Skip to main content
May/June 2022 cover
Foreign Affairs Magazine Homepage
Subscribe
Explore Subscribe
  • All Articles
  • Books & Reviews
  • Anthologies
  • Author Directory
  • This Day in History
  • Events
  • Biden Administration
  • War in Ukraine
  • Coronavirus
  • Climate Change
  • Cybersecurity
  • Nationalism
  • Democratization
  • Economics
  • Globalization
  • Migration
  • U.S. Foreign Policy
  • War & Military Strategy
  • United States
  • Ukraine
  • Russia
  • China
  • Iran
  • North Korea
  • United Kingdom
  • India
  • Afghanistan
  • Ethiopia
  • Essays
  • Snapshots
  • Articles with Audio
  • Capsule Reviews
  • Review Essays
  • Ask the Experts
  • Reading Lists
  • Interviews
  • Responses
  • 1920s
  • 1930s
  • 1940s
  • 1950s
  • 1960s
  • 1970s
  • 1980s
  • 1990s
  • 2000s
  • 2010s
  • 2020s
  • Newsletters
  • Customer Service
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Subscriber Resources
  • Feedback
  • Institutional Subscriptions
  • Gift a Subscription
  • Centennial
  • Contact
  • Advertise

Follow Us

Foreign Affairs Magazine Homepage
Explore
My Account Sign In

  • Current Issue
  • Archive
  • Books & Reviews
  • Anthologies
  • Newsletters
Search
Subscribe
Subscribe Sign in
Subscribe to newsletter
No, thanks
September/October 2017 Issue

TRUMP AND THE ALLIES

Trump and the Allies
  • September/October 2017
  • 01 France’s Gamble
  • 02 Berlin’s Balancing Act
  • 03 The United Kingdom’s Trump Trap
  • 04 Trump’s Gift to Japan
  • 05 Down and Out Down Under
  • 06 Trudeau’s Trump Bump
  • 07 The Mexican Standoff

What’s Inside

September/October 2017
Sign in and save to read later
Share
Print this article
Save
Share on Twitter
Share on Facebook
Send by email
Get a link
Request Reprint Permissions

In the 1940s, after two world wars and a depression, Western policymakers decided enough was enough. Unless international politics changed in some fundamental way, humanity itself might not survive much longer.

A strain of liberal idealism had been integral to U.S. identity from the American founding onward, but now power could be put behind principle. Woodrow Wilson had fought “to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles.” Keeping his goals while noting his failures, the next generation tried again with a revised strategy, and this time they succeeded. The result became known as the postwar liberal international order.

The founders of the order embraced cooperation with like-minded powers, rejecting isolationism and casting themselves as player-managers of an ever-expanding team. They bailed out the United Kingdom, liberated France, rehabilitated Germany and Japan, bound themselves to Canada and Mexico, and more. And for seven decades, the allies were fruitful, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty. 

Then arose up a new king who knew not Joseph.

Perhaps no group has been more flummoxed by the Trump era than U.S. allies, who awoke last November to find Washington no longer interested in playing the game, let alone managing the team. Having spent more than half a century believing American promises of open-ended support and basing their identity and essential national policies on it, the major U.S. allies couldn’t return easily to a self-help system, even if they wanted to—which none of them do. 

We asked leading experts on France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada, and Mexico to report on how these countries are grappling with the challenges of the Trump era. These countries spent the first few months of the Trump administration in shock, then gradually realized they had to accommodate to the new reality somehow—at least for a while. So for now they watch, and wait, and hope the fever passes soon. This is their story.

The United States has dominated the world for generations now. Like a Carnegie or a Rockefeller or a Gates, it has legitimized its extraordinary position by making clear to all that it sees life as a positive-sum game—one in which American power is used to benefit not just Americans but also all those around the world willing to play by the rules, living and trading peacefully with one another. U.S. allies know that better than anybody, which is why they signed on to the order in the first place. Unfortunately, Washington itself seems to have forgotten.

—Gideon Rose, Editor

More:
Trump Administration

Most-Read Articles

Putin Is Going to Lose His War

And the World Should Prepare for Instability in Russia

Anders Åslund

Putin Against History

How His War Has Erased Russia’s Past—And Endangered Its Future

Andrei Kolesnikov

Single-Market Power

How Europe Surpassed America in the Quest for Economic Integration

Matthias Matthijs and Craig Parsons

The Beginning of the End for Putin?

Dictatorships Look Stable—Until They Aren’t

Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz

Get the Magazine

Save up to 55%

on Foreign Affairs magazine!
Subscribe

Foreign Affairs

Weekly Newsletter

Get in-depth analysis delivered right to your inbox

About

About Us Staff Events Work at Foreign Affairs

Contact

Customer Service Contact Us Submissions Permissions Advertise Press Center Leave Us Feedback Frequently Asked Questions

Subscription

Subscriptions Group Subscriptions My Account Give a Gift Donate Download iOS App Newsletters Download Android App

Follow

Graduate School Forum

Council on Foreign Relations

From the
publishers of
Foreign Affairs

Can You Hear Me? Speech and Power in the Global Digital Town Square

Can You Hear Me? Speech and Power in the Global Digital Town Square

by Catherine Powell

What the Korean War Era Reveals About the Fed’s Inflation Dilemma

by Roger W. Ferguson Jr.

Published by the Council on Foreign Relations

Privacy Policy Terms of Use

©2022 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This site uses cookies to improve your user experience. Click here to learn more.

Loading Loading