{"id":38157,"date":"2025-02-06T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T19:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=38157"},"modified":"2025-02-06T20:37:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T02:37:51","slug":"trump-is-undermining-u-s-soft-power-at-a-delicate-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=38157","title":{"rendered":"Trump Is Undermining U.S. Soft Power at a Delicate Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Experts warn that Trump\u2019s recent foreign policy decisions could signal to allies that the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner.<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s recent actions on foreign policy\u2014from his efforts to gut a key international aid organization to his threats to impose tariffs on critical allies, to the allocation of power to a billionaire adviser\u2014could result in a decline in the global American \u201csoft power\u201d that the United States has enjoyed for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Trump administration has little control over cultural soft power\u2014typically defined<\/u><\/a> as the influence a country has without turning to coercive measures\u2014the recent foreign policy actions taken by the president will likely have far-reaching effects on political<\/em> soft power, from potentially engendering distrust among long-standing allies to propelling struggling nations to seek assistance from China rather than the U.S. This ultimately may result in diminished U.S. prestige around the world, and the enhanced standing of our geopolitical rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not a new concern. Trump has implicitly expressed his disdain for soft power since he first took office eight years ago, with his emphasis on an \u201cAmerica First\u201d foreign policy that devalues traditional alliances and abjures the notion that foreign assistance packages might have a positive sum outcome for the U.S. This ethos has been back on display since he took office a second time last month. After Trump froze foreign aid last week, an action that has already had repercussions<\/u><\/a> for companies and contractors across the world, billionaire adviser Elon Musk\u2014aided by a cadre of young engineers<\/u><\/a>\u2014began to dismantle<\/u><\/a> the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. Musk announced<\/u><\/a> on social media platform X that Trump \u201cagreed\u201d that his Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial agency known as DOGE, should shut USAID down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The suspension of foreign aid and the gutting of USAID will signal to allies and adversaries alike that the U.S. is \u201can untrustworthy actor,\u201d said Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe whole essence of soft power as a concept is that you\u2019re doing well by doing good, and that the promotion of American values and ideals and the execution of competent policy \u2026 are seen as natural attractors for the rest of the world,\u201d said Drezner. \u201cWe\u2019re no longer going to look like we\u2019re competent in policy, because we\u2019ve disrupted this for no reason whatsoever, and we\u2019re clearly not promoting American values anymore, at least globally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soft power has been an expression of American cultural and political global hegemony since the Cold War, from the careful construction of alliances to counter other powers\u2014primarily Russia in the previous century and primarily China in the current one\u2014to the international proliferation of American music, fashion, and fast food. Soft power manifests itself in a variety of ways, from the substantive to the quotidian. It can come in the form of tangible material benefits, or it could simply serve to expand the aura of American values. For example, the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, is a foreign aid program credited with saving more than 25 million lives, particularly on the African continent. It has expanded American soft power, but the same can be said of the presence of a McDonald\u2019s restaurant in dozens of countries worldwide. (Trump halted disbursement of funds from PEPFAR<\/u><\/a> shortly after taking office.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drezner argued that gutting USAID could benefit China and Russia, by convincing countries that might otherwise turn to the U.S. for assistance that Americans are unreliable. With this vacuum thus created, China has a freer hand to make the case to other countries that they are more stable partners; Russia can now argue that their conviction that the U.S. was capricious was correct all along. \u201cRussia can make the case of, \u2018See? They are what we told you they are. And are we really that much different, are we really so much worse?\u2019\u201d Drezner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If dismantling the foreign aid apparatus causes other countries to view the United States with suspicion, so too will the threat of tariffs on allies. This week, Trump delayed by 30 days<\/u><\/a> plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, the country\u2019s two largest trading partners, after the countries made pledges to beef up border security. (It remains unclear<\/u><\/a> whether this will result in increased deployments from these two nations or merely a continuance of pledges that had already been made.) Imposing these tariffs would be in contravention to the trade agreement Trump himself negotiated in 2018\u2014a move that international observers would interpret as another layer of capriciousness. Tariffs on Chinese imports did go into effect on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the tariffs against our North American trade partners were postponed, they may still be instated next month; Trump has also threatened<\/u><\/a> to tax imports from the European Union. Mexico and Canada have threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on American goods, which could in turn have a negative effect<\/u><\/a> on all three economies and drive up prices<\/u><\/a> in the U.S. But Trump\u2019s temporary decision to back down on the tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports has further exacerbated uncertainty among foreign partners, said Elizabeth Saunders, political science professor at Columbia University. Not only can allies not trust that the U.S. won\u2019t target them next, they can\u2019t be sure Trump will actually carry out his threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think diversification away from dependence on the U.S. is going to be the name of the game,\u201d Saunders said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of the merits of U.S. soft power as a perceived international force for good, from an American perspective, it simply makes things \u201ceasier\u201d when the country is viewed positively, Saunders continued. \u201cLife is just easier when you\u2019re not fighting with your neighbors,\u201d she said, adding that the Trump administration\u2019s actions over the past week are \u201cjust generating friction, uncertainty, and bad feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more concerning to allies than Trump\u2019s inconsistency may be the access that Musk and his allies now have to classified information. Two top USAID officials were put on leave<\/u><\/a> over the weekend after refusing to grant Musk allies access to internal systems. Katie Miller, who had been appointed to DOGE\u2019s advisory board by Trump, confirmed on Sunday that DOGE personnel had gained access to classified information, although she claimed \u201cno classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Saunders said that other countries may be concerned by the access that Musk and his allies in their early twenties now have to sensitive intelligence, particularly if it foretells DOGE gaining access to classified information from other, larger agencies, such as the Defense Department and the State Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat would you think if you were a foreign intelligence officer right now \u2026 watching this happening? I\u2019d be pretty concerned. And I\u2019d be more concerned about giving 25-year-olds access to classified information at USAID even than tariffs on Canada,\u201d Saunders said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Trump has demonstrated his disinterest in soft power since taking office, his pursuit of hard power\u2014a desire to influence events through military or economic actions\u2014is apparent. The president has expressed interest in acquiring four international territories in recent weeks: Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, and Gaza. Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Congress has been largely supportive of Trump\u2019s actions, even though efforts to shut down USAID without congressional input could be unconstitutional<\/u><\/a>. Although congressional<\/u><\/a> Democrats<\/u><\/a> have raised concerns about the halting of USAID and the influence of DOGE, Republicans appear to have accepted<\/u><\/a> Musk\u2019s role in the administration and Trump\u2019s actions as presidential prerogative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That passive acquiescence may also communicate to the world that the U.S. is no longer interested in maintaining its own democratic standards, Drezner said: \u201cYou can\u2019t just do this by executive fiat, unless, as it turns out, no one pushes back. And if no one pushes back, that is also going to send a signal to the rest of the world that, honestly, the rule of law is not all that important in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

newrepublic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts warn that Trump\u2019s recent foreign policy decisions could signal to allies that the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner. President Donald Trump\u2019s recent actions on foreign policy\u2014from his efforts to gut a key international aid organization to his threats to impose tariffs on critical allies, to the allocation of power to a billionaire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":38158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5518,4131,32286,1230,32285],"class_list":["post-38157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-allies","tag-foreign-policy","tag-soft-power","tag-trump","tag-undermining"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38159,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38157\/revisions\/38159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}