Trump’s destructive policies and US global standing

The incoming Biden administration will not only have to reverse a host of Donald Trump’s divisive and destructive domestic policies but also deal with damage he has inflicted on US global standing by using a wrecking ball to demolish key bilateral and multilateral agreements and global understandings.

He has justified his actions by falsely claiming these commitments harm US interests while, in fact, his policies are detrimental to both the US and the world community.

The ink had barely dried on his ban on the entry to the US of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, his first executive order after taking office on January 20th, 2017, when he withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement involving a dozen Western and Asian countries. Trump claimed the deal was “bad for US workers.”

The accord, entered into by the Obama administration, was the centrepiece in its “pivot to the East” and was the first item on Trump’s agenda to wreck the legacy of ex-President Barack Obama. The remaining 11 partners recast the deal, eliminating provisions demanded by the US, and achieved an agreement regulating trade worth $13.5 trillion.

In June 2017, Trump announced US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate accord, arguing that restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants harmed US business. The pull-out became effective on November 4th, 2020, the day after he lost the election to Democrat challenger Joe Biden who has pledged to rejoin by February. He has placed the battle against global warming at the top of his agenda and nominated former Secretary of State John Kerry as US climate change envoy. The US, the world’s second largest polluter after China, will have to revise targets to reduce emissions ahead of re-entry.

In October 2017, Trump announced the US withdrawal from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) from which Israel also exited in protest against the admission of Palestine to full membership in 2011. At that time the Obama administration, claiming anti-Israel bias, stopped paying its dues. UNESCO had upset Israel by designating the Old City of al-Khalil (Hebron) and the mosque housing the “Tomb of the Patriarchs” as Palestinian World Heritage Sites.

In May 2018, Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agree-for lifting sanctions on Iraq in exchange for reducing its nuclear programme by 80-90 per cent and submitting to routine inspections by monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Trump has subsequently slapped a series of increasingly harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to retaliate by exceeding JCPOA limits on its enriched uranium stockpile and on centrifuges which purify uranium. Biden has vowed to return to the JCPOA once Iran is in compliance while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said Tehran would resume compliance on the same day Washington does. For Iran this is not difficult as all it has to do is export the excess enriched uranium and warehouse the deal-breaching centrifuges.

In June 2018, Trump exited the 47-member UN Human Rights Council due to its criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians living in the occupied territories and violations of international law by planting settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On August 31st, 2018, Trump announced an end to funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), providing for five million Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. He also halted finance for USAID projects benefitting Palestinians, including hospitals in occupied East Jerusalem and development in Gaza. Before he took his decision, the US paid the first $65 million of its annual contribution of $365 million, one-third of UNRWA’s regular budget. During that year, the US cut a total of $500 million. This sum swells to $565 million in each of the next two years, forcing UNRWA to cut staff and services and deepening Palestinian hardship. Biden has pledged to resume funding UNRWA as well as reopening the Palestinian mission in Washington and the US consultate in occupied East Jerusalem which served Palestinians as well as Israeli settlers.

On the same day, Trump threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organisation, claiming it was unfair to the US, but did not follow through with his threat. While he has not carried out his threat, he has stalled the election of a new director general. The Trump administration objects to the consensus appointment of Nigeria’s Ngozi Iweala - her country’s former finance minister and a former managing director of the World Bank - and insists on the elevation of the South Korean candidate. Since Trump will shortly be out of office, the decision will be left to Biden.

In August 2019, Trump announced the US withdrawal of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia baning missiles with ranges between 500-5,500 kilometres. He claimed Russia had voilated the treaty which was signed by former US President Ronald Reagan and his Russian counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 with the aim of stabilising the situation in Europe. Trump’s pull-out became effective a year later.

In May this year, Trump halted cooperation with and funding for the World Health Organisation (WHO) during the ongoing pandemic, claiming the WHO reacted too slowly to the spread of Covid-19 across the globe. This was a feeble attempt to blame the WHO for his own failure to deal effectively and in timely fashion with a deadly new virus which he dismissed as “a little flu” and continues to refuse to adopt masking, social distancing, lockdowns and self-isolating as means to prevent infection. Biden has promised to restore relations as soon as he is inaugurated.

This list shows that Biden faces herculean tasks on the international front as well as as on the home front during the all-too-brief four years he will be in office. Despite Trump’s efforts to obstruct Biden’s access to government departments and funding during the transition from the out-going to the incoming administration, Biden has attempted to build a competent team and has promised to make major progress during his first 100 days.

The idea that a president should make his mark by his achievements during this period was inaugurated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 as the US struggled to emerge from the Great Depression. Roosevelt — who won the 1932 election by a landslide and could count on a Democratic party majority in both houses of Congress — was able to secure the passage of 13 key pieces of legislation in his “New Deal.” Biden will not have the luxury of neither an overwhelming victory over Trump nor a legislature prepared to do his bidding.