Projects

Defending America’s Enduring Interests and Values

The United States today confronts threats from authoritarian forces, foreign and domestic. Despotic powers like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are increasingly aligning with one another to challenge the American-led international order and tilt the balance of power away from liberal democracies.  

At the same time, America must also contend with a president who seems eager to assist this power shift by burning bridges with longstanding allies and partners and befriending foreign dictators. Donald Trump seems fascinated with authoritarian leaders, and seems determined to imitate them in his purely transactional approach to international relations. Trump’s boardroom bullying tactics may have worked in the 1980s, but they are fundamentally incompatible with the reality of the modern world. 

While most Americans still believe the United States should lead the community of free and democratic nations, they also favor a reallocation of the costs and risks of collective security. However, isolationist voices portray defense and national security priorities as coming at the expense of the American people, instead advocating for U.S. retrenchment into purely domestic concerns.  

This type of “America First” foreign policy is a recipe for isolating America from its partners and allies in a dangerous and unstable world. An America that must fight wars without allies, that develops and innovates in a vacuum, and that cannot freely and fairly trade with partners is a less safe and less prosperous America. Yet this is where the Trump administration’s foreign policy leads — to America alone in a world that is growing less hospitable to American ideals of democracy and freedom. 

The damage Trump has done to America’s relationships and standing in the world is already on clear display, with longstanding allies and partners adapting their military and economic postures to “de-risk” from an increasingly unreliable America. Nations on the frontlines of the fight against authoritarianism, such as Ukraine and Taiwan, are no longer certain that the United States will honor its promises to support them in their struggle for freedom. 

Words will not be enough to bring the world back into America’s corner — the next administration will need to take meaningful and concrete steps to reassure allies that the United States is not a fickle ally, and is truly committed to the cause of freedom and democracy. The Trump administration has eroded faith in America worldwide; the next occupant of the White House must develop plans for the future with a clear-eyed understanding of the world as it is now. 

To address these challenges, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) has launched the Securing America’s Interests initiative, led by Danielle Steitz, to advocate for policies that advance America’s interests at home and across the globe. The project seeks policy solutions that advance the core pillars necessary to support this new vision for Democratic foreign policy:

• Adopt a defense and foreign policy that supports American innovation, economic opportunity, prosperity, and quality of life.
• Provide for a strong defense capable of meeting present and future challenges.
• Engage meaningfully in alliances that amplify American power and help secure American interests.
• Rebuild and revitalize the institutions and tools of American foreign policy.
• Engage in free and open trade with friends and allies around the world, with responsible management of industries critical to national security. 

Americans have long accepted that a freer and more democratic world is a safer world for America. Our founding fathers understood that liberty at home is inseparable from the global environment, that a world dominated by tyrannical governments would be fatally hostile to American democracy. Over the intervening centuries, the United States has fought relentlessly to make the world safe for liberty and democracy. Now, in America’s 250th year, we must reject isolationism and recommit ourselves to that fight.   

At his second inauguration, at the outset of the Cold War, President Harry S. Truman emphatically staked America’s claim on the side of freedom and democracy, proclaiming “The American people desire, and are determined to work for, a world in which all nations and all peoples are free to govern themselves as they see fit, and to achieve a decent and satisfying life.” As America again confronts the global spread of antidemocratic forces, our political leaders should once again take a bold stand for freedom at home and across the world.