Much of the commentary on what the re-election of Donald Trump will mean for US foreign policy has centred on conflict flashpoints like the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine, economic issues and especially trade, and the US-China relationship. An important broader question is how US policies relating to support for democracy internationally may unfold. To answer this question, it is useful to look back at the record of his first presidency and then consider how the second one may be similar or different. The picture is sobering, though not completely dark.
Looking Back: Trump One
In his first term, Trump weakened US support for democracy internationally in several substantial ways. He eschewed traditional presidential rhetorical praise for democrats and democracy globally. He openly expressed admiration for autocratic leaders such as Xi Jinping, Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, and Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. And he was often critical or openly disdainful of the United States’ democratic allies and partners, especially European ones. His administration pursued highly realist transactional relations with multiple authoritarian governments in which any concerns over democracy and human rights were downplayed for the sake of mutual security and economic interests. This was especially evident in the Middle East with autocratic partners like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but also in Trump’s relationships with illiberal leaders elsewhere, including Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Narendra Modi in India. His administration only engaged at a high level on democracy issues with countries whose governments it considered hostile to the United States, like Iran and Venezuela, causing many observers to view such efforts as more about US geostrategic assertiveness than a commitment to democratic principles.
Furthermore, Trump’s anti-democratic language and actions at home reverberated globally. Authoritarian leaders in many countries emulated his frequent disparaging of independent media, excoriation of political opponents as enemies, and efforts to undercut legal constraints on executive power.
Some elements of traditional US support for democracy internationally remained intact, however. Despite efforts by the Trump administration to reduce democracy assistance, as part of its larger push to shrink US foreign aid, such assistance not only continued but increased, thanks to the bipartisan congressional support that it enjoyed. Mid-level diplomatic pressure against democratic backsliders, sometimes backed by economic sanctions, also continued on countries where no strong countervailing economic or security interests were present, such as Cambodia and Zimbabwe. The administration initiated new policies to use assistance to limit what it considered China’s anti-democratic political influence in some developing countries.
Looking Ahead: Trump Two
Despite considerable uncertainty about what precise shape foreign and domestic policy will take during Trump’s second term, it seems likely that the democracy domain will be marked by some of the same features that characterized the first. In the past four years, he has doubled down on his praise for autocrats, such as his laudatory callout to Orbán during his debate with Kamala Harris last September and his 2022 characterization of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius”. Trump’s America First foreign policy will be an unpredictable mix of truculent isolationism, intense personalism, and sporadic aggressiveness. Overall, hyper-realistic transactionalism will almost certainly dominate, with little concern about democracy and rights issues in interactions with favoured transactional partners. In the Middle East, the already light-handed US efforts to pressure Israel into taking Palestinian rights seriously seem likely to end. And, as has been endlessly discussed in the United States and Europe during the last year, US military support for Ukraine’s independence and democracy is potentially on the chopping block.
How far Trump will go in fulfilling the many domestic anti-democratic threats he made during the campaign, such as exacting retribution against his political opponents, is unclear. But it is almost certain that he will keep radiating illiberal attitudes and instincts that will be picked up by authoritarian leaders around the world as inspiration or justification for their actions. With illiberal-right parties and actors having gained considerable ground since Trump’s first presidency, his return to power lands on even wider, more fertile international soil in terms of such cross-fertilizing and legitimating effects. Orbán spoke for many anti-democratic leaders around the world when he enthused in advance of the US election about the prospect of breaking out the champagne upon news of a Trump victory.
Whether US democracy aid will survive Trump this time around is an open question. His administration may push for big cuts in foreign aid, which likely would include reductions in democracy aid. Congress may protect aid from draconian cuts, though with fewer Republicans in the Senate and House who support the traditional bipartisan consensus on aid, such an outcome is uncertain. Similarly, US diplomats at the working level will continue to push back against manipulated elections, unconstitutional extensions of presidential terms, and other forms of democratic backsliding that will occur around the world, at least where the United States does not have other interests at stake.
The Larger Picture
Trump’s re-election has sparked talk of the end of the era of global leadership by the United States. If his new administration were to walk away from all elements of this leadership, US democracy support would evaporate. More likely, however, is that Trump’s second presidency will see various shifts in US global engagement, such as a stepping up of economic nationalism, but hardly a full abrogation. Democracy support will suffer from his lack of interest in democracy abroad, enthusiasm for making deals with authoritarians, and negative domestic political example. But the larger US community of public and private actors that have engaged in democracy policies and programs for over 40 years will look for and find ways to ensure that the United States does back democracy abroad at least in some places and in some ways.
Author
Thomas Carothers is director of Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program.
Carothers is a leading authority on comparative democratization and international support for democracy, human rights, governance, the rule of law, and civil society. He has worked on democracy assistance projects for many organizations and carried out extensive field research on aid efforts around the world.
He is the author or editor of ten critically acclaimed books and many articles in prominent journals and newspapers, including most recently, Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization (Brookings Press, 2019, co-edited with Andrew O’Donohue). He has been a visiting faculty member at the Central European University, Nuffield College, Oxford University, and Johns Hopkins SAIS.
Prior to joining the Endowment, Carothers practiced international and financial law at Arnold & Porter and served as an attorney adviser in the office of the legal adviser of the U.S. Department of State.
This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
Image credit: The Now Time, Unsplash, 2024
