If there were one particular Trump era set of tendencies that truly irked our traditional allies, it was a proclivity to reject a pattern of prior consultation and mutual policymaking, making unilateral decisions that profoundly impacted global issues without any warning, making off-the-cuff threats to our traditional global partners while embracing foreign dictators, and moving in ways that prejudiced our friends deeply. While foreign policy seldom lingers in the minds of American voters, the European Union is a crowded amalgamation of 27 member states used to living cheek-by-jowl, where dealing constantly with neighboring states is very much an essential ingredient in their country-by-country domestic politics. Trump era global decision-making was very much a “go-it-alone” direction.
With the exception of a few quasi-autocratic EU Eastern European nations, most of Europe despised Donald Trump and his international policies. He was viewed as a globally destabilizing autocrat wannabe. The September 1st BBC.com (in a piece by Mark Lowen) provides an example of how Europe viewed Trump… and initially greeted President Joe Biden: “From a white-knuckle grip with Donald Trump to an arm on the shoulder with President Biden, Emmanuel Macron's greetings tell the story of how EU leaders saw the change of US administrations.
“At a Nato summit in May 2017, the French president dug his fingertips into President Trump's hand, staring him in the face. ‘It wasn't innocent,’ Mr Macron later said. ‘In my bilateral dialogues, I won't let anything pass.’
“Roll forward four years to the recent G7 summit in Cornwall, Joe Biden's first as US president, and again Mr Macron grasped the moment. As the cameras snapped, he walked across the beach with his arm around Mr Biden. The body language shift was clear: the two sides arm-in-arm once again.”
And then came Biden’s hastily announced withdrawal of the entire U.S. presence from Afghanistan, a decision that seriously impacted the NATO nations that had allied with us in that 20-year debacle. It wasn’t the decision to pull out that irked our allies… It was the failure of the United States to coordinate that withdrawal with those same allies who stood by us the entire time. Suddenly, these friendly nations were confronted with a parallel need to get their forces and diplomatic missions out before the Taliban took over. Indeed, the NATO forces at the time of the withdrawal comprised troops from 36 countries, three-quarters of whom were non-American, leading to an international scramble to evacuate.
Once again, in Trump-like fashion, the United States made a unilateral decision that materially impacted our allies. It was an announcement without any serious advanced notice to those allied nations that obviously would be severely impacted by our decision. But was this oversight sufficient to sour our relations with our NATO allies? Whatever the reason, Europe’s honeymoon with Joe Biden was probably over. “But while there's frustration here over Washington's lack of communication with EU capitals, it is perhaps too early to tell how much that will dent the widespread relief over the change of US administrations.
“‘The main rift under Trump had less to do with specific foreign policy decisions and more that we didn't share the same values all of a sudden,’ says Nathalie Tocci, an adviser to the EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and a visiting professor at Harvard… ‘The real trauma of Trumpism was not only 'America First' but that he seemed to get on more with the Xis and Putins. That we're on the same side hasn't been questioned with Afghanistan. What has changed is the growing preoccupation in Europe that as the US withdraws from the world, it may be very committed to protecting values in America - but what about elsewhere?’…
“Indeed, some see in the Afghanistan issue simply a continuation of the long-standing American tendency to go it alone. ‘Is this new?’ asks Mrs Tocci. ‘It's always been the European complaint about the US. But now it's the Americans acting without coordinating their leaving, not going in.’
“That feeling - that Europe has been here time and again - has thrown the debate about ‘strategic autonomy’ back into focus: long a goal of EU foreign policy, particularly from France, which often craves a more equal geopolitical balance with the United States.” BBC.com. In short, the assumption that United States, Europe and our NATO allies are “in it together” is at best frayed and at worst an unwarranted assumption going forward.
Here's how many in Europe viewed our accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan: “The German deployment in Afghanistan was its first major combat mission since World War II, so the frustration at how it ended runs deep. Armin Laschet, Germany's conservative candidate for chancellor ahead of elections later this month, called the US withdrawal ‘the greatest debacle that NATO has experienced since its foundation.’… Czech President Milos Zeman labelled it ‘cowardice,’ adding that ‘the Americans have lost the prestige of a global leader.’
“‘Expectations were very high when Joe Biden came in - probably too high, they were unrealistic,’ Carl Bildt, Sweden's former Prime Minister, told the BBC. ‘His 'America is back' suggested a golden age in our relations. But it didn't happen and there's been a shift in a fairly short period of time. The complete lack of consultations over the withdrawal has left a scar.’” BBC.com. While there might be an overall strain, the congruence of policies on climate change, containing rogue nations like Russia, dealing with new COVID variants and reinstating an Iran arms accord will still draw the United States into agreements with its traditional allies. But increasingly, these coordinated will be ad hoc as Europe seeks to untether itself from what has become a rise in unilateral American decision-making.
I’m Peter Dekom, and while such foreign policy realities might not seem particularly important to the vast majority of Americans, the cost of increasingly going it alone will hit taxpayers in the wallet more than they know.
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