Of all the headline-making, world-reshaping actions of the second Trump administration thus far, perhaps the most defining is the United States’ vote against the resolution condemning Moscow’s invasion and supporting Ukraine’s territorial authority. The US has used its security council veto and superpower heft in questionable ways before, but this vote alongside Russia and other strongman states such as North Korea, Belarus, and Hungary was Trump switching sides; the clearest of statements that Donald Trump’s America is a very different place from the America of Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. America could have abstained from the vote against an unquestionable invasion of a sovereign nation by a dictator-led nuclear power; it did not. At a time when GOP politicians are lining up to applaud even Trump’s most controversial moves, one senator, John Curtis of Utah, even dared to say he was “deeply troubled” by the vote. “This posture is a dramatic shift from American ideals of freedom and democracy”, he wrote.
Well, it’s reassuring at least one member of the once proud party of Lincoln and Eisenhower can see it. Because it should be troubling to any democrat (small ‘d’), that the Trump administration did not take what every US president in 100 years would have seen as the most basic and unquestionable stance in defence of freedom and national sovereignty. Instead, Trump sided with a different group of ideals.
If you look at the leaders who instructed their ambassadors at the UN to vote in sympathy with Russia, you see Trump applying for membership of a new club. The strongman club. A club that eschews the traditions of American power – a power largely based on liberal democratic ideals – in favour of a power based on taking. A power of short-term self interest. A power that says, above all, might is right.
Yes, the rhetoric has long been there but to side with dictators at the UN is still shocking. Yet these are the countries and leaders that Trump is clearly impressed by and instinctively drawn to. Men who will make a deal about the lives of millions – for as long as it suits them; who will renege in a heartbeat; who claim the right of the powerful to take what they want, when they want it, simply because they are powerful.
This is where the gap is growing between Trump and America’s traditional allies in the West. The West, however you describe that entity and whatever its flaws in practice, was built on ideals of democracy, the rule of law, free trade, individual rights, and sovereign nationhood. America has many times succumbed to the magnetism of economic power, of national self-interest, of political paranoia, but, as Winston Churchill famously said, America can always be relied on to do what is right once it has exhausted every other possible option.
At least, it could. At the core of American foreign policy since World War II has been a belief in its responsibility to support liberal democracies and freedom-loving peoples everywhere, to back a rules-based order (while often trying to skew the rules in its favour). It – usually – acted as if there were greater goods – free trade, national sovereignty, democracy etc. On the flip side, totalitarian regimes and things that diminished the democracies and choices of a free world were to be opposed.
Trump views the world differently, and the UN vote (and the subsequent abandonment of Ukraine re arms and intelligence) shows he’s willing to act on those views. Trump as a leader is out for what he can get. He’s not interested in an 80-year alliance with European democracies that has helped build continental unity; that have allowed nations in Europe to spend less money on their military to fight each other and more on economic growth. Previous presidents have seen the value in a peaceful Europe that doesn’t draw America into wars. It creates trading partners. It creates democratic political partners. It helps the money go round so people on both sides of the Atlantic prosper. The Trump administration, as Fareed Zakaria has said, reckons that’s a policy for suckers. Only suckers think of the greater good. Strongmen? Well, they’re interested in what is good for them, right here, right now.
Trump’s America First strategy makes little room for win-wins. Every choice is a zero-sum game. By this calculation the United States’ support of Europe and NATO means America has not taken as much as it could have. It’s time to line up America’s erstwhile friends and make sure they start paying for what America has given over the years. Ukraine’s mineral deal to pay back support for the war is the first ‘renegotiation’ (read betrayal). The tariffs against Canada and Mexico, the second. Who knows what comes next?
The idea that American foreign policy has, in giving aid, protection, and support to democracies has both made the world safer for more people while also allowing the US to become the world’s only superpower and dominate 21st century economics, makes no sense to Trump. He sees only wins and losses. There’s no clear target of what he means by American greatness, but it seems to focus on squeezing every drop of blood, oil, and treasure from every relationship it has. To the Trumps of the world, as with the Putin, Xi’s, Netanyahu’s, and Orbans, this is what strength looks like.
It seems Europe is not entirely unprepared for this turn of events. And, whatever you think of Trump’s strongman urges, it may not be an entirely bad thing for the continent. At least, so long as you don’t live on its far eastern fringes.
On the plus side, this American shift forces Europe to define itself and its liberal values more strongly, as distinct from the values of Trump. It forces Europe to look at its own military strength and realize that without American patronage, there’s a risk other bullies could take advantage. It perhaps forces them to look at their own slightly worn economies. It forces them to work more closely together.
It is, at the end of the day however, still an increase in military spending. It means more guns, more bombs, more soldiers looking for a target; it creates the scope for tensions between countries down the track, where previously across Europe’s lower defence spending meant less likelihood of another war on that continent; a continent where wars twice in the 20th century caused the deaths of millions.
Maybe Ukraine and the UN vote is an aberration; to talk about a ‘Trump doctrine’ at this stage perhaps gives too much credit to a man whose principles seem flexible, even erratic, and attention span limited. But in short order we’ve had enough words now from Trump, Vance and Hegseth to indicate the path they’re on. Trump may like to declare, “America is back”, but for the rest of the world this is a new, scary America.
For those on the right, the US is siding with the countries on the right side of the culture wars; but they should not mistake this as a move in favour of conservatism. With Musk at his side, Trump is actively looking to disrupt. For those on the left, an isolationist America that withdraws from the world stage is something they have wished for for decades. They have often asked America to butt out, pointing to governments overthrown in south America and Asia, wars in the Middle East, and nuclear tests in the Pacific as examples of US bullying. But they now are confronted by the flipside of American involvement and what it has brought in terms of security and democracy.
As we see the outline of the Trump doctrine start to get coloured in by actions like the UN vote, it raises several concerns for New Zealand.
First, we might wonder what Trump’s abandonment of Europe and liberal democratic values more broadly might mean in the Pacific. We see tariffs imposed on three Pacific nations and might wonder who is next. We wonder if China and stopping its rise might mean more of a focus for this administration and create more tensions in our neighbourhood.
Second, we might reconsider how we handle our relationship with both the US and China. As China under Xi has turned into more of a dictatorship in the past decade, New Zealand has inched closer to America on many non-trade issues. We are closer to the US now than we have been since the nuclear-free debate of the 1980s. That tilt towards the US under the past three governments now comes with a new level of risk and must give us pause for thought. It’s not hard to imagine us needing to stand up against the Trump doctrine on issues of tariffs, trade, and territory (more on that last one in a sec).
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine and articulation of a ‘might is right’ approach to foreign policy is terrible news for small nations everywhere. Trump has made it clear he does not understand why a powerful country like the US should give a damn about a small country like Ukraine, unless it can gain wealth or power. There is no sense that countries are obliged to stand up for rules in service of a greater good. As I noted earlier, Trump doesn’t believe in a greater good.
And if Ukraine is a small country of no value, easily sacrificed, then how much smaller and more dispensable is New Zealand? We have built our foreign policy and economy on a belief that rules matter, the world operates best when there is trade and connection, and everybody plays fair. Trump is joining a club of world leaders who don’t care about rules.
Which leads me to one final thought. While many of Trump’s supporters voted for his promise to get out of the world’s business, thus allowing more money to be spent domestically on Americans, the president’s ‘might is right’ worldview cuts against their expectations. Politically risky. But more than else, he seems weirdly wedded to a desire to expand. Real estate, it seems, still matters immensely to him. One of the most consistent refrains from Trump this term is a belief that America should take more land. Canada has resources, it should be the 51st state. America wants shipping lanes, so seize the Panama Canal. Interests in the Artic? “Get” Greenland. Mars is even a priority. What happens when someone mentions Antarctica to him? His expansionist words aren’t taken terribly seriously, but surely by now we realise these riffs aren’t just riffs. We should take him at this word; Trump wants more real estate.
It’s no coincidence that in that United Nations vote, he stood alongside countries that have no qualms about taking territory that doesn’t belong to them; Russia in Ukraine, of course, but also Israel in the occupied territories, and China with its claims to Taiwan and areas in the South China Sea. Perhaps one of the reasons Trump finds it so hard to condemn Russia’s land grab in Ukraine is that he imagines he might want to do some land-grabbing of his own in the next four years.
It seems clear Trump’s foreign policy is based on a view that laws and borders are negotiable depending on who has the cards, strong countries have the right to take from weaker countries, and that America’s commitment to liberal democracies has been a policy for suckers. That UN vote signals trouble ahead for small countries like ours that rely on rules, trade and peace to prosper. It’s hard to imagine that some time in the next four years the relationship between America and New Zealand won’t be strained at some point. Then, some hard reckoning will be required.