Trump takes 'America first' to Davos

By Andrew Hammond

The World Economic Forum (WEF) started its annual meeting in Davos, Tuesday, with key guests including U.S. President Donald Trump.

This year’s session, on the theme of creating a shared future in a fractured world, will focus on how best to renew international cooperation in a context in which “geopolitical fractures have re-emerged on multiple fronts with wide-ranging political, economic, and social consequences.”

Ironically, given that Trump will be in attendance at the WEF, it is his own “America first” vision which has been a driver of the breakdown in international cooperation in the last 12 months by undermining a range of global agreements, including the Paris climate change treaty. While Trump has significant support _ in the United States and internationally _ for his agenda, it will not be very popular in Davos.

A key reason for this year’s Davos theme is that, some three decades on from the promise of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which saw the collapse of Soviet Communism, many expectations about how the post-Cold War world might look have been dashed, including around international cooperation.

The WEF itself came into being in 1987, rebranding from the European Management Forum, to provide a global platform for such dialogue.

Early successes in bolstering international cooperation included the Davos Declaration signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, which saw the two turn back from the brink of war. In 1989, moreover, North and South Korea held their first ministerial-level meetings at the WEF in Switzerland, and East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl met there to discuss German reunification.

Three decades on, the idealistic future vision held by some then of a universal order of liberal, capitalist, democratic states living in peace and contentment has been undermined. To be sure, as 30 years ago, the United States remains the world’s most powerful country, certainly in a military sense. And it can still project and deploy overwhelming force relative to any probable enemy.

Yet, there are now multiple challenges confronting the U.S.-led order today which have helped drive the geostrategic fractures that the WEF will discuss. For instance, more than a decade and a half years after 9/11, international terrorism remains a key concern and Washington is still significantly engaged in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, U.S. relations with Russia are now more strained than at any time since the Cold War, despite Trump’s professed desire to try to improve relations. And the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has collapsed again, while Washington and Pyongyang remain locked into nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula.

On the positive side of the ledger, however, the world today continues to contain multiple positive opportunities for international cooperation. Yet Trump’s “America first” agenda has undermined at least some of this.

Take the example of the landmark global climate change deal agreed in Paris in 2015 which has been undermined by the U.S. president who said he will withdraw the United States from it, the only country in the world to do so. This is a massive lost opportunity as, while the agreement is by no means perfect, it represents a welcome shot in the arm for attempts to tackle global warming and, crucially, a new post-Kyoto framework has been put in place.

Moreover, the once-every-five-years review framework means that countries can toughen their response to climate change in the future, especially if the political and public will to tackle the problem increases with time.

Another example is the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers _ the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany _ which the Trump administration is also undermining. The deal opens up the possibility of a wider warming in ties between Tehran and the West, and also enhancing global nuclear security.

For instance, a lasting nuclear settlement with Iran will constitute an important win for long-standing efforts to combat nuclear nonproliferation. And this at a crucial time when, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, over 40 countries have expressed interest in joining the “club” of 30 states with nuclear energy.

Compared to three decades ago, in the last 1980s and early 1990s, the rise of China _ which has now surpassed the United States as the world’s largest economy on purchasing parity terms _ is one of the biggest game changers in global affairs. This development has potential to be either a growing source of tension with Washington, or develop into a fruitful partnership spurring international cooperation with others too in years to come.

Growing bilateral and multilateral cooperation is likely if the two powers can increasingly cooperate on softer issues like climate change, and find effective ways of resolving harder power disagreements between them, including over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

By contrast, bilateral rivalry is possible if the Trump team continues on its present unilateral, “America first” course, and Beijing’s military power continues to grow rapidly and the country embraces a more assertive foreign policy stance toward its neighbors in Asia-Pacific.

Taken overall, success in managing the complexity of global affairs will also increasingly depend upon U.S. cooperation with others, both competitors and allies, including in the increasingly strategic important region of Asia-Pacific.

A key uncertainty here is the direction of the bilateral relationship in coming years with a rising China which could be a force for much deeper, collaborative strategic cooperation and partnerships, or greater global instability and tension.

Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics. He can be reached at

andrew.hammond.james@gmail.com

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