AP Worries That America is No Longer a Good Ally

Is America’s foreign policy situation falling apart? That’s the impression that you might take away from this weekend’s Associated Press analysis. With the election continuing to look like a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the AP concludes that many of our allies are worried that it doesn’t really matter who wins. America is absorbed in its own affairs and could become a “less dependable” ally in the near future. And that could increase the risk of new dangers cropping up related to “flashpoints around the world from Ukraine to the Middle East.” There may be some merit to a few of the points they are making, but these assumptions clearly ignore the very large and obvious policy differences between the two candidates.

As chances rise of a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch in the U.S. presidential election race, America’s allies are bracing for a bumpy ride.

Many worry that a second term for Trump would be an earthquake, but tremors already abound — and concerns are rising that the U.S. could grow less dependable regardless of who wins. With a divided electorate and gridlock in Congress, the next American president could easily become consumed by manifold challenges at home — before even beginning to address flashpoints around the world from Ukraine to the Middle East.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent verdict was blunt: America’s “first priority is itself.”

You can always rely on French President Macron for a pithy comment, so it’s not surprising that the AP would turn to him for something like this. He claims that “America’s first priority is itself.” Is that supposed to be some sort of insult? It would be easy to write that off as a dig against Donald Trump and his “America first” agenda. (Macron is probably more of a fan of Joe Biden’s “America last” policies.) But why wouldn’t our domestic crises be at the top of our agenda? It’s very difficult to snuff out a fire at your neighbor’s home when your own house is going up in flames.

The AP dredges up some instances when then-President Trump was critical of Angela Merkel and Theresa May. They also note that he seemed to praise Erdogan, Putin, and Xi Jinping at times. But that was simply how Trump played the international diplomacy game. He tried to build relationships with foreign leaders and find opportunities for mutual cooperation while reminding them that things could go very poorly if we didn’t manage to get along. And do you know what those policies produced? Peace. We didn’t see new wars breaking out while Trump was in charge, but now the world is on fire. Which would the AP prefer?

They are far more generous with Biden, but they include some skepticism over his performance as well. Joe Biden is praised for being more supportive of continued aid to Ukraine, something Trump has questioned recently. But they also point out that Joe has been unable to marshal bipartisan support for that aid and that Biden has been “unable to contain conflict in the Middle East.”

The AP quotes Thomas Gift of University College London. Gift predicts that America’s time as a global leader is at an end no matter who wins the White House in November. He says that we are heading toward a multipolar planet in which the United States is no longer “the indisputable world superpower.”

Some of those predictions seem almost inevitable, but these changes may also be transitional in nature and temporary. It’s true that we are (or at least should be) more focused on the invasion at our southern border, rampant crime, and inflation rates that are crushing the working class. Our national debt is out of control and threatening to collapse our government from the inside. This has led to a growing realization that we may not be able to act as the world’s policeman in the same fashion we used to. 

But aside from the spending and debt, the other problems listed above were driven or at least exacerbated by Joe Biden’s horrible policies and leadership. If you get rid of the source of those problems, more resources will be freed up to address other issues once the mess has been (hopefully) cleaned up. Also, the international scene tends to be a lot more calm when America has a leader who is viewed as being strong and willing to act decisively if the situation calls for it. The next phase of events on the world stage may not look exactly as they did during the first Trump term even if he returns. He will have a lot of domestic fires to put out. But they could still rebound a bit and look better than what we’re currently seeing. America can still be a reliable ally, but as the flight stewards on the airlines always remind us, we’re going to need to put our own oxygen mask on before we try to help the person in the next seat.