Indo-Pacific framework and its elevation to the top of the regional strategic priorities boosts India’s place in terms of strategy. The bigger questions, of course, lie in the degree to which this NSS will guide the administration’s actual policy steps. And that’s where we can see through some visible holes. As many have noted, the Trump administration’s goal of expanding partnerships across Asia and emphasizing the norm of a “free and open Indo-Pacific” now lacks its most important and hard-fought initiative: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). India, of course, was not a TPP member. But there is now no larger Asian trade architecture in which the United States participates that might have, down the line, appeared attractive to India to advance its own trade interests and domestic economic reforms. And as I’ve written elsewhere, there is an Asian economic consultation, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in which India’s absence is glaring—but no U.S. administration has taken up this gap and it has not been mentioned by the Trump administration. Secretaries Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis have referred to the challenges posed by China’s infrastructure investments across Asia, but even as Tillerson has proposed partnership with India on transparent regional infrastructure financing, the Trump administration’s treasury secretary has not supported an expansion of World Bank lending. And despite the stated interest in expanding economic ties with India—and I readily admit the economic side of U.S.-India relations is prickly at the best of times—the Trump administration’s approach emphasizes a trade deficit with India of $26 billion. This amounts to a tiny fraction of the more than $300 billion trade deficit with China. Given that New Delhi also has concerns about India’s trade deficit with China, measuring progress with India in terms of the trade deficit rather than continued progress on market access, and a more positive vision for cooperation) seems like a strange point to stress. Which is all to say: the new NSS offers a new prominence for India as part of the American approach to a higher-profile Indo-Pacific region. But whether the Trump administration will be able to fill the crucial economic gaps in the India and Indo-Pacific strategy remains an open question. My book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India Is Making Its Place in the World, will be out in January. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

The president’s first national security strategy eloquently sums up the U.S. role in the world and what should be done to defend it, but much of the document is at odds with what the president himself believes.

A look back at the Trump administration's approach to cyber diplomacy and what it means for next year. 

As 2017 comes to a close, here are the top ten most notable world events of the past year.

President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate the embassy there could inspire protest and set back the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

In an op-ed recently published in The Hill, I examine the misconception behind President Donald J. Trump’s decision to pull out of the UN conference on migration. On Friday, President Trump decided that the United States would boycott this week’s United Nations conference on migration in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. That meeting is intended to advance a global compact for migration, a set of principles to ensure more humane treatment for the world’s swelling population of migrants and refugees. But the Trump administration saw something more nefarious afoot: a U.N. power grab to usurp control over U.S. borders. “Our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone,” U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley declared in a statement released Saturday. “We will decide how to best control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country. The global approach…is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.” The administration’s decision is based on a false premise. At the core of this worldview is a defensive and distorted view of U.S. sovereignty, according to which even non-binding agreements infringe unacceptably on U.S. independence and freedom of action. This siege mentality is antithetical to the very concept of American greatness, much less U.S. global leadership. Read the full op-ed here.