For a long time, the United States sought to promote democracy and respect for human rights, annoying some and inspiring others. Those days are now gone, in some ways for better, but mostly for worse.
NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump’s second administration is barely four months old, but already there are signs of an emerging foreign policy doctrine. And like so much else about his presidency, it represents a striking departure from the past.
STEPHEN S. ROACH thinks pursuing a global minimum tariff while also penalizing China increases the risk of a global recession.
Doctrines play an important role in American foreign policy. With the Monroe Doctrine, announced in 1823, the United States asserted that it would be the preeminent power in the Western Hemisphere and would prevent other countries from establishing competitive strategic positions in the region. At the outset of the Cold War, the Truman Doctrine pledged US support to countries fighting Communism and Soviet-backed subversion.
More recently, the Carter Doctrine signaled that the US would not stand by if an outside force sought to gain control of the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. The Reagan Doctrine promised assistance to anti-Communist, anti-Soviet forces and countries. George W. Bush’s Freedom Doctrine, among other things, made clear that neither terrorists nor those who harbored them would be safe from attack.
What these and other doctrines have in common is that they signal to multiple audiences critical US interests and what the US is prepared to do to advance them. Doctrines are intended to reassure friends and allies, deter actual or would-be enemies, galvanize the bureaucracy tasked with national security matters, and educate the public.
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