From Trump to Biden: Navigating Isolationist and Internationalist Traditions in U.S. Statecraft

The United States is in the middle of an urgent and heated debate over the future of its engagement with the world. From America’s founding era until World War II, the nation’s leaders generally shunned strategic commitments abroad. Thereafter, Americans embraced global leadership and activism. The pendulum now seems to be swinging back. Trump’s “America First” approach to statecraft reflected the weakening of the nation’s appetite for internationalism due to costly military engagements in the Middle East, economic uncertainty and a backlash against globalization, and domestic political polarization. Biden argues that “America is back,” but his withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq and his pursuit of a “foreign policy for the middle class” reveal continuing fragility in the domestic foundations of U.S. internationalism.

Dr. Charles Kupchan examines the history of isolationist and internationalist traditions in the United States to shed light on whether and how the Biden administration can bring the nation’s statecraft back into line with its means and purposes by finding the middle ground between a foreign policy that does too little and one that does too much.

Dr. Charles Kupchan, Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former National Security Council staff member.