Chronic. The United States withdrew? In Asia, in Europe, in the Middle East, they are on the verge of a phase of politico-military withdrawal. They do not abandon their allies, but they no longer trust the American godfather. The time of the "pax americana", established at the end of the Second World War, would end. True or false ?
Sketched with Barack Obama, the movement accelerated with Donald Trump and his America first ("America first"). The Republican would gradually close an expansionist parenthesis opened in 1945 and marked by alliances and multilateral institutions. It would inaugurate a solitary, piecemeal or "transactional" diplomacy, unilateralist and conducted in the sole interests of America – these being defined to the minimum. If this development is wanted by Trump, it is not, however, necessarily verified in practice.
This week, Washington continued its work to demolish the World Trade Organization, the WTO, which it carried on the baptismal font in 1995 in order to somewhat regulate the globalization of trade. But Trump likes neither globalization, which he accuses of having ruined entire swathes of the American economy, nor the WTO, which he suspects of having favored China, and even less this type of organization. multilateral, which he imagines as having only one goal: to swindle the United States. Without seeking anyone's advice, the Trump administration paralyzes one of the two functions of the WTO: resolving disputes between its members.
A solid tradition
It's always the same idea: the United States doesn't need anyone, as the song says. Whether it's trade or strategic business, Trump likes only face-to-face, bilateral deals. He favors a weapon: the economic sanctions – decided unilaterally of course – which he willingly imposes on his allies, Asian or European. With the latter, he prefers to negotiate one by one, which implies weakening the European Union. It is doing this, together with Russia, by supporting the Eurosceptic parties of the Old Continent.
Last week he was in a bad mood in London, where the 29 NATO member countries celebrated the 70e anniversary of the Atlantic Alliance. The United States rightly complains about the weak contribution (30%) of its rich allies to the NATO budget. But, more fundamentally, the president does not like the very idea of a lasting military alliance. Trump draws here from one of the most solid traditions of the American Union, whose first leaders – George Washington (1732-1799) or Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) – urged their successors to beware of any binding commitment to the 'foreign.
