Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

President Donald J. Trump, withdrawing from multi-lateral treaties, such as the Iran Deal, the Paris Climate Accord, NAFTA, and Trans-Pacific Partnership, dismissing the United Nations Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court as institutions lacking legitimacy, as well as considering NATO “obsolete” and putting forth the possibility of withdrawing military troops and closing military bases, is bringing an end to U.S. hegemony. However, these events must simultaneously be viewed as nationalist and isolationist geopolitical strategies against the new globalization. This paper begins by parsing President Trump’s statement from his United Nations speech of September 25th, where he claimed the United States was going to “reject the ideology of globalism and accept the ideology of patriotism.” Second, the paper goes on to show how this statement crystalizes President Trump’s imperatives of tightening national security, securing economic corporate tax cuts, and imposing draconian anti-immigration regulations to put “America First.” Third, it analytically separates the political, economic, and socio-cultural factors that get conflated in this statement, as well as in his counter-intuitive geopolitical strategies in general. In doing so, this paper illustrates how these analytically separate components get intertwined and become reinforcing, such that political policies which have economic effects, take on socio-cultural significance through the lens of identity politics. The paper concludes with a discussion of how a case-study of U.S. nationalism and isolationism proves vital for conceptualizing the questions that need to be asked to reconfigure the international liberal order in the face of the U.S.’s retreat from global leadership.