Trump and the Remaking of American Grand Strategy : The Shift From Open Door Globalism to Economic Nationalism

This book offers a comprehensive explanatory account of Trump's foreign policy by assessing its nature, determining the extent to which it broke with the policy of preceding presidencies, and explaining how this shift came about. We argue that Trump has succeeded in remaking America’s grand strategy by unmaking its long-standing strategy of what we call Open Door Globalism, a strategy of economic expansionism through the promotion of open markets across the globe and its institutionalization into a US-led liberal world order. Trump has broken with Open Door Globalism in probably lasting ways by adopting an outlook and strategy of neo-mercantilist economic nationalism based upon an ‘America First’ redefinition of US sovereignty and national interests. We explain this Trumpian shift in US foreign policy by focusing on the social sources of Trump’s foreign policy-making elite’s agency, analysing it both in terms of foreign policy-makers’ embeddedness in elite networks and within the changing global and domestic context. The latter, coupled with a crisis of established elite power, also indicates why Biden has not returned to Open Door Globalism but doubled down on some aspects of the Trumpian economic nationalist break. Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures 1 Introduction References 2 Theorizing Trump: A Critical Political Economy Approach IR Theory at a Loss? The Puzzle of Trump’s Foreign Policy IR Debates on the Nature of Trump’s Foreign Policy IR Explanations of Trump’s Foreign Policy? Structure and Agency in US Grand Strategy: A Elite-Theoretical Perspective Grounded in Critical Political Economy References 3 American Grand Strategy Before Trump: The History and Nature of Open Door Globalism The Open Door from the End of the Nineteenth Century Until the End of the Cold War The First Wave of American Expansionism: From the Open Door Notes to Wilson’s Liberal Internationalism The Second Wave and the Start of the Third Wave of American Expansionism: The Cold War Years The Open Door in the Post-Cold War Era: The Clinton, Bush, and Obama Presidencies The Open Door Under Clinton The Open Door Under G.W. Bush The Open Door Under Obama Conclusion: The Ends of Open Door Globalism References 4 Contradictions of Neoliberal Globalization and the Trumpist Backlash The Contradictions of Neoliberal Globalization and Obama’s Failure to Restore Open Door Globalism The Deepening Contradictions of Neoliberalism After the Global Financial Crisis The Growing Limits of American Power and Increasing Geopolitical Rivalry The Failure of the Incorporation of China into the US-Led Liberal World Order The Rising Costs of Doing Business with China Twofold Trumpist Backlash Against Neoliberal Globalization: Putting “America First” Against the Globalism of Financial Elites and China The Backlash Against Free Trade and Against the Offshoring and Outsourcing of American Production The Backlash Against China’s Integration into Global Capitalism Conclusion References 5 Enter Trump and the Trumpists: A Social Network Analysis of Trump's Foreign Policy-Makers Mapping Foreign Policy Elite Power Structures—Methods and Data The Trump Administration and Corporate Elite Networks in Comparative Perspective: Continuity or Change? A Different Corporate Elite in the White House? Distinctive Characteristics of the Trumpian Corporate Elite The Trump Administration and US Elite Policy-Planning Networks in Comparative Perspective: The Trumpian Break The (Growing) Disconnect of Trump’s Team Conclusion References 6 The Unmaking of Open Door Globalism and the Shift Towards Economic Nationalism America First: Rejecting the Exceptionalist Notion of US Global Leadership and Embracing Economic Nationalism The Trumpist Worldview: Economic Nationalism The Evolution of Trump’s Neo-mercantilist Economic Nationalism in Practice Trump’s Protectionism and Attack on the Global Trade System: From Withdrawal from the TPP to the Trade War with China Reconfiguring the Nexus of National and Economic Security: Reshoring America’s Manufacturing Trumpian Geopolitics: Deconstructing Liberal World Order and a New Cold War with China From Leading the Liberal World Order to Wrecking It Trump, and the New Great Power Rivalry: Towards a US–China Cold War Conclusion References 7 Conclusion The Enduring Trumpian Shift: Biden and Beyond An Agenda for Further Research References Appendix: Selection of Trump’s Foreign Policy-Makers in 2017 and 2019 Index