[Senate Prints 116-56]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




116th Congress  }                                             {   S. Prt
                           COMMITTEE PRINT                     
2d Session      }                                             {   116-56
_______________________________________________________________________

                                     

 
                  THE COST OF TRUMP'S FOREIGN POLICY:

                        DAMAGE AND CONSEQUENCES 
                        
                      FOR U.S. AND GLOBAL SECURITY

                               __________

                        A MINORITY STAFF REPORT

                      PREPARED FOR THE USE OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     One Hundred Sixteenth Congress

                             SECOND SESSION

                            October 21, 2020

                                     
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations



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                          ______                       


              U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
44-275 PDF             WASHINGTON : 2021                        
                       


                 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS        

                JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho, Chairman        
MARCO RUBIO, Florida                 ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin               BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
CORY GARDNER, Colorado               JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MITT ROMNEY, Utah                    CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina       TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming               CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio                    TIM KAINE, Virginia
RAND PAUL, Kentucky                  EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
TODD YOUNG, Indiana                  JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
TED CRUZ, Texas                      CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia
                  Christopher M. Socha, Staff Director        
               Jessica Lewis, Democratic Staff Director        
                    John Dutton, Chief Clerk        



                               (ii)        




                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Letter of Transmittal............................................     v


Executive Summary................................................     1

    Principal Findings...........................................     3

    Key Recommendations..........................................     4


Introduction.....................................................     7


Chapter 1--The Trump Doctrine: Chaos, Neglect, and

  Diplomatic Failures............................................    11

    America First?...............................................    11

    Foreign Policy by Chaos......................................    13

    Undermining Democratic Values at Home........................    16

    Neglect of Pressing Global Challenges........................    18

    Diplomatic Failures..........................................    19

    Ego-Driven Diplomacy.........................................    23

    Trump First..................................................    25

    Conclusion...................................................    28


Chapter 2--The Cost of Going It Alone: America

  Withdrawn and Isolated.........................................    29

    Abandoning International Commitments.........................    29

    Our Closest Allies: Alienated and Abused.....................    34

    Navigating and Hedging Against a Less-Engaged United States..    40

    Conclusion...................................................    44


Chapter 3--Empowering Adversaries and Autocrats..................    47

    A Roadmap for Repression.....................................    48

    Embracing Autocrats..........................................    52

    Hampering Efforts to Promote Democracy and Human Rights......    57

    Ceding Ground to Adversaries.................................    59

    Conclusion...................................................    63


Chapter 4--The World Ahead: Conclusion, Findings,

  and Recommendations............................................    65

    Conclusion...................................................    65

    Findings.....................................................    65

    Recommendations..............................................    68




                                 (iii)


      
      
      
      




                         Letter of Transmittal

                              ----------                              

                              United States Senate,
                            Committee on Foreign Relations,
                                  Washington, DC, October 21, 2020.




    Dear Colleagues: This report by the Committee's Democratic 
staff examines the extensive damage President Trump's foreign 
policy has exacted on the United States' international 
interests and global security. I thought it important to assess 
the impact of President Trump's engagement with the world from 
a Congressional perspective, looking at some of the starkest 
examples and what his administration's actions have meant for 
the American people.
    Given the importance of the topic, I directed members of my 
staff, Lowell Schwartz, Megan Bartley, and Nina Russell, to 
examine President Trump's conduct of foreign policy and the 
consequences for U.S. foreign policy and national security. My 
staff interviewed dozens of former U.S. officials, many of whom 
served in senior positions in the Trump administration. They 
also traveled and met with foreign government officials and 
foreign policy experts, speaking to individuals from more than 
20 countries.
    What we found is troubling. President Trump's words and 
actions have levied a toll on our foreign policy, the future 
prospects for the U.S. role in the world, and the health and 
security of Americans.
    As democracy is declining and authoritarianism is on the 
rise around the world, our diplomats report they cannot 
effectively champion human rights or promote good governance, 
in part because the power of the President's example undermines 
their efforts. Despite his bluster, North Korean nuclear and 
missile programs are larger and more capable than before 
Trump's presidency. Iran is closer to a nuclear bomb today than 
when President Trump took office. This Administration has 
neglected pressing global problems, including the COVID-19 
pandemic and climate change. The President has repeatedly 
bullied and threatened our closest allies and partners, when 
what we need are strong coalitions to promote U.S. interests 
and address urgent challenges that endanger the health and 
security of Americans.




                                  (v)

    This report takes stock of these profound challenges facing 
us. It also provides practical and timely recommendations for 
Congress and future administrations to begin to repair the 
damage of four years of ``Trump First.'' We need to rebuild 
U.S. foreign policy institutions, mend relations with allies 
and partners, and adjust our foreign policy for a new era to 
address global challenges. I hope this report can serve as a 
roadmap for what needs rebuilding, where the damage lies, and 
as a reminder of the consequence of an incoherent, chaotic 
foreign policy. For those of us who care deeply about this 
country, and the role we play in the world, there is a lot of 
work ahead.
    Sincerely,


                                           Robert Menendez,
                                                    Ranking Member.


                           Executive Summary

                              ----------                              

    Over many decades, the United States has built up 
international influence by using its unrivaled diplomatic, 
military, economic, and ideological power. American leaders 
combined this power with a foreign policy vision based upon a 
robust defense of democratic values. In addition, the United 
States forged alliances and built international institutions to 
assist in maintaining our domestic and global security, manage 
relations with other major economies, and garner political 
support for critical U.S. foreign policy objectives. These 
efforts enabled the United States to become a global power with 
the unique ability to shape and guide international affairs.
    The Trump administration has damaged the foundations that 
undergird U.S international strength and influence. Under 
President Trump, the United States has neglected and 
deliberately ignored pressing global challenges, making it a 
bystander in international efforts to confront these collective 
threats. U.S. national security decisions have been driven by 
President Trump's ego, his domestic political considerations, 
and his relationships with foreign leaders, not the vital 
interests of the United States. He has transformed U.S. foreign 
policy into a vehicle for the pursuit of his own personal and 
financial interests. President Trump has ignored and neglected 
key issues that threaten the United States because they do not 
fit into his narrow vision of how the world functions.
    To date, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 1 
million lives worldwide, of which more than 215,000 are 
Americans. Unlike previous crises, the United States is barely 
participating in the global response, much less leading it, and 
given Trump's history, few in the international community 
expected us to. President Trump has claimed that North Korea is 
no longer a nuclear threat, yet its nuclear and missile 
programs are larger and more capable than when he took office. 
His administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan 
of Action (JCPOA), with President Trump claiming he would work 
to find a ``real, comprehensive, and lasting solution to the 
Iranian nuclear threat.'' Instead, his approach has resulted in 
an Iran that is closer to a nuclear weapon than when Trump took 
office, and has left the United States isolated, with no viable 
strategy or solution in sight.
    Past U.S. presidents sought to showcase the United States 
as a model for what a society can achieve when it is based upon 
democracy and freedom. President Trump, on the other hand, has 
consistently shown disdain for pluralism, human rights, civil 
society, the press, and rule of law. His domestic policies, 
including family separation, reducing the number of refugees 
into the U.S., attacking the rule of law and the freedom of the 
press, and failing to stand up for racial equality, have led 
U.S. allies to question the values of the United States. 
Authoritarian leaders have seized upon the abandonment of these 
values, seeing it as an opportunity to consolidate their rule.
    Former senior U.S. government officials interviewed by 
Committee Democratic staff reported that President Trump's 
rhetoric and actions undermined the ability of U.S. officials 
to promote or influence democracy abroad. Diplomats reported 
that foreign counterparts did not take them seriously when they 
tried to raise human rights or adherence to the rule of law. 
Others recalled the embarrassment of attempting to promote 
freedom of the press abroad, weighed down by ``baggage in 
Washington.'' Officials who worked in the Trump administration, 
forced to explain ``America First'' around the world, found 
there was ``no Trump doctrine,'' but rather, a ``malign neglect 
of relationships, indifference to values, [and an] insidious 
thematic . . . message . . . me first--I am putting my 
interests before yours.''
    This report takes stock of the damage President Trump's 
foreign policy has inflicted on U.S. and global security, as 
well as the immediate and long-term consequences for the safety 
and security of the American people. It finds that the state of 
the United States in the world hangs in a tenuous balance. Our 
allies are weary and alienated; our own diplomats struggle to 
uphold the values we have promoted to the world for decades; 
and a U.S. president's eschewing of democracy has helped to 
fuel autocratic trends abroad.
    The report is based in large part on interviews and 
discussions with former U.S. and foreign government officials 
and foreign policy experts who shared their candid assessments 
about foreign policy under President Trump. For over a year, 
Committee Democratic staff conducted more than 80 interviews, 
including dozens of interviews with U.S. officials who served 
in the Trump administration. Committee staff sought a wide 
range of viewpoints and regional perspectives, speaking with 
officials and experts from nearly 20 countries.
    Chapter One finds that, while President Trump may have 
termed his approach to foreign policy ``America First,'' in 
practice, it should be called ``Trump First,'' with America's 
interests overshadowed by the President's own interests and 
style. It catalogues how President Trump's foreign policy has 
been characterized by chaos, neglect, and diplomatic failures, 
rather than a cohesive strategy, and examines the damage these 
factors have had on U.S. national security.
    Chapter Two shows how President Trump has alienated allies 
and isolated the United States from international efforts to 
confront global threats. It examines the consequences of 
Trump's decisions to undermine decades-long partnerships, which 
have historically been force multipliers for U.S. efforts to 
achieve national security objectives.
    Chapter Three examines President Trump's impact on U.S. 
adversaries and autocrats. It shows how autocrats around the 
world have seen the Trump administration as an opportunity to 
consolidate their power through repressive means, and how U.S. 
adversaries have been empowered by a foreign policy that 
isolates the United States from its allies, disengages from 
multinational organizations, and ignores human rights abuses. 
It also recounts how, in a previously undisclosed phone call, 
President Trump called Senator Menendez to defend Prime 
Minister Orb n.
    The report concludes with a series of recommendations aimed 
at addressing the damage President Trump has inflicted on U.S. 
foreign policy, and to chart a path forward for how the United 
States engages with the world. These recommendations focus on 
the need to rebuild U.S. foreign policy institutions, uphold 
our own democratic values at home, heal U.S. relations with 
allies and partners, and adjust our foreign policy for a new 
era.

Principal Findings
   President Trump's foreign policy has been marked by chaos, 
        neglect, and diplomatic failures. Former Trump 
        administration officials admit the President's 
        impulsive, erratic approach has tarnished the 
        reputation of the United States as a reliable partner 
        and led to disarray in dealing with foreign 
        governments. Foreign officials are often uncertain 
        about who speaks for the United States. Critical 
        neglect of global challenges has endangered Americans, 
        weakened the U.S. role in the world, and squandered the 
        respect it built up over decades. Sudden 
        pronouncements, such as the withdrawal of U.S. troops 
        from Syria, have angered close allies and caught U.S. 
        officials off-guard. U.S. officials keep their heads 
        down in the hopes that President Trump won't upend U.S. 
        policy in a tweet.

   President Trump's narrow and transactional view of 
        international relations has alienated U.S. allies and 
        partners. U.S. allies have been the targets of 
        President Trump's transactional approach to foreign 
        policy and are increasingly asking how the U.S. 
        approach to international relations differs from that 
        of Russia and China. The Trump administration's use of 
        tariffs against allies has led them to halt or 
        reconsider cooperation with the United States in a 
        number of critical areas. U.S allies are increasingly 
        ignoring U.S. objections to their policies because they 
        believe the United States is deliberately undermining 
        their interests.

   International allies and partners of the United States have 
        begun to move on, viewing the United States not as the 
        democratic leader of the free world, but rather as a 
        destabilizing global force they need to manage. 
        President Trump's abuse of power in the conduct of U.S. 
        foreign policy is causing our allies to take steps to 
        insulate themselves. They are hedging against the 
        United States by pursuing trade agreements with other 
        countries to reduce their dependence on the United 
        States, and forming alternative security partnerships 
        in case the United States abandons them. They are 
        pursuing international engagement, including new 
        multilateral agreements, without U.S. participation or 
        influence.

   The Trump administration's domestic policies, including 
        separating families at the border, sharply reducing 
        refugee admissions, attacking the rule of law and free 
        press, and failing to promote racial equality, have 
        damaged the United States credibility and standing in 
        the world. U.S. presidents in the past have sought to 
        showcase the United States as a model for what a 
        society can achieve when it is based upon democracy and 
        freedom. President Trump, on the other hand, through 
        his rhetoric and domestic policies, has consistently 
        shown his disdain for pluralism, human rights, civil 
        society, the press, and rule of law. These policies 
        have caused traditional U.S. allies to question the 
        values of the United States, and provided authoritarian 
        leaders an opportunity to consolidate their power.

   Countries with authoritarian and autocratic leaders are 
        less concerned about violating the human rights of 
        their citizens because they know the United States 
        under President Trump will ignore their repressive 
        activities. Authoritarian leaders in Europe, Asia, 
        Africa, and the Middle East have seen very little, if 
        any, pushback from the highest levels of the Trump 
        administration when they take antidemocratic steps and 
        suppress dissent. Instead, some of these leaders have 
        been welcomed to the White House, which enhances their 
        legitimacy at home. State Department efforts to promote 
        democracy and human rights are dismissed by foreign 
        officials because they are completely at odds with 
        President Trump's own behavior.

Key Recommendations
   The United States should restore democracy, rule of law, 
        human rights, and cooperation with allies, partners, 
        and multilateral institutions as key principles of U.S. 
        foreign and national security policy. The U.S. should 
        reinvest in the alliances and partnerships that are 
        vital for protecting it from international threats. It 
        should also re-engage with international institutions 
        that assist the United States in promoting inclusive 
        economic growth, democracy, and a stable international 
        environment.

   The United States must confront the serious dangers 
        Americans and the world face from global threats, 
        including climate change, pandemics, authoritarianism, 
        and nuclear proliferation, which the Trump 
        administration has ignored. The COVID-19 crisis has 
        been a profound example of the world's 
        interconnectivity and the need to prevent, confront, 
        and contain threats. To secure Americans and ensure 
        domestic prosperity, the United States needs to engage 
        and lead global efforts to combat global threats.

   The United States should achieve bipartisan agreement on 
        key foreign policy and national security policies, to 
        alleviate international fears that the United States is 
        an unreliable partner. The next administration should 
        seek Congressional approval for its foreign policy 
        efforts as a way to build lasting bipartisan consensus 
        for its policies. Although difficult, it would 
        demonstrate to international partners that U.S. 
        policies and positions will endure from one 
        administration to the next.

   Congress must reassert its oversight role of the Executive 
        branch and invest in its capacity to legislate and 
        oversee U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. system of 
        government relies on checks and balances, and requires 
        a robust legislative branch. Congress must be an 
        effective partner and counterbalance to the Executive 
        in charting a whole-of-government path forward to 
        reestablishing the United States as a credible ally and 
        principled world power.

   Congress and the next administration must work together to 
        revitalize and improve key foreign policy institutions, 
        such as the State Department, to reflect a commitment 
        to a 21st-century foreign policy strategy. The U.S. 
        must build a 21st-century diplomatic corps empowered to 
        address increasingly complex global challenges, such as 
        climate change, cybersecurity, and global health 
        issues. In restoring U.S. global leadership and high 
        standards of competency and professionalism in its 
        diplomatic engagements, the U.S. must address long-
        standing vacancies at the State Department, promote 
        more career servants into senior leadership positions 
        at the Department to provide more stability in foreign 
        policy across administrations, and increase diversity 
        at all levels of foreign policy leadership.



                              Introduction

                              ----------                              

    Foreign policy has been central to the security and 
prosperity of the United States from its inception.\1\ Adroit 
diplomacy played a critical role in the American Revolution by 
securing French support for the American cause, and helped to 
ensure a Union victory in the Civil War by keeping European 
powers sidelined during the conflict. After World War II, the 
United States decided its economic well-being and safety 
depended upon forging a new international system that would 
rein in conflict and promote positive economic engagement 
between world powers. The alliances the United States forged 
during this period and the international institutions that 
emerged from these alliances have endured long after the 
collapse of the Soviet Union.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ George Herring, From colony to superpower: U.S. foreign 
relations since 1776, Oxford University Press, 2008.
    \2\ John Ikenberry, Liberal leviathan: the origins, crisis, and 
transformation of the American world order, Princeton University Press, 
2011.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Until January 2017, alliances and international 
institutions formed the backbone of U.S. foreign policy. They 
played a vital role in maintaining U.S. security, managing 
relations with other major economies, and building political 
support for critical U.S. foreign policy objectives. The 
unrivaled diplomatic, military, and economic power of the 
United States after World War II was another central factor in 
protecting the nation.
    While there has been a great deal of continuity in the 
American approach to the world, the United States has 
repeatedly adjusted its policies to account for the rise of new 
threats and shifts in global conditions. U.S. foreign policy 
has also been altered in response to the American people's 
views on the role the United States should have in global 
affairs.
    On the eve of President Trump's inauguration, it was 
becoming increasingly apparent that U.S. foreign policy needed 
to adapt to meet and address new and pressing global 
challenges. The difficulties in confronting these challenges, 
including the rise of populism and authoritarianism and decline 
in democracy and freedom around the world, was compounded by an 
international environment that was becoming more hostile to 
U.S. values and interests.

Emerging Power Competition
    Chief among the challenges the United States faced was the 
reemergence of great power competition, particularly with 
Russia and China. After a sustained period of more positive and 
cooperative relations, these countries had become more 
threatening and hostile.\3\ Russia and China each seek to 
control key global regions vital for U.S. security, including 
Europe and the Indo-Pacific.\4\ Russia has been more openly 
aggressive, using direct military intervention in attempts to 
compel its neighbors to adhere to Russia's policies. This was 
seen most visibly in Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008, 
illegal occupation of Crimea, and military aggression in 
eastern Ukraine starting in 2014.\5\ China is using a different 
set of tools in its pursuit of a sphere of influence. It has 
sought to limit freedom of navigation in the Asia Pacific with 
its assertive claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea 
and it has used its increased economic power as leverage to 
reward or punish neighboring states.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Thomas Wright, All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the 
21st Century & The Future of American Power, Yale University Press (May 
23, 2017).
    \4\ See U.S. Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National 
Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the 
American Military's Competitive Edge, Jan. 2018.
    \5\ See Congressional Research Service, Russia: Background and U.S. 
Policy, Aug. 21, 2017.
    \6\ This includes through the Belt and Road Initiative, China's 
strategy to increase its influence through extensive infrastructure 
investments. Congressional Research Service, U.S.-China Relations, Aug. 
8, 2019.
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    Since the 2008 financial crisis, Russian and Chinese 
leaders have put forward a vision of authoritarianism that they 
argue is a superior method for organizing society in comparison 
to liberal democracy. They promote their model of authoritarian 
capitalism as an option for countries that seek economic 
development while preserving their independence from the 
strings attached to U.S. development assistance.\7\ This 
ideological competition plays out in the global arena through 
Russian and Chinese support for their fellow authoritarian 
leaders, their efforts to reshape international norms and 
institutions in ways more friendly to authoritarian priorities, 
and their activities to weaken, corrupt, delegitimize, and 
distort the political systems of liberal democracies, including 
the United States.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ See Kevin Rudd, ``The Rise of Authoritarian Capitalism,'' The 
New York Times, Sept. 16, 2018; John Lee, ``Western vs. Authoritarian 
Capitalism,'' The Diplomat, June 18, 2009.
    \8\ Hal Brands, ``Democracy vs. Authoritarianism: How Ideology 
Shapes Great-Power Conflict,'' Survival, Oct.-Nov. 2018, at 61-114.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The return of great-power rivalry poses a challenge to the 
United States, at both a regional and global level. Russia and 
China work to weaken global institutions that constrain and 
challenge their power and that question the internal legitimacy 
of their authoritarian systems. They also use a range of tools, 
from inducement to intimidation to military coercion, to alter 
the international environment into one more receptive to their 
ambitions and less responsive to U.S. values and concerns.

Transnational Challenges
    The reemergence of great-power competition makes it more 
difficult to address the second set of challenges that faced 
the United States in January 2017: transnational and global 
problems, including climate change, the risk of pandemics, 
terrorism, and nuclear proliferation. All of these challenges 
require a high degree of international cooperation and 
consensus-building around potential solutions. At a time of 
heightened tensions, collaborating to solve collective problems 
requires balancing geo-strategic concerns with the urgent need 
to address these global challenges. Effective responses require 
all hands on deck, including governments, civil society, and 
the private sector.
    The United States has long recognized the need to work with 
strategic competitors to address global challenges. American 
cooperation with China and Russia has been critical to mitigate 
some of the world's greatest threats in recent decades. After 
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Russia supported 
U.S. and NATO efforts to remove the Taliban and prevent their 
return to power, and China supported several U.S. 
counterterrorism efforts through the United Nations Security 
Council. A joint agreement in 2014 between China and the United 
States, the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, 
helped pave the way for the Paris Agreement on climate 
change.\9\ Even in the midst of great-power competition, the 
world remains interdependent. This unavoidable interdependence 
in a globalized world has its costs but it also creates 
opportunities to achieve benefits for multiple countries rather 
than none.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ The White House, ``U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate 
Change,'' Nov. 11, 2014; Joanna Lewis, ``The U.S.-China Climate and 
Energy Relationship,'' Chapter in Parallel Perspectives on the Global 
Economic Order, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Sept. 
22, 2017.
    \10\ See, e.g., Anne-Marie Slaughter, foreword to Wayne Porter & 
Mark Mykleby, A National Strategic Narrative, Woodrow Wilson Center, 
2011; Jim Dwyer, ``A National Security Strategy That Doesn't Focus on 
Threats,'' The New York Times, May 3, 2011.

Democracy in Decline Worldwide
    A third major factor confronting the United States as 
President Trump took office was the decline in the level of 
democracy and freedom around the world, including the rise of 
populist movements and authoritarianism.\11\ Annual indices 
tracking global democracy found that 2019 marked a 14-year 
decline, including benchmarks that fared worse than the 
previous low in 2010 following the global financial crisis.\12\ 
These factors create new dynamics for how the United States 
chooses to engage with states that are becoming more repressive 
and less democratic.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ The decline in freedom and democracy is demonstrated in 
several annual indices that measure global levels of democracy and 
freedom. For example, the annual Freedom House report, Freedom in the 
World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy, found that 2019 was 
the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. Freedom House, 
Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy, Mar. 
2020. See also ``Global democracy has another bad year: But popular 
protests show potential for democratic renewal,'' Daily Chart, The 
Economist, Jan. 22, 2020; V-Dem Institute, Autocratization Surges--
Resistance Grows: Democracy Report 2020; Chapter 3.
    \12\ Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2020, Mar. 2020; Democracy 
Index 2019: A year of democratic setbacks and popular protest, The 
Economist Intelligence Unit, Jan. 2020, at 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The decline in global freedom and democracy has several 
consequences for U.S. foreign policy, and in turn, for U.S. 
security and safety. The United States historically has found 
democratic states to be more reliable and trustworthy 
international partners.\13\ Thus, a decline in the quantity of 
democratic states limits the number and effectiveness of 
potential partners with which the United States can pursue 
common interests.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ For example, in a 1993 speech to the United Nations, President 
Clinton announced that the United States' ``overriding purpose must be 
to expand and strengthen the world's community of market-based 
democracies. During the Cold War we sought to contain a threat to the 
survival of free institutions. Now we seek to enlarge the circle of 
nations that live under those free institutions. For our dream is of a 
day when the opinions and energies of every person in the world will be 
given full expression, in a world of thriving democracies that 
cooperate with each other and live in peace.'' President William J. 
Clinton, Address to the UN General Assembly, Sept. 27, 1993.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Democratic backsliding also undermines the effectiveness of 
international institutions based upon democratic principles, 
such as NATO and the EU. Backsliding in Turkey and Hungary has 
troubling implications for NATO, which was founded upon the 
defense of democratic principles. The EU faces a similar 
challenge with Hungary, now classified by Freedom House as an 
electoral authoritarian regime, which as an EU member gets to 
fully participate in all EU decision making.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\ Celeste A. Wallander, ``NATO's Enemies Within: How Democratic 
Decline Could Destroy the Alliance,'' Foreign Affairs, July/Aug. 2018; 
Norman Eisen & James Kirchick, ``Yes, Russia is a threat to NATO. So 
are the alliance's anti-democratic members,'' The Washington Post, July 
11, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Finally, the decline in the number of democratic states and 
the rise of more authoritarian ones provides Russia and China 
with new partners for their efforts to expand their 
influence.\15\ For example, in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, 
long-standing Russian efforts to discredit democracy reinforce 
the effects of major infrastructure investments from China in 
cultivating potential partners.\16\ In offering no-strings-
attached financial aid and weapons, both China and Russia 
dilute U.S. leverage to press for human rights and rule-of-law 
reform.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ Bruce Jones & Torrey Taussig, Democracy & Disorder: The 
Struggle for Influence in the New Geopolitics,Brooking Institute (Feb. 
2019).
    \16\ Andrea Kendall-Taylor & David Shullman, ``How Russia and China 
Undermine Democracy: Can the West Counter the Threat?'' Foreign 
Affairs, Oct. 2, 2018.
    \17\ Id.

Scope of the Report
    The objective of this report is not to conduct a systematic 
review of the Trump administration's conduct of U.S. foreign 
policy, nor to examine how President Trump has approached every 
international crisis during his presidency.
    Instead, this report seeks to take stock of the damage 
President Trump's foreign policy has done to U.S. and global 
security, as well as the immediate and long-term consequences 
this has had on the safety and security of the American people. 
It examines some of the starkest examples of how President 
Trump's approach to foreign policy has resulted in a chaotic 
process, and how abrupt decisions, which take close allies by 
surprise have thrown our alliances into disarray. It also 
reviews how President Trump's hostility toward multilateral 
alliances has left the U.S. withdrawn and isolated from 
combatting pressing global challenges. Finally, it reviews the 
effect of President Trump's rhetoric, actions, and inaction on 
authoritarian regimes and autocratic leaders.
    The report, a culmination of interviews and discussions 
Democratic Committee staff conducted with dozens of U.S. and 
foreign government officials and foreign policy experts over 
more than a year, finds that the state of the United States in 
the world hangs in a tenuous balance. Our allies are weary and 
alienated; our own diplomats struggle to uphold the values we 
have promoted to the world for decades; and a U.S. president's 
eschewing of democracy has helped to fuel autocratic trends 
abroad.



                               Chapter 1



                  The Trump Doctrine: Chaos, Neglect,



                        and Diplomatic Failures

                              ----------                              

    There is no question that President Trump has brought a 
markedly different approach to foreign policy than previous 
administrations. Termed ``America First'' by President Trump, 
this approach is supposedly defined by putting the interests of 
the American people first. In practice, however, there is 
little evidence that this is the driving force. As numerous 
interviews confirmed, and as the events of the last four years 
have shown, President Trump's brand of foreign policy is 
characterized by chaos, driven by ego and personal interests, 
and heavily influenced by catering to a political base on 
domestic issues. It has also notably neglected a host of 
critical international threats, with tragic consequences, and 
left a string of diplomatic failures in its wake. The result is 
few measurable achievements, and considerable damage to U.S. 
interests.
    Today, North Korea remains a nuclear threat, Iran is closer 
to a nuclear bomb, and U.S. efforts to support a democratic 
transition in Venezuela are frozen. Respect for the United 
States has dropped precipitously around the world. American 
foreign policy has been run like a wayward vessel--not 
following a charted course, but subject to abrupt shifts and 
near-collisions at the whims of a reckless captain. While there 
are Americans who share the President's desire to be less 
engaged in the world, Americans are less safe when the United 
States is less respected and its leadership is seen as 
capricious and untrustworthy.

America First?
    President Trump contends that his ``America First'' foreign 
policy ``will always put the interests of the American people 
and American security above all else.''\18\ The term ``America 
First'' is meant to capture President Trump's view that the 
United States is in decline and that previous administrations 
allowed other nations to take advantage of the United States--a 
position he has more or less espoused for decades.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ ``Transcript: Donald Trump's Foreign Policy Speech,'' The New 
York Times, April 27, 2016.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump's approach is grounded in three key ways he 
views the world: the United States is overextended abroad, the 
global economy disadvantages the United States, and 
authoritarian leaders are sympathetic friends.\19\ He has been 
highly critical of U.S. military alliances, believing the 
United States is overextended and ``subsidiz[ing] the armies of 
other countries.''\20\ He has also argued that the United 
States is disadvantaged by the structure of the global economy. 
Trump has generally opposed trade agreements and supported 
using tariffs to protect U.S. industry and punish economic 
malfeasance by other countries.\21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\ See, e.g., Thomas Wright, ``Trump's team of rivals, riven by 
distrust,'' Foreign Policy, Dec. 14, 2016.
    \20\ The White House, ``The Inaugural Address: Remarks of President 
Donald J. Trump, As Prepared for Delivery,'' Jan. 20, 2017.
    \21\ See, e.g., Thomas Wright, ``Trump Takes Allies Back to 19th 
Century Global Order,'' Brookings, Mar. 21, 2017; The White House, 
``The Inaugural Address: Remarks of President Donald J. Trump, As 
Prepared for Delivery,'' Jan. 20, 2017; Jim Tankersley & Mark Landler, 
``Trump's Love of Tariffs Began in Japan's 80's Boom,'' The New York 
Times, May 15, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump's views on foreign policy coincided with a 
growing sense of disillusionment among a significant segment of 
the American population about the U.S. role in world. This 
populist backlash reflected a number of factors, including 
perceptions about the unequal distribution of benefits the 
American people receive from our global engagement, and what 
many saw as major failures in U.S. foreign policy. Among other 
things, the Iraq War and the lack of progress in Afghanistan 
eroded and undermined the American people's confidence in the 
current course and direction of U.S. policy.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \22\ See, e.g., Nikolas K. Gvosdev, ``Misconnecting with the U.S. 
Public: Narrative Collapse and U.S. Foreign Policy,'' Interim Report of 
the project on U.S. Global Engagement, Carnegie Council, Dec. 5, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Administration supporters argue Trump's foreign policy 
takes into account the views of many Americans whose opinions 
on foreign affairs have been neglected. For example, some argue 
that his approach to the world is a necessary corrective to 
``the uncomfortable truth that visions of benevolent 
globalization and peace-building liberal internationalism have 
failed to materialize leaving in their place a world that is 
increasingly hostile to American values and interests.''\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ Nadia Schadlow, ``The End of American Illusion,'' Foreign 
Affairs, Sept./Oct. 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    While President Trump may have termed his approach to 
foreign policy ``America First,'' in practice, his policy 
should be called ``Trump First.'' Interviews with former Trump 
administration officials confirm what has been widely reported 
in the press: Trump's approach is driven more by his own whims 
and ego than a sense of commitment or duty to pursue American 
interests. One former senior U.S. official compared President 
Trump's administration to a ``royal court'' where ``everyone is 
jockeying for favor''; instead of a ``functioning cabinet, he 
has courtiers.''\24\ In this official's view, there is ``no 
Trump doctrine, no Trump government or administration''; the 
only constants in White House decision-making are ``Trump's 
impulsive, convulsive, intuitive approach, and the fact that, 
if something's important, he has to do it himself.''\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \24\ Interview of Former Assistant Secretary of State, May 2019.
    \25\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Beyond an ego-driven approach, Trump's foreign policy has 
been characterized by:


   Chaos instead of process;

   Domestic policies that undermine the democratic principles 
        the U.S. espouses to the rest of the world;
   Neglect of key global threats;

   Diplomatic failures; and,

   Efforts to advance his own personal and political 
        interests.


    This chapter will examine each of these in turn, along with 
the consequences for U.S. national security.

Foreign Policy by Chaos
    As has been well-documented, Trump's governing style has 
been marked by chaos, abrupt and inconsistent decision-making, 
and an often dysfunctional process, which is also true of his 
foreign policy.\26\ One former senior U.S. official put it this 
way: ``The Trump administration does not have a foreign policy 
strategy. There is often total misalignment between Trump's 
instincts and the policy those in his administration want to or 
are trying to carry out. There is only the veneer of 
process.''\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \26\ See, e.g., Greg Jaffe, ``A dangerous confusion at the heart of 
Trump's foreign policy,'' The Washington Post, June 21, 2019; Simon 
Tisdall, ``Trump's new world disorder: competitive, chaotic, 
conflicted: With John Bolton dismissed, Taliban peace talks a fiasco 
and a trade war with China, US foreign policy is ever more unstable and 
confrontational,'' The Guardian, Sept. 14, 2019; Thomas Wright, ``A 
bigger foreign policy mess than anyone predicted,'' The Brookings 
Institution, Jan. 2, 2020; Daniel Drezner, The Toddler in Chief: What 
Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency (2020), at 68.
    \27\ Interview of Former Senior U.S. Official, Apr. 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    From the beginning of the Administration, there has been 
confusion about who in the U.S. government represents the 
President's views, and whether there is agreement within the 
administration on them. Indeed, when the Trump administration 
unveiled its first National Security Strategy (NSS), it laid 
out principles such as the need to ``lead and engage in 
multinational arrangements'' and the important role allies and 
partners play in ``magnifying our power''--views diametrically 
opposed to those often expressed by President Trump.\28\ The 
document labeled Russia as a ``revisionist power'' that seeks 
``spheres of influence'' in Europe and is antithetical to U.S. 
values and interests.\29\ Yet, on unveiling the strategy, 
President Trump spoke about building a ``great partnership'' 
with Russia and China and went into detail recounting recent 
cooperation between the United States and Russia foiling a 
terrorist attack.\30\ Some wondered if President Trump 
disagreed with his own national security strategy, or just 
hadn't read it.\31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \28\ President Donald Trump, National Security Strategy of the 
United States of America, Dec. 2017, at 4, 40.
    \29\ Id. at 25.
    \30\ President Donald Trump, Remarks by President Trump on the 
Administration's National Security Strategy, Dec. 18, 2017.
    \31\ See, e.g., Daniel Vajdich, Opinion, ``Trump Should Abide by 
His Own National Security Strategy,'' Foreign Policy, Jan. 24, 2018; 
Interviews of Multiple Former Senior Officials, May and June 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Former officials reported that, the lack of real process 
led to poorly vetted results. One former U.S. official said: 
``[former Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson said there was an 
interagency process. It was he and [former Secretary of Defense 
Jim] Mattis having breakfast.''\32\ For example, when Trump 
announced in June 2018 that the U.S. would suspend joint 
military exercises with South Korea, there was ``no paper, no 
pros and cons, no analysis of consequences.''\33\ Indeed, 
coverage of the decision noted that it surprised ``allies, 
military officials, and lawmakers from his own Republican 
Party.''\34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \32\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, May 
2019.
    \33\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, May 
2019. See also Josh Smith & Phil Stewart, ``Trump surprises with pledge 
to end military exercises in South Korea,'' Reuters, June 12, 2018.
    \34\ Steve Holland et al., ``In surprise summit concession, Trump 
says he will halt Korea war games,'' Reuters, June 11, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump also famously seeks to foment competition 
within his team. He would ask three people to do the same 
thing, or write a version of the same speech--and no one knew 
which speech he would choose to read.\35\ This infighting by 
design, particularly in the early days of the Administration, 
only added to the policy-making chaos; it also incentivized 
staff to self-censor in order to be included in briefings.\36\ 
Trump was known for not paying close attention to policy, but 
would undermine those not doing what he wanted them to.\37\ 
Former U.S. officials reported that many would hope the issue 
or region they covered would stay ``under the radar,'' so as 
not to get noticed by Trump--and potentially upended in a 
tweet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \35\ Interview of Former Senior Director, National Security 
Council, May 2019.
    \36\ Id.
    \37\ Interview of Former U.S. Official, Feb. 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The most public aspect of President Trump's chaotic 
approach is also how allies, and even parts of the U.S. 
government, often learned of major decisions. ``Abrupt,'' 
``disruptive'' ``reckles[s],'' ``unpredictable,'' and 
``erratic'' are among the adjectives used to describe Trump's 
sudden pronouncements, often through Twitter, to announce a new 
policy or shift.\38\ President Trump's sudden pronouncements 
have left foreign leaders struggling to take him seriously--not 
merely because he professed his ``love'' for Kim Jong-un, but 
because his tweets and statements often directly contradict or 
upend the official U.S. government position, or are later 
reversed.\39\ Even those in the U.S. government who are 
responsible for implementing the President's announcements have 
often been in the dark on what Trump intended or how to carry 
out his policy whims.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \38\ See Jeffrey Prescott, ``Trump Doesn't Deserve Any Credit for 
His Disruptive Foreign Policy: There's no substance behind arguments 
that the U.S. president is using his unpredictability to the country's 
advantage,'' Opinion, Foreign Policy, Mar. 14, 2019; Jackson Diehl, 
``Trump's foreign policy has devolved into chaos,'' Opinion, The 
Washington Post, Sept. 16, 2018; Glenn Thrush & Mark Landler, ``Bold, 
Unpredictable Foreign Policy Lifts Trump, but Has Risks,'' The New York 
Times, Apr. 20, 2017.
    \39\ See, e.g., Philip Rucker & Josh Dawsey, `` `We fell in love': 
Trump and Kim shower praise, stroke egos on path to nuclear 
negotiations,'' The Washington Post, Feb. 25, 2019; Jessica Taylor, 
``Trump Tweets Give a Glimpse Into Foreign Policy Approach,'' NPR, Dec. 
28, 2016; Frida Ghitis, ``This Is What Happens When Trump Makes Foreign 
Policy by Tweet,'' Politico, Jan. 14, 2019; Shawn Snow & Leo Shane III, 
``Trump says tweet serves as `notification' to Congress that US may 
`quickly & fully strike back' against Iran,'' Military Times, Jan. 5, 
2020; Emily Birnbaum, ``Trump tests Twitter policies with Iran 
threats,'' The Hill, Jan. 7, 2020; Jack Nassetta, ``Want to influence 
Trump's foreign policy? Just reply to his tweets,'' The Week, Aug. 14, 
2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The following box demonstrates some of the President's 
announcements that have taken U.S. officials by surprise, did 
not reflect official U.S. policy, or were ultimately not 
carried out.

 
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
                                      UNPREDICTABLE FOREIGN POLICY BY TWEET
 
 
 
              Jan. 2018: Trump tweeted that his ``Nuclear Button'' is ``much bigger & more          ............
               powerful'' than that of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.\40\
 
              May 2018: Announced that he would work with Chinese leader Xi to save Chinese jobs    ............
               and help ZTE (a Chinese company).\41\
 
              July 2018: Threatened Iranian President Rouhani: ``NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED    ............
               STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT
               HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.''\42\
 
              Dec. 2018: Announced U.S. withdrawal from Syria through a tweeted video.\43\          ............
 
              Jan. 2019: Threatened to economically ``devastate'' Turkey if it harms the            ............
               Kurds.\44\
 
              May 2019: Tweeted that he was unconcerned by North Korea having ``fired off some      ............
               small weapons'' because of his ``confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his
               promise.''\45\
 
              May 2019: Threatened a 5% tariff on Mexico unless they stop ``illegal migrants        ............
               coming through Mexico, and into our Country.''\46\
 
              June 2019: Announced the withdrawal of the threatened tariffs on Mexico.\47\          ............
 
              Aug. 2019: Denied American involvement in a mysterious explosion at an Iranian space  ............
               center. Included a high-resolution image that some thought was a classified image
               from his morning intelligence briefing.\48\
 
              Jan. 2020: Threatened 52 Iranian cultural sites.\49\                                  ............
 
              Jan. 2020: Threatened Iran that the U.S. military will "quickly & fully strike back,  ............
               & perhaps in a disproportionate manner," if the country attacks Americans, and
               claimed that the tweet served as a notification to Congress\50\
 
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Donald Trump, Jan. 2, 2018, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/948355557022420992.
\41\ Donald Trump, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/995680316458262533?lang=en.
\42\ Donald Trump, July 22, 2018, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1021234525626609666.
\43\ Donald Trump, Dec. 19, 2018, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1075528854402256896?lang=en.
\44\ Donald Trump, Jan. 13, 2019, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1084584259510304768.
\45\ Donald Trump, May 25, 2019, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1132459370816708608.
\46\ Donald Trump, May 30, 2019, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1134240653926232064.
\47\ Donald Trump, June 7, 2019, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137155056044826626?s=20, https://
  twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137155057667989511?s=20.
\49\ Donald Trump, Jan. 4, 2020, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213593975732527112?ref--
  src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1213593975732527112%7Ctwgr%5E&ref--url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alja
  zeera.com%2Fnews%2F2020%2F01%2Ftrump-tweets-international-law-200107064935688.html.
\50\ Donald Trump, Jan. 5, 2020, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213919480574812160.



    The President's sudden announcement in December 2018 that 
the U.S. would withdraw troops from Syria demonstrates the 
consequences of governing by chaos. President Trump effectively 
upended U.S. official policy in one phone call, and then 
announced it on Twitter in a series of convoluted tweets.\51\ 
The move was made over the recommendations of his advisors, and 
was a reversal of the policy that administration officials had 
just reiterated to U.S. allies.\52\ As a result, U.S. troops 
were left vulnerable to ``unreliable'' militias as they sought 
to withdraw.\53\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \51\ Karen DeYoung et al., ``As Trump withdraws U.S. forces from 
northern Syria, his administration scrambles to respond,'' The 
Washington Post, Oct. 13, 2019.
    \52\ Mark Landler et al., ``Trump to Withdraw U.S. Forces From 
Syria, Declaring `We Have Won Against ISIS,' '' The New York Times, 
Dec. 19, 2018; Anne Gearan et al., `` `They screwed this whole thing 
up': Inside the attempt to derail Trump's erratic Syria withdrawal,'' 
The Washington Post, Jan. 13, 2019. Following Trump's strategy shift in 
Syria, McGurk wrote a letter to Pompeo saying, ``I just reassured all 
of our coalition partners that this is the U.S. government's policy. I 
can't be the face of the reversal.'' Interview of Former Senior U.S. 
Official, Apr. 2019.
    \53\ Karen DeYoung et al., ``As Trump withdraws U.S. forces from 
northern Syria, his administration scrambles to respond,'' The 
Washington Post, Oct. 13, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Despite an attempt by the President's advisors to engage in 
the traditional policymaking process across the national 
security agencies, including developing an agreed-upon policy 
and talking points, when President Trump spoke with Turkish 
President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an on December 14, 2018, he 
essentially threw the talking points out the window.\54\ By the 
end of the call, Trump had effectively pledged to Erdo?an that 
the U.S. was getting out of Syria. ``OK, it's all yours. We are 
done,'' Trump reportedly said.\55\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \54\ Matt Lee & Susannah George, ``Trump call with Turkish leader 
led to US pullout from Syria,'' AP, Dec. 21, 2018,; Interview of Former 
Senior U.S. Official, Apr. 2019.
    \55\ Jeremy Diamond & Elise Labott, ``Trump told Turkey's Erdogan 
in Dec. 14 call about Syria, `it's all yours. We are done','' CNN, Dec. 
24, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Only hours earlier, the United States had reassured allies 
that no such thing would occur. The team was stunned.\56\ 
Trump's announcement led to the resignation of Defense 
Secretary Jim Mattis and Special Presidential Envoy for the 
Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the 
Levant (ISIL) Brett McGurk.\57\ Key officials, including the 
commander of U.S. Central Command, acknowledged they had not 
been notified in advance.\58\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \56\ Interview of Former Senior Official, Apr. 2019.
    \57\ Matt Lee & Susannah George, ``Trump call with Turkish leader 
led to US pullout from Syria,'' AP, Dec. 21, 2018; Shannon Van Sant, 
``U.S. Envoy To The Coalition Against ISIS Resigns Over Trump's Syria 
Policy,'' NPR, Dec. 22, 2018; Paul Sonne, ``Mattis resigns after clash 
with Trump over troop withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan,'' The 
Washington Post, Dec. 20, 2018.
    \58\ Rebecca Kheel, ``Top general says he wasn't consulted before 
Trump announced Syria withdrawal,'' The Hill, Feb. 5, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Trump's December 2018 Syria announcement was also 
characteristic of his approach because it was not the final 
word. After a number of shifts, walk-backs, subsequent 
announcements, and pushback, Trump's pledge to withdraw became 
effective in October 2019, nearly a year later.

Undermining Democratic Values at Home 

    President Trump's 2017 National Security Strategy said, 
``America's commitment to liberty, democracy, and the rule of 
law serves as an inspiration for those living under 
tyranny.''\59\ This statement expresses the traditional view 
America has of itself, a beacon of liberty to all those living 
under oppression. President Trump has presented an entirely 
different vision of America to the world, including one that 
sees moral equivalence between groups promoting white 
nationalism and white supremacy and those seeking racial 
equality.\60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \59\ President Donald Trump, National Security Strategy of the 
United States of America, Dec. 2017, at 4.
    \60\ See Jonathan Karl & Jordyn Phelps, ``Trump's failure to 
condemn white supremacy at debate part of well-established pattern,'' 
ABC News, Sept. 30, 2020; Rachael Levy, ``Who Are the Proud Boys? Trump 
Tells Far-Right Group to `Stand Back and Stand By,' '' The Wall Street 
Journal, Sept. 30, 2020; James Hohmann, ``The Daily 202: False moral 
equivalency is not a bug of Trumpism. It's a feature.'' The Washington 
Post, Aug. 16, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Trump administration's domestic policies, including 
family separation, immigration raids, limiting the number of 
refugees who can come into the U.S., attacking the rule of law 
and the freedom of the press, and failing to stand up for 
racial equality while appearing to coddle white supremacists 
have had a profoundly negative impact on the United States' 
credibility and standing in the world.\61\ U.S. presidents in 
the past have sought to showcase the United States as a 
positive model for what a society can achieve when it is based 
upon democracy and freedom. President Trump, on the other hand, 
has consistently shown disdain for pluralism, human rights, 
civil society, the press, and rule of law. These policies have 
caused traditional U.S. allies to question the values of the 
United States, and provided authoritarian leaders an 
opportunity to consolidate their power.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \61\ See Richard Wike et al., ``U.S. Image Plummets Internationally 
as Most Say Country Has Handled Coronavirus Badly,'' Pew Research 
Center, Sept. 15, 2020; Dan Balz, ``America is at a low ebb, shaken by 
multiple blows, and Trump adds to the distress,'' The Washington Post, 
May 31, 2020; Alex Ward, ``How the world is reacting to Trump's family 
separation policy,'' Vox, June 20, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Multiple foreign officials of countries with which the U.S. 
is closely allied emphasized to Committee staff that when the 
U.S. struggles with fundamental democratic principles, it only 
helps Russia and China make a stronger case for their systems. 
A former Foreign Service Officer said, ``Our international 
partners aren't all seeing this as an anomaly. Many see it as 
proof that they were right all along.''\62\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \62\ Interview of Former Foreign Service Officer, Apr. 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As a former Acting Assistant Secretary of State observed, 
the United States has ``always stood proud and acknowledged our 
mistakes''--but ``now, so it would seem, not only do we 
compromise on values--we clearly now don't even believe in 
them.''\63\ Foreign governments are saying `` `Yeah, we know 
who you really are.' ''\64\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \63\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, July 
2019.
    \64\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump's disdain for traditional U.S. values and 
priorities will have a long-lasting legacy. His attacks on 
freedom of the press are just one example. As a report by the 
Committee to Protect Journalists showed, between January 2017 
and May 2019, 26 countries enacted or introduced laws or rules 
restricting online media and journalistic access in the name of 
preventing ``fake news.''\65\ The leaders of Poland, Hungary, 
Turkey, China, the Philippines, and Cambodia are among those 
who have cited Trump and ``fake news'' as they criticize and 
restrict the press in their countries.\66\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \65\ Leonard Downie Jr. & Stephanie Sugars, The Trump 
Administration and the Media: Attacks on press credibility endanger US 
democracy and global press freedom, Committee to Protect Journalists 
(CPJ), Apr. 16, 2020, https://cpj.org/reports/2020/04/trump-media-
attacks-credibility-leaks.php (citing Sarah Repucci, Vice President for 
Research and Analysis, Freedom House).
    \66\ Id.

Neglect of Pressing Global Challenges

    One the most notable features of President Trump's foreign 
policy is his neglect, perhaps intentional, of pressing global 
problems, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and 
global forced migration. Under President Trump, the United 
States has severely curtailed its domestic efforts to slow our 
emission of greenhouse gases, and the United States has 
completely abandoned the Paris Climate Agreement. In the face 
of an unprecedented crisis of global migration, the United 
States has retreated from our humanitarian obligations and 
international cooperation and dealt a grave blow to the 
international system set up to manage displaced people.\67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \67\ See generally Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democratic 
Staff, Global Forced Migration: The Political Crisis of Our Time, June 
18, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The result of these policies is that the United States has 
become a bystander, as dangerous threats to the American people 
have emerged overseas and struck the United States. The most 
pressing example of this is COVID-19, the worst global pandemic 
the world has faced in over a century. Despite the stark, 
urgent wording of the Trump administration's 2018 National 
Biodefense Strategy, pandemic preparation and coordination were 
a low priority for the Trump administration.\68\ Previous 
administrations understood that international efforts to 
monitor and combat health threats abroad are a central element 
in protecting the United States from pandemics. The Trump 
administration, in contrast, sought to cut funding for the key 
U.S. and international organizations involved in monitoring and 
preparing for an infectious disease outbreak.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \68\ See The White House, ``The potential to cost thousands of 
American lives, cause significant anxiety, and greatly impact travel 
and trade,'' National Biodefense Strategy, Sept. 8, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Instead of leading international efforts to confront the 
virus, the Trump administration has deliberately undermined 
them, particularly through the United States' announced 
withdrawal from the World Health Organization.\69\ The result 
has been a chaotic international response to the pandemic that 
has harmed U.S. efforts to manage the health impacts of the 
pandemic and has set back efforts to restore the American 
economy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \69\ U.S. Department of State, ``Update on U.S. Withdrawal from the 
World Health Organization, Sept. 3, 2020; Zachary Cohen et al., ``Trump 
administration begins formal withdrawal from World Health 
Organization,'' CNN, July 8, 2020; Zachary Cohen, ``Republicans urge 
Trump not to terminate relationship with World Health Organization,'' 
CNN, June 15, 2020; see also Lara Jakes, ``Despite Big Promises, U.S. 
Has Delivered Limited Aid in Global Virus Response: The State 
Department and U.S.A.I.D. have spent a fraction of the humanitarian 
assistance that Congress approved in March to help curb the 
coronavirus,'' The New York Times, June 7, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Every budget under the Trump administration has called for 
cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
(CDC).\70\ In 2018, the CDC was forced to scaled back work in 
39 countries to prevent and respond to future epidemics.\71\ 
Also in 2018, the Administration diverted funds from the CDC, 
NIH, and FEMA to pay for the increased number of detained 
children due to the Trump administration's policy of separating 
children from their parents at the southern border.\72\ In July 
2019, the Trump administration recalled the last remaining CDC 
official in China, leaving an intelligence vacuum when COVID-19 
emerged, and President Trump disbanded the global health 
security team on the NSC, which, in previous administrations, 
coordinated U.S. pandemic strategy and preparation.\73\ 
According to a previous director of the organization, 
disbanding the office ``left an unclear structure and strategy 
for coordinating pandemic preparedness and response.''\74\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \70\ In 2017, President Trump's first budget proposal called for a 
17 percent cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 
budget. In 2018, he called for a 19 percent cut; in 2019, a 10 percent 
cut, and in 2020, a 9 percent cut to the CDC. U.S. Department of Health 
and Human Services (HHS): CDC, ``Congressional Justification of 
Estimates for Appropriation Committees,'' for FY 2018-FY 20201; see 
also Emily Baumgaertner, ``Trump's Proposed Budget Cuts Trouble 
Bioterrorism Experts,'' The New York Times, May 28, 2017.
    \71\ Ashley Yeager, ``CDC to Drastically Cut Efforts to Prevent 
Global Disease Outbreaks: The agency's plan to scale back work in 39 
foreign countries could hamper its ability to rapidly respond to future 
epidemics,'' The Scientist, Feb. 1, 2018.
    \72\ Caitlin Dickson, ``Exclusive: With more immigrant children in 
detention, HHS cuts funds for other programs--like cancer research,'' 
Yahoo News, Sept. 18, 2018; Camila Domonoske, ``Trump Administration 
Transferred $9.8 Million From FEMA To ICE,'' NPR, Sept. 12, 2018.
    \73\ Marisa Taylor, ``Exclusive: U.S. axed CDC expert job in China 
months before virus outbreak,'' Reuters, Mar. 22, 2020; Editorial, 
``Reviving the US CDC,'' The Lancet, May 16, 2020; Josh Michaud et al., 
``The U.S. Government and Global Health Security,'' Kaiser Family 
Foundation, Dec. 17, 2019, https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/
issue-brief/the-u-s-government-and-global-health-security/; Lena H. 
Sun, ``Top White House official in charge of pandemic response exits 
abruptly,'' The Washington Post, May 10, 2018; Natasha Bertrand et al., 
``America's national security machine stares down a viral threat'' 
Politico, Mar. 12, 2020.
    \74\ Beth Cameron, ``I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump 
closed it,'' Opinion, The Washington Post, Mar. 13, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    During the crisis, U.S. support for countries in need of 
resources and expertise to protect their citizens and help 
bring an end to the global pandemic has been scattered and 
inconsistent.\75\ The United States has been largely absent 
from international efforts to marshal a coordinated 
response.\76\ The Trump administration sat out a May 2020 EU-
led summit that raised $8 billion for vaccine research, and 
torpedoed a strong G7 response by insisting the novel 
coronavirus be called the ``Wuhan'' virus in the official 
statement.\77\ Unlike global crises of the past, the United 
States is not leading the global response or setting the 
example for other countries to follow, but lagging far behind 
in its own efforts to contain and combat the virus, and one of 
the leading global drivers of cases and deaths from COVID-
19.\78\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \75\ See Lara Jakes & Pranshu Verma, ``At U.S.A.I.D., Juggling 
Political Priorities and Pandemic Response,'' The New York Times, Sept. 
13, 2020.
    \76\ See, e.g., Lara Jakes, ``Despite Big Promises, U.S. Has 
Delivered Limited Aid in Global Virus Response: The State Department 
and U.S.A.I.D. have spent a fraction of the humanitarian assistance 
that Congress approved in March to help curb the coronavirus,'' The New 
York Times, June 7, 2020.
    \77\ See William Booth et al., ``The world came together for a 
virtual vaccine summit. The U.S. was conspicuously absent,'' The 
Washington Post, May 4, 2020; John Hudson & Souad Mekhennet, ``G-7 
failed to agree on statement after U.S. insisted on calling coronavirus 
outbreak `Wuhan virus,' '' The Washington Post, Mar. 25, 2020.
    \78\ As of October 15, 2020, the United States had the most deaths 
and cases of any country in the world, the 11th highest number of cases 
per 100,000, and the 2nd-highest number of new cases and number of 
deaths in the last 7 days. Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global 
Outbreak, The New York Times (last visited Oct. 15, 2020, 11:36pm).

Diplomatic Failures 

    Despite his signature bluster, President Trump's limited 
international engagements have been marked by diplomatic 
failures and ineptitude that have damaged U.S. credibility. 
Diplomatic initiatives that could have improved U.S. national 
security have failed--for example, addressing long-standing 
foreign policy challenges such as North Korea's nuclear and 
missile capabilities, and the instability and humanitarian 
crisis caused by the regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
    Despite bipartisan and widespread support in Congress and 
among U.S. allies and international institutions for some 
objectives sought by the administration, Trump's efforts 
resulted in failure, undermined by a lack of a clear strategy, 
unrealistic expectations of what could be achieved, and 
inconsistent attention. Yet, when faced with these failures, 
the President, instead of recalibrating his approach, claims 
victory and seeks to distract the public from what has 
occurred.

North Korea: All Bluster, No Breakthrough

    Early on in his presidency, Trump set his sights on North 
Korea as the ``deal'' that he would bring to fruition. After 
more than a year of heated rhetoric, military-saber rattling, 
and insults, in March 2018, President Trump agreed to meet with 
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in Singapore. Several months 
after the summit, President Trump stated that North Korea--
despite having taken no steps to roll back its programs--was 
``no longer a nuclear threat.''\79\ Although multiple working-
level meetings occurred in 2018 and 2019, by late 2019, it had 
become clear that the Trump administration's diplomatic 
initiative with North Korea was falling apart.\80\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \79\ Veronica Stracqualursi & Stephen Collinson, ``Trump declares 
North Korea `no longer a nuclear threat,' '' CNN, June 13, 2018.
    \80\ Julia Masterson & Kelsey Davenport, ``North Korea, United 
States Issue Threats as Deadline Approaches,'' Arms Control 
Association, Dec. 11, 2019, https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2019-12-
11/north-korea-denuclearization-digest; Choe Sang-Hun, North Korea Says 
U.S. Sought More Talks, but Calls It a `Trick,' The New York Times, 
Nov. 11, 2019. Ryan Hass, ``Trump did not solve the North Korea problem 
in Singapore--in fact, the threat has only grown,'' The Brookings 
Institution, Aug. 13, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Negotiations collapsed for several reasons. First, the 
Trump administration never had a strategy or plan for how to 
convert international economic pressure into diplomatic gains, 
or how establishing better relations with North Korea would 
lead to denuclearization. On even the most basic questions, 
such as the meaning of ``denuclearization,'' it failed to 
undertake the rigorous and consistent diplomacy necessary to 
reach an agreement with North Korea on exactly what this term 
constituted. Second, the Trump administration consistently 
oversold what North Korea had agreed to.
    Third, the Trump administration failed to make clear, 
either internally or with its negotiating partners, what 
concessions the United States was willing to make if North 
Korea started the denuclearization process. Fourth, the 
administration failed to adequately consult with allies, 
including the Republic of Korea and Japan, about its diplomacy, 
creating challenges for building a sustainable diplomatic 
approach. Finally, when it became clear that a quick break-
through on denuclearization was unrealistic, President Trump 
lost interest in the negotiations. Instead, he simply declared 
the problem had been solved.\81\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \81\ Veronica Stracqualursi & Stephen Collinson, ``Trump declares 
North Korea `no longer a nuclear threat,' '' CNN, June 13, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    U.S.-DPRK denuclearization diplomacy essentially has been 
frozen since February 2019, when Trump and Kim's Hanoi summit 
ended without an agreement.\82\ In spite of President Trump's 
misleading rhetoric, North Korea's nuclear and missile programs 
are larger and more technically capable than when he took 
office, and they pose a direct nuclear threat to the U.S. 
homeland as well as our allies and partners.\83\ While the 
international sanctions regime remains in effect, many 
countries blame both the United States and North Korea for the 
breakdown in negotiations. And some, such as China and Russia, 
are enforcing international sanctions against the DPRK less 
rigorously, including by allowing North Korea to evade 
sanctions through ship-to-ship transfers of oil and coal in 
their waters, and failing to enforce UN Security Council 
Resolutions on forced labor.\84\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \82\ Ankit Panda and Vipin Narang, The Hanoi Summit Was Doomed From 
the Start, Foreign Affairs, Mar. 5, 2019.
    \83\ See, e.g., Summary of North Korea WMD Threats, Nuclear Threat 
Initiative, https://www.nti.org/learn/countries/north-korea/ (last 
visited Oct. 2020); Jon Herskovitz, ``How Kim Jong Un Keeps Advancing 
North Korea's Nuclear Program,'' The Washington Post, Oct.12, 2020.
    \84\ David Brunnstrom, China appears to relax North Korea 
sanctions: report to U.S. Congress, Reuters, Nov. 14, 2018; United 
Nations Security Council, Report of the Panel of Experts Established 
Pursuant to Resolution 1874, S/2020/151, Apr. 13, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Unilateral U.S. steps pursued during President Trump's 
slap-dash diplomacy, often without prior consultation, such as 
suspending military exercises, have also created additional 
risk for the Peninsula and alliance pressures. The legitimacy 
of Kim Jong-un's rule over North Korea and his international 
standing have been enhanced through his summits with President 
Trump, and have provided Kim an enhanced ability to maintain 
his brutal hold over the North Korean people.

Venezuela: Sanctions Without Strategy

    The Trump administration has also squandered an opportunity 
to capitalize on a bipartisan consensus and international 
support for a strong response to the authoritarian regime of 
Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, which has created a humanitarian 
crisis that has forced more than 5 million Venezuelan migrants 
and refugees to flee their homeland.\85\ In early 2019, 
Democratic and Republican members of Congress supported the 
Trump administration's decision to join a diplomatic coalition 
of more than 50 countries in recognizing the president of the 
Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the Interim 
President of Venezuela.\86\ Yet rather than harness this 
formidable diplomatic coalition to advance shared objectives, 
the Trump administration has increasingly adopted a go-it-alone 
approach that has undermined the effectiveness of U.S. policy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \85\ ``Venezuela Refugee and Migrant Crisis,'' International 
Organization for Migration, http://bit.ly/3a0Qyrj (last visited Sept. 
28, 2020).
    \86\ ``Strong Support Message from US Congress for Guaido, Present 
at Trump's State of the Union Speech'' Merco Press, Feb. 5, 2020, 
http://bit.ly/36WR73s.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    While the Trump administration initially used targeted 
sanctions effectively to address the Maduro regime's 
criminality, it has become increasingly clear that these 
actions were not part of a broader diplomatic strategy to 
alleviate Venezuela's crisis.\87\ U.S. sanctions are an 
incredibly effective tool when matched by similar actions by 
partners in Europe and the Western hemisphere and leveraged to 
forge a diplomatic solution to a protracted political crisis. 
However, by 2019, the Trump administration had come to rely on 
sanctions as the sole instrument of its foreign policy toward 
Venezuela. In January 2019, the Trump administration imposed 
sectoral sanctions across the Venezuelan oil industry, starting 
with state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. 
(PDVSA).\88\ This was followed by sanctions on a Venezuelan-
Russian bank and a holding company affiliated Russian oil giant 
Rosneft.\89\ In mid-2020, against a backdrop of dwindling 
targets, the Trump administration resorted to sanctioning 
individual Iranian tankers and their captains for transporting 
gasoline to Venezuela.\90\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \87\ These actions, which including sanctioning 100 officials for 
their involvement in human rights abuses, corruption, and criminality, 
sent an important message to the international community about the need 
to hold Maduro accountable. Additional sanctions limited the Maduro 
regime's ability to drown Venezuela in debt as it pilfered state 
coffers to pay for its expansive corruption schemes. See Congressional 
Research Service, Venezuela: Overview of U.S. Sanctions, Aug. 20, 2020.
    \88\ Congressional Research Service, Venezuela: Overview of U.S. 
Sanctions, Aug. 20, 2020.
    \89\ Press Release, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Treasury 
Sanctions Russia-based Bank Attempting to Circumvent U.S. Sanctions on 
Venezuela, Mar. 11, 2019, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-
releases/sm622; Press Release, U.S. Department of the Treasury, 
Treasury Targets Russian Oil Brokerage Firm for Supporting Illegitimate 
Maduro Regime, Feb. 18, 2020, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-
releases/sm909.
    \90\ Press Release, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Treasury 
Sanctions Five Iranian Captains Who Delivered Gasoline to the Maduro 
Regime in Venezuela, June 24, 2020, https://home.treasury.gov/news/
press-releases/sm1043; Press Release, U.S. Department of Justice, 
``U.S. Seizure of Three Websites Used by Iranian Front Company that Was 
Shipping Fuel on Four Tankers to Venezuela,'' Aug. 28, 2020, https://
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-seizure-three-websites-used-iranian-front-
company-was-shipping-fuel-four-tankers-venezuela.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Although these targets were appropriate at a tactical 
level, a larger message had emerged: the Trump administration 
had no strategy and relied on sanctions as a public 
demonstration of U.S. resolve, despite an inability to 
articulate a clear goal for U.S. policy in Venezuela or how its 
sanctions advance U.S. foreign policy objectives. Additionally, 
repeated rounds of U.S. sanctions have not been matched by 
similar sanctions by governments in Canada, Europe, or Latin 
America, highlighting the Trump administration's inability to 
coordinate effective multilateral diplomacy and diminishing the 
impact of U.S. efforts.\91\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \91\ See Moises Rendon, ``Are Sanctions Working in Venezuela?'' 
Center for Strategic & International Studies, Sept. 3, 2019, https://
www.csis.org/analysis/are-sanctions-working-venezuela.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    At the same time, Venezuela's humanitarian crisis has 
pushed more than 5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants to 
flee abroad, marking the second largest displacement crisis in 
the world, behind Syria.\92\ As the crisis has accelerated, the 
international community has failed to keep pace. While the 
United States has played a critical role as the largest 
international donor responding to the Venezuelan crisis, the 
Trump administration has failed to marshal a coordinated 
international humanitarian response and provide protections to 
vulnerable Venezuelan migrants and refugees.\93\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \92\ ``Venezuela Refugee and Migrant Crisis,'' International 
Organization for Migration, http://bit.ly/3a0Qyrj (last visited Sept. 
28, 2020).
    \93\ Teresa Welsh, ``Virtual Venezuela Pledging Conference Raises 
2.79B'' Devex, May 27, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The most glaring omission from the Trump administration's 
policy is its unwillingness to designate Venezuela for 
Temporary Protected Status and regularize the status of an 
estimated 200,000 Venezuelan nationals currently in the United 
States.\94\ It also has shuttered U.S. land borders to asylum 
seekers, leaving many Venezuelans stranded in dangerous regions 
of Mexico.\95\ These refusals have ignored a moral obligation 
to victims of the Maduro regime. Moreover, these actions 
undermine U.S. foreign policy objectives to encourage countries 
across Latin America and the Caribbean to provide millions of 
Venezuelan refugees and migrants with protection and legal 
status.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \94\ Press Release, Washington Office on Latin America, Trump 
Administration's Inaction on TPS Puts Venezuelans at Risk, Apr. 15, 
2020, https://www.wola.org/2020/04/trump-administration-inaction-tps-
venezuela-migrants/.
    \95\ Molly O'Toole, ``Venezuela, Now a Top Source of U.S. Asylum 
Claims, Poses a Challenge for Trump,'' Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The United States also has been unable or unwilling to 
leverage other governments' support for humanitarian access, 
and shown tepid interest in mobilizing greater assistance from 
other government donors. In May 2020, when presidents, foreign 
ministers, and senior UN officials held a donors conference 
that raised $2.7 billion to respond to the Venezuelan crisis, 
the Trump administration had no discernible leadership role and 
was represented by a mid-level official from the U.S. 
Department of State.\96\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \96\ European Extended Action Service, ``International Donors 
Conference in Solidarity with Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants, List of 
Participants,'' https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/list--of--
participants.pdf (last visited 9/28/20); see also Teresa Welsh, 
``Virtual Venezuela Pledging Conference Raises 2.79B'' Devex, May 27, 
2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Trump administration's inability to help Interim 
President Guaido break through the stalemate with the Maduro 
regime is characteristic of other Trump diplomatic initiatives. 
The administration relied on the misguided belief that economic 
sanctions alone would facilitate a democratic transition, and 
it underestimated the willingness of its adversaries to sustain 
themselves under pressure. It engaged in reckless rhetoric 
rather than prioritizing multilateral diplomatic pressure.\97\ 
The Administration's policy on Venezuela also points to the 
vacillating nature of President Trump's attention span. When it 
appeared the Maduro regime was faltering and it would be an 
easy win for the Trump administration, the President was 
actively engaged.\98\ However, as soon as it was clear the 
administration's goal would not be an easy ``win,'' Trump 
changed course, questioning his own administration's strong 
support for Guaido.\99\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \97\ See, e.g., Brian Ellsworth, ``Trump Says U.S. Military 
Intervention in Venezuela `an Option;' Russia Objects,'' Reuters, Feb. 
3, 2019; Sonam Sheth, ``Trump Said It Would Be `Cool' to Invade 
Venezuela Because the Country Is `Really Part of the United States,' 
According to John Bolton's New Book,'' Business Insider, June 18, 2020.
    \98\ See. e.g., ``Strong Support Message from US Congress for 
Guaido, Present at Trump's State of the Union Speech'' Merco Press, 
Feb. 5, 2020, https://en.mercopress.com/2020/02/05/strong-support-
message-from-us-congress-for-guaido-present-at-trump-s-state-of-the-
union-speech.
    \99\ Anne Gearan et al., ``A frustrated Trump questions his 
administration's Venezuela strategy,'' The Washington Post, May 8, 
2019.

Ego-Driven Diplomacy

    Another key element of Trump's brand of foreign policy is 
the direct linkage between his personal relationships with 
foreign leaders and the resulting treatment of that leader's 
country. It has not been lost on foreign leaders that 
flattering the President may increase the chances of positive 
foreign policy outcomes. While personal relationships between 
leaders always play a role in foreign policy, no other U.S. 
President has tied foreign policy decisions so directly to 
whether a foreign leader is willing to play to his ego.
    U.S. officials who have met with Trump comment that he 
appears ``needy, insecure, and hyper-personal.''\100\ Officials 
noted that his ego needs constant attention, which exacerbates 
his difficult relationship with European allies. European 
allies are less willing to flatter and cater to him, unlike 
authoritarian leaders like President Erdogan of Turkey and 
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Trump also 
views himself as a uniquely agile and capable international 
negotiator, and his constant need to re-enforce this impression 
is one explanation for his efforts to reach international 
agreements that have eluded previous presidents.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \100\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, May 
2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sought to 
establish strong diplomatic relations through flattery early 
on. He was the first foreign leader to meet with Trump, 
arranging a hasty meeting just a week after the election, and 
quickly laid on the praise, calling President Trump a 
``trustworthy leader'' and later praising Trump's golf 
game.\101\ The move was tactical: Japan was nervous about its 
relationship with the United States, which is critical to its 
security, and Abe's approach was the result of intensive study 
by the Japanese to figure out what made him tick.\102\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \101\ Steve Holland & Kiyoshi Takenaka, ``Japan's PM Abe meets 
Trump, says confident can build trust,'' Reuters, Nov. 16, 2016; Dan 
Merica, ``World leaders have a go-to tactic with Trump: Flattery, and 
lots of it,'' CNN, May 4, 2017. Abe said of Trump, ``My scores in golf 
is not up to the level of Donald at all, but my policy is never up, 
never in, always aiming for the cup.'' Id.
    \102\ Michael Crowley, `` `Absolutely Unprecedented': Why Japan's 
Leader Tries So Hard to Court Trump,'' Politico Magazine, May 24, 2019. 
See also Steve Holland & Kiyoshi Takenaka, ``Japan's PM Abe meets 
Trump, says confident can build trust,'' Reuters, Nov. 16, 2016.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Russian President Vladimir Putin, no stranger to such 
tactics, praised Trump as ``bright and talented'' in 2015 
during the Republican presidential primary.\103\ South Korean 
President Moon Jae-in said that Trump deserved a Nobel Peace 
Prize for getting North Korea to agree to come to the 
bargaining table in 2018.\104\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \103\ Jeremy Diamond & Greg Botelho, ``Putin praises b'right and 
talented' Trump,'' CNN, Dec. 15, 2015.
    \104\ Song Jung-a, ``Trump deserves Nobel Peace prize, says South 
Korea president,'' Financial Times, Apr. 30, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It remains an open question as to whether such efforts have 
paid off. Despite all of Abe's efforts, Japan did not receive 
the steel exemptions it sought in a trade deal--while others, 
such as Mexico and Australia--did.\105\ As former Obama 
administration national security official noted, ``[w]ith Mr. 
Trump everything is personalized, but it is also 
transactional.''\106\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \105\  See Edward Luce, ``Tickling Trump: World leaders use 
flattery to influence America,'' Financial Times, May 4, 2018.
    \106\ Edward Luce, ``Tickling Trump: World leaders use flattery to 
influence America,'' Financial Times, May 4, 2018 (quoting Tom 
Donilon).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    On the other hand, the absence of flattery clearly has a 
detrimental effect. Trump's rocky relationship with German 
Chancellor Angela Merkel is demonstrative. Trump has personally 
attacked Merkel on a number of occasions, and when she visited 
Washington, Trump was filmed ignoring calls to shake her hand 
in the Oval Office.\107\ Trump previously had called Merkel a 
``catastrophic leader'' and the ``person who is ruining 
Germany.''\108\ He also denigrated his former Democratic 
opponent Hillary Clinton as ``America's Angela Merkel.''\109\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \107\ Rick Noack, ``What's with Trump and female world leaders?'' 
The Washington Post, Nov. 30, 2017.
    \108\ Id.
    \109\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump's personal dislike of Chancellor Merkel may 
be partially behind shifts in U.S. policy that negatively 
affected Germany's economic and security interests, including 
repeatedly threatening auto tariffs.\110\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \110\ Silvia Amaro, ``Trump's tariffs on European autos could 
potentially be `very damaging,' '' CNBC, June 25, 2018; Jack Ewing and 
Ana Swanson, ``Trump May Punt on Auto Tariffs as European Carmakers 
Propose Plan,'' The New York Times, Nov. 11, 2019; Jacob Pramuk, 
``Trump says he is serious about slapping tariffs on European cars if 
he cannot strike a trade deal,'' CNBC, Jan 21, 2020; see also Susan B. 
Glasser, ``How Trump Made War on Angela Merkel and Europe: The German 
Chancellor and other European leaders have run out of patience with the 
President,'' The New Yorker, Dec. 17, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Throughout President Trump's diplomacy, one thing has been 
clear: personal flattery seems to improve a country's chances 
of desirable outcomes. That fact has significant consequences 
for U.S. foreign policy: it leads to volatility, and sets an 
improper precedent for the conduct of international relations.

Trump First

    President Trump is the first president in modern history to 
bring into the White House a cascade of financial interests 
around the world, and to retain them while serving in office. 
In just his first two years in office, he earned $73 million 
from Trump Organization interests in foreign countries.\111\ 
His refusal to divest from those interests or provide any 
meaningful details about his investments and liabilities has 
led to considerable concern that his actions as president, and 
in particular, toward certain foreign leaders or countries, may 
be influenced either directly by his financial stakes, or 
indirectly through past relationships or other leverage. 
Although he holds financial interests and has potential active 
conflicts around the world, President Trump's engagement with 
Turkey and Saudi Arabia has drawn considerable scrutiny, as did 
his attempt to host the G7 summit at a Trump Organization 
property in Miami.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \111\ Grace Panetta, ``Trump earned $73 million in revenue from 
foreign business deals during his first two years in office, according 
to a review of the president's tax returns,'' Business Insider, Sept. 
28, 2020.

Questionable Motivations

    Before becoming president, Trump acknowledged having a 
``conflict of interest'' due to his private business interests 
in Turkey, including Trump Towers Istanbul.\112\ President 
Trump's relationship with Turkish President Erdogan has been 
marked by a series of interactions that have led many to 
question Trump's motivations. After being personally lobbied by 
Erdogan, President Trump told the Treasury Department and 
Justice Department to look into the impact of U.S. sanctions on 
a Turkish state-owned bank, Halkbank, accused by U.S. federal 
prosecutors of one of the largest Iranian sanctions violations 
in U.S. history.\113\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \112\ Richard C. Paddock et al., ``Potential Conflicts Around the 
Globe for Trump, the Businessman President,'' The New York Times, Nov. 
26, 2016; Donald J. Trump, Interview with Breitbart News Daily, Dec. 1, 
2015, starting at minute 1.01.
    \113\ Joe Light, ``Trump Ordered Review of U.S. Sanctions on 
Turkey's Halkbank,'' Bloomberg, Nov. 25, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Trump also suddenly announced the U.S. withdrawal of troops 
from Syria--something long sought by Turkey and opposed by most 
U.S. national security officials, as well as U.S. allies--
following a one-on-one call with Erdogan. After U.S. officials 
walked back the withdrawal, Trump again pledged to follow 
through after another private conversation with Erdogan.
    Trump's relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin 
Salman may be driven in part by past business practices, and in 
part through close ties with his son-in-law Jared Kushner. 
Throughout Trump's presidency, there have been questions about 
prior Saudi investments, the basis for the Administration's 
unusual siding in a Gulf Cooperation Council rift in 2017, 
willingness to turn a blind eye following the murder of U.S. 
resident Jamal Khashoggi, and other events.
    In India, where President Trump had more active real estate 
ventures than in any other country during his presidency, his 
travel, as well as his son's, led to questions about whether 
U.S. foreign policy was being mixed with private commercial 
gain.\114\ Unavoidably, every time President Trump made a 
detour or a stop at a property abroad from which he receives a 
financial benefit, the question had to be asked: was he there 
to promote his own business and boost struggling properties? It 
is a shadow that has hung over his presidency, and hampered 
U.S. diplomatic efforts to chide foreign governments about 
mixing personal financial gain with official conduct of foreign 
policy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \114\ See Annie Gowan, ``Trump Jr. to give foreign policy speech 
while on `unofficial' business trip to India,'' The Washington Post, 
Feb. 19, 2018; ``Trump Jr.'s foreign policy speech in India boosts 
concerns,'' AP, Feb. 23, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In another dubious episode, President Trump initially 
decided to host the 2020 G7 summit of world leaders at his own 
resort, Trump Doral National Miami.\115\ Although he then 
revised the location to Camp David in response to public 
outcry, before deciding to delay the summit until after the 
November 2020 election, his clear disregard for the appearance 
of a conflict of interest was on display, to the world.\116\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \115\ Toluse Olorunnipa & David A. Fahrenthold, ``Trump has awarded 
next year's G-7 summit of world leaders to his Miami-area resort, the 
White House said,'' The Washington Post, Oct. 17, 2019.
    \116\ Sarah Westwood, ``Trump postpones G7 summit until after US 
election,'' CNN, Aug. 10, 2020; Maggie Haberman et al., ``Why Trump 
Dropped His Idea to Hold the G7 at His Own Hotel,'' The New York Times, 
Oct. 20, 2019; Aaron Rupar, ``Trump's move to host the G7 at his Doral 
resort takes self-dealing to new levels,'' Vox, Oct. 17, 2019.

Encouraging Foreign Interference in U.S. Elections 

    President Trump has openly requested and courted the direct 
interference of foreign powers in U.S. elections.\117\ When his 
requests become public, he has shown no contrition for his 
actions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \117\ Lucien Bruggeman, `` `I think I'd take it': In exclusive 
interview, Trump says he would listen if foreigners offered dirt on 
opponents,'' ABC News, June 13, 2019; Peter Baker & Eileen Sullivan, 
``Trump Publicly Urges China to Investigate the Bidens,'' The New York 
Times, Oct. 3, 2019; Josh Dawsey, ``Trump asked China's Xi to help him 
win reelection, according to Bolton book,'' The Washington Post, June 
17, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The clearest example of President Trump's use of U.S. 
foreign policy for his own gain was his withholding of U.S. 
security assistance to Ukraine unless the country launched an 
investigation into former Vice President Biden, at the time, a 
potential campaign opponent.\118\ (He has also asked China for 
a similar investigation, reportedly tying aspects of the U.S.-
China trade deal to his own electoral prospects.)\119\ 
Withholding the assistance to Ukraine ran counter to the fact 
that it helped a key U.S. ally in the region, to counter 
Kremlin aggression. It seemed to disregard the fact that 
Ukraine's armed forces were fending off Russian forces and 
needed that assistance for equipment and other security 
needs.\120\ It ignored that U.S. national security agencies had 
determined that such assistance directly supported U.S. 
national security interests.\121\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \118\ See, e.g., House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 
The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report, Dec. 2019.
    \119\ Peter Baker & Eileen Sullivan, ``Trump Publicly Urges China 
to Investigate the Bidens,'' The New York Times, Oct. 3, 2019; Josh 
Dawsey, ``Trump asked China's Xi to help him win reelection, according 
to Bolton book,'' The Washington Post, June 17, 2020
    \120\ See U.S. Department of Defense, ``DOD Announces $250M to 
Ukraine,'' June 18, 2019. Funds were aimed at providing supporting 
training and operational needs, including ``the defensive capacity and 
survivability of Ukraine's Land and Special Operations Forces'' by 
providing ``sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and 
counter-artillery radars.'' Id.
    \121\ See House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, The 
Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report, Dec. 2019, at 69-70.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Trump-Ukraine scandal showed in stark terms President 
Trump's willingness to use U.S. foreign policy for his own 
benefit--namely, to improve his prospects in the 2020 
presidential election. Though the Senate acquitted him in 
February 2020, the impeachment process brought to the forefront 
the President's tactics, including in a now-infamous July 25, 
2019, phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian 
President Zelensky, in which Trump asked Zelensky to ``do us a 
favor though,'' referencing Biden.\122\ It also showed that his 
administration (and Congressional Republicans) were willing to 
defend Trump's tactics as ``normal'' execution of foreign 
policy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \122\ Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, July 25, 2019, 
President Trump and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, Declassified Sept. 
24, 2019, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/
2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf; House Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence, The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report, Dec. 2019.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]



International Views of the United States under Trump

    Not surprisingly, President Trump's chaotic approach, 
undermining of democratic values, indifference to pressing 
challenges, and injecting of his own interests into foreign 
policy, have contributed to steep declines in how the U.S. is 
viewed and respected around the world.
    Survey data of global public opinion reflect a sharp 
decline in international views of the United States and 
President Trump. Among key U.S. allies, Pew Research Center 
found a significant decline in the share of respondents saying 
the United States respects its people's personal freedom in a 
2018 survey, down 35 percentage points from a decade 
earlier.\123\ This mirrors a 50 percent decline since 2016 in 
the world's trust and confidence in the United States.\124\ In 
several countries, the share of the public with favorable views 
of the United States is as low as it has been at any point 
since Pew began polling on the topic almost two decades 
ago.\125\ President Trump's personal ratings are also extremely 
low--he received the lowest confidence ratings among five world 
leaders, below both Putin and Xi--and the highest marks for 
``no confidence'' in Pew's Summer 2020 Global Attitudes Survey, 
which conducted surveys in 13 countries.\126\ Among the 13 
nations surveyed, a median of just 15% say the United States 
has done a good job dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, the 
lowest rating given to any nation on the survey.\127\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \123\ Richard Wike et al., ``Trump's International Ratings Remain 
Low, Especially Among Key Allies,'' Pew Research Center, Oct. 1, 2018, 
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/10/01/trumps-international-
ratings-remain-low-especially-among-key-allies/.
    \124\ Kevin Drew, ``U.S. Suffers Greatest Global Decline in 
Trust,'' US News, Jan. 15, 2020.
    \125\ Richard Wike et al., ``U.S Image Plummets Internationally as 
Most Say U.S. Has Handled Coronavirus Badly,'' Pew Research Center, 
Sept. 15, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/09/15/us-image-
plummets-internationally-as-most-say-country-has-handled-coronavirus-
badly/.
    \126\ Id.
    \127\ Id.

Conclusion

    Over the last four years, President Trump has chipped away 
at the United States' international strength and influence. 
President Trump's chaotic decision-making has debilitated U.S. 
diplomacy. International partners have found it difficult to 
work with the United States because they cannot rely on the 
Trump administration for stable and predictable decision-
making. He has neglected and deliberately ignored pressing 
global challenges. U.S. national security policy decisions 
during his administration have been driven by his ego and his 
relationship with foreign leaders, not the vital interests of 
the United States. And he has turned U.S. foreign policy into a 
vehicle for his own personal and financial interests.
    Perhaps the most damaging aspects of President Trump's 
tenure have been his attacks on the democratic institutions of 
the United States. Overseas, these attacks have called into 
question the stability of the United States and made 
traditional U.S. allies wonder whether the United States still 
represents the values of liberty and democracy.



                               Chapter 2



                      The Cost of Going It Alone:



                     America Withdrawn and Isolated

                              ----------                              

    President Trump's ``America First'' foreign policy has 
alienated allies and isolated the United States from 
international efforts to confront global threats. President 
Trump has turned his back on years--and, in some cases, 
decades--of U.S. efforts, undertaken alongside our closest 
allies, to build multilateral solutions to complex global 
challenges.
    To date, the administration has withdrawn from more than 10 
international and multilateral agreements that coordinate 
critical global efforts tackling nuclear proliferation, 
terrorism, climate change, and forced migration. These 
withdrawals--coupled with the Trump administration's failure to 
offer any alternative strategy to confront these threats--have 
left the United States vulnerable, weakened global efforts to 
mitigate and combat these threats, and deeply angered U.S. 
allies and partners.
    Under President Trump, the U.S. relationship with 
longstanding allies has been marked by insults, bullying, and 
threats, with the United States even labeling some allies as 
threats to national security. Although many allies and partners 
initially tried to influence President Trump, and mitigate his 
damaging tendencies, many have begun to move on.\128\ Some are 
starting to view the U.S. not as the democratic leader of the 
free world, but a destabilizing global force they need to 
manage. They continue to pursue international engagement, such 
as by brokering and implementing multilateral agreements, but 
without the United States at the table.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \128\ According to Ivo Daalder, the President of the Chicago 
Council on Global Affairs and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, this 
happened by the end of the 2018: ``The allies spent all of 2017 trying 
to figure out how they could entice him into more of a traditional 
relationship, and they collectively absolutely failed. By 2018, they 
were starting to realize this was the real Trump.'' Susan B. Glasser, 
``How Trump Made War on Angela Merkel and Europe,'' The New Yorker, 
Dec. 17, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Further, while the Trump administration claims that beating 
up on allies and threatening actions that penalize other 
countries will help Americans' bottom lines, the reality shows 
otherwise. A short-sighted trade policy, empty threats, and 
vacillating positions have shown our allies that Trump doesn't 
always mean what he says, and left Americans waiting for the 
results that Trump promised.

Abandoning International Commitments 
    Strong international institutions, led by a capable and 
confident United States, have been at the core of a successful 
U.S. foreign policy for decades. None of the significant global 
challenges the United States faces, ranging from a global 
pandemic, destabilizing conflicts, the threat of terrorism, and 
the proliferation of nuclear weapons, can be met successfully 
by any one nation acting alone. Yet President Trump, whether 
out of sincere belief or political convenience, is content to 
ignore this reality.
    Since in office, President Trump has withdrawn or reneged 
on a series of agreements and commitments with nations around 
the world, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action 
(JCPOA), Paris Climate Agreement, Global Compact on Migration, 
and the World Health Organization, among others.
    Yet, instead of making America stronger or increasing our 
leverage, these withdrawals have kept the United States away 
from the negotiating table, absent from discussions that will 
shape American lives and interests in the coming decades. The 
U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), as 
the COVID-19 pandemic rages across the globe, sent a clear 
message that the United States is uninterested in collective 
action to confront global crises. It also threatens to exclude 
Americans from the benefits of international efforts to find 
and distribute a vaccine, as well as other potential elements 
of a coordinated international response to the worst pandemic 
in a century. As public health experts note, U.S. research and 
response efforts for global pandemics as well as cancer, HIV/
AIDS, polio, and others, are closely intertwined with the 
WHO.\129\ Withdrawal creates an uncertain future for joint 
efforts to stay ahead of future global health threats and 
protect the world's population, including Americans.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \129\ See, e.g., Matthew M. Kavanagh & Mara Pillinger, ``Leaving 
the WHO Will Hurt Americans' Health,'' Foreign Policy, July 7, 2020.

The United States Versus Its Allies
    One of the hallmarks of the Trump administration's foreign 
policy has been its ``maximum pressure'' campaign against Iran. 
As part of this effort, President Trump withdrew from the 
JCPOA, terminating commitments made along with close allies 
(the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the European Union), 
as well as Russia, China, and Iran.\130\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \130\ Donald J. Trump, ``Remarks by President Trump on the Joint 
Comprehensive Plan of Action,'' The White House, May 8, 2018. The 
agreement was also unanimously approved by the UN Security Council in 
UN Resolution 2231.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump argued that by withdrawing, the United 
States would be in a better position to prevent Iran from 
obtaining a nuclear weapon, and ``would assemble a broad 
coalition of nations'' to achieve that aim.\131\ The Trump 
administration also argued that getting rid of the JCPOA would 
improve the United States' ability to combat Iran's regional 
aggression.\132\ However, by unilaterally withdrawing from the 
deal, the United States upended a delicate balancing act to 
which other nations and U.S. allies had linked critical 
security interests.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \131\ The White House, Fact Sheets, ``President Donald J. Trump is 
Ending United States Participation in an Unacceptable Iran Deal,'' May 
8, 2018.
    \132\ White House, Fact Sheets, ``President Donald J. Trump is 
Ending United States Participation in an Unacceptable Iran Deal,'' May 
8, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-
donald-j-trump-ending-united-states-participation-unacceptable-iran-
deal/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Predictably, decisions to withdraw the United States from 
hard-fought and carefully negotiated agreements and 
arrangements aimed at addressing some of the hardest-to-solve 
global challenges, including Iran's nuclear program and climate 
change, were met with disappointment and condemnation by U.S. 
allies and partners.
    All the other participants in the JCPOA opposed the U.S. 
withdrawal.\133\ Former U.K. Conservative Party leader William 
Hague urged Trump not to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, 
saying it would ``broadcast a message that Washington does not 
honor its word.''\134\ A U.K. Labour spokesperson called the 
JCPOA withdrawal a ``reckless, senseless and immoral act of 
diplomatic sabotage.''\135\ The European Union issued a 
statement that said, ``As we have always said, the nuclear deal 
is not a bilateral agreement and it is not in the hands of any 
single country to terminate it unilaterally.''\136\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \133\ The other parties to the JCPOA were China, Russia, the United 
Kingdom, France, and Germany.
    \134\ ``Ripping up Iran nuclear deal would be a great error, says 
William Hague,'' Express, May 8, 2018.
    \135\ ``Iran nuclear deal: UK won't walk away, says Boris 
Johnson,'' BBC, May 9, 2018.
    \136\ European External Action Service, European Union, ``Iran 
deal: EU remains committed to the continued implementation of the 
nuclear deal, Mogherini says,'' May 8, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Despite the U.S. withdrawal, European leaders sought to 
maintain the deal, but their efforts have been continuously 
undermined by Trump administration rhetoric and actions.\137\ 
While the sanctions that President Trump has imposed since 
withdrawal have taken a severe economic toll on Iran, there is 
no indication that they are part of a serious or viable 
diplomatic strategy that could once again lead to a peaceful 
resolution of the Iranian nuclear problem. In addition, as a 
result of the United States walking away from the JCPOA, other 
international actors such as Russia and China gained increased 
influence over the future of multilateral efforts toward 
Iran.\138\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \137\ See, e.g., Loveday Morris, ``E.U. leaders rally behind 
tattered Iran deal, ignoring Trump's call to ditch it,'' The Washington 
Post, Jan. 10, 2020; Samantha Pitz and Ryan Fedasiuk, ``International 
Support for the Iran Nuclear Deal,'' Arms Control Association, May 9, 
2018, https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2018-05-09/international-
support-iran-nuclear-deal.
    \138\ See Emily Tamkin, ``Why Russia is the big winner of the Iran 
deal fallout,'' The Washington Post, May 8, 2019; Farnaz Fassihi and 
Steven Lee Myers, ``Defying U.S., China and Iran Near Trade and 
Military Partnership'' The New York Times, May 11, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Leaving the deal unilaterally itself was unwise in its own 
right, but leaving it without any kind of serious multilateral 
diplomatic strategy in place left both the United States 
isolated and Iran emboldened. European parties to the 
agreement, such as France, repeatedly expressed interest in a 
broader framework to address Iran's ballistic missiles, malign 
regional activities, and the sunsets in the JCPOA.\139\ The 
Administration, however, completely wasted this opportunity to 
build a coalition, deliberately undermining other countries' 
collective efforts to constrain Iran's destructive ambitions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \139\ See, e.g., ``French President Emmanuel Macron for broader 
Iran deal,'' Deutsche Welle, May 9, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Since the U.S. withdrawal, Iran has moved closer to 
developing a nuclear weapon: in July 2019, the International 
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that Iran had increased 
its stockpile of low-enriched uranium.\140\ One week later, 
Iran announced it was increasing uranium enrichment 
capacity.\141\ In November 2019, Iran announced it was working 
on a new centrifuge.\142\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \140\ See Ryan Pickrell, ``Iran announces its second nuclear deal 
violation in a week as it threatens to enrich weapons-grade uranium,'' 
Business Insider, July 7, 2019.
    \141\ See id.
    \142\ See ``Iran announces more violations of nuclear deal,'' CNBC, 
Nov. 4, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Additional evidence of the profound failure of the Trump 
administration's approach was demonstrated by a series of votes 
and actions at the UN in August 2020. First, the United States 
sought to extend the UN arms embargo against Iran, which was 
set to expire in October 2020.\143\ European states agreed on 
the desirability of extending the embargo but hoped to find a 
compromise with China and Russia, who could veto a resolution 
if they did not agree with it. The Trump administration ignored 
these concerns and barreled ahead with a vote to indefinitely 
extend the arms embargo.\144\ The result was a stunning defeat. 
Among the 15 countries on the UN Security Council, including 
close U.S. allies, whose historical cooperation had been 
integral in constraining Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. 
position received only one additional vote--from the Dominican 
Republic.\145\ Britain, France, and Germany all voted against 
the United States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \143\ Lara Jakes, ``U.S. Heads to United Nations to Demand 
`Snapback' of Sanctions Against Iran: Without European support, it is 
not clear how the United States alone would enforce U.N. sanctions to 
punish Iran for violating the 2015 nuclear deal that world powers are 
trying to save,'' The New York Times, Aug. 19, 2020; Michael R. Pompeo, 
Secretary of State, ``Remarks to the UN Security Council on the Iran 
Arms Embargo,'' Washington, DC, June 30, 2020.
    \144\ Matthew Lee, ``Pompeo: US to call UN vote on Iran arms 
embargo extension,'' AP, Aug. 5, 2020.
    \145\ Edith M. Lederer, ``UN soundly defeats US demand to extend 
arms embargo on Iran,'' AP, Aug. 14, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Then, despite having already withdrawn from the JCPOA, the 
United States sought to end the nuclear deal entirely by 
insisting that the United States retained the power to 
``snapback'' certain United Nations sanctions in response to 
Iranian noncompliance with the deal. Even before it was 
formally announced, this maneuver was rejected by 13 members of 
the UN Security Council, with Britain, Germany, and France 
writing in a joint letter that ``[a]ny decisions and actions 
which would be taken based on this procedure or on its possible 
outcome would also be devoid of any legal effect.''\146\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \146\ Michelle Nichols, ``Thirteen of 15-member U.N. Security 
Council oppose U.S. push for Iran sanctions,'' Reuters, Aug. 21, 2020; 
Kelsey Davenport, ``Nations Rebuff U.S. on Iran,'' Arms Control Today, 
Sept. 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The vote and rebuff of months-long diplomatic efforts by 
the U.S. demonstrated, by some accounts, the ``depth of U.S. 
isolation.''\147\ Following the vote, Secretary Pompeo accused 
the United States' European allies of ``sid[ing] with the 
ayatollahs.''\148\ As one foreign diplomat said, ``The 
Americans were actually being over the top in their 
ridiculousness.''\149\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \147\ Julian Borger, ``Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security 
council unites against `unpleasant' US,'' The Guardian, Aug. 21, 2020.
    \148\ Statement of Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State, Press 
Availability, Aug. 20, 2020.
    \149\ Julian Borger, ``Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security 
council unites against `unpleasant' US,'' The Guardian, Aug. 21, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The end result of the Trump administration efforts was 
total defeat. All paths to extend the UN arms embargo against 
Iran, a bipartisan goal of Congress, appear blocked and the 
JCPOA remains in effect. The maneuver also deepened U.S. 
international isolation on Iran policy, and may have 
permanently damaged long-standing UN efforts to curtail Iran's 
nuclear program, and further cements allied skepticism and 
disdain for President Trump's unilateral use of sanctions.

Part of the Problem, Not the Solution
    On June 1, 2017, President Trump announced his intention to 
withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate 
Agreement.\150\ Two and half years later, on the earliest date 
legally possible, the U.S., the second-largest emitter of 
greenhouse gases in the world, initiated the year-long process 
of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.\151\ In doing so, it 
rescinded the commitment made along with every other country to 
reduce emissions to mitigate the increase in global 
temperatures, and ceded control of the issue to China and other 
countries.\152\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \150\ President Donald Trump, ``Statement by President Trump on the 
Paris Climate Accord,'' June 1, 2017.
    \151\ Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State, ``On the U.S. 
Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement,'' U.S. Department of State, Nov. 
4, 2019.
    \152\ Christina Nunez, ``China Poised for Leadership on Climate 
Change After U.S. Reversal,'' National Geographic, Mar. 28, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------




``Trump has made a clamitous decision. It's calamitous for the 
planet . . . by choosing to withdraw from this landmark climate 
agreement, Mr. Trump is telling the world that he intends to 
fix problems alone.''


                    --Former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe





    Allies and foreign leaders sought, unsuccessfully, to keep 
the U.S. in the agreement.\153\ Swedish Deputy Prime Minister 
and Minister for Environment and Climate Isabella Lovin called 
it a ``very negative signal for global cooperation.''\154\ 
Former Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka tweeted, ``It is a 
shame that the US is isolating itself in a matter so important 
to the whole planet.''\155\ French President Emmanuel Macron 
called the move ``an actual mistake'' and called on the French 
people to ``Make our planet great again.''\156\ Former French 
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said ``Trump has made a 
calamitous decision. It's calamitous for the planet . . . by 
choosing to withdraw from this landmark climate agreement, Mr. 
Trump is telling the world that he intends to fix problems 
alone.''\157\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \153\ See, e.g., Anne-Sylvaine Chassany et al., ``EU leaders seek 
to charm Trump over climate deal,'' Financial Times, May 25, 2017; see 
also Yoichi Funabashi, ``In America's absence, Japan takes the lead on 
Asian free trade,'' Opinion, The Washington Post, Feb. 22, 2018.
    \154\``Trump's climate agreement withdrawal `deeply regrettable': 
Swedish Deputy PM,'' The Local SE, June 2, 2017, https://
www.thelocal.se/20170602/trumps-climate-agreement-withdrawal-deeply-
regrettable-swedish-deputy-pm.
    \155\ Dominik Jon, ``Pm Sobotka Joins Global Chorus Of Condemnation 
Against Trump Climate Agreement Withdrawal,'' Czech Radio, June 2, 
2017, https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/pm-sobotka-joins-
global-chorus-of-condemnation-against-trump-climate-agreement-
withdrawal
    \156\ Carla Herreria, ``French President To U.S. Scientists: Come 
Work With Us On Climate Change,'' Huffington Post, June 1, 2017.
    \157\ Romina Mcguinness, ``French PM blasts Trump's decision to 
pull US out of Paris climate accord as `calamitous,' '' Express, June 
2, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The U.S. absence, however, has not diminished the resolve 
of other countries to press forward. President Trump's 
announced plan to pursue a ``better deal,'' meanwhile, was not 
achieved and there is no evidence that any effort went into 
realizing this pledge. Moreover, world leaders made it clear 
that another deal was both unrealistic and unfounded. At a June 
2018 meeting co-hosted by Canada, China, and the EU, more than 
30 countries agreed that ``the Paris Agreement is irreversible 
and is not to be renegotiated,'' providing another marker of 
the United States' isolation on the issue.\158\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \158\ European Commission, ``Ministerial on Climate Action: Chairs' 
Summary'' Brussels, Belgium, June 21, 2018, available at https://
ec.europa.eu/clima/sites/clima/files/news/20180621--moca--en.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Administration's abandonment of international efforts 
to combat climate change leaves Americans even more vulnerable 
to the devastating effects of climate change.\159\ As an 
unprecedented number of fires rage on the West Coast in 2020, 
and insurance companies are beginning to balk at insuring those 
in coastal flooding zones vulnerable to rising sea levels, 
President Trump offers little in the way of solutions and fails 
to acknowledge any sense of responsibility to help.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \159\ In September 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 
led by Trump appointees, released a report which found that climate 
change threatens U.S. financial markets due to the impact of wildfires, 
storms, droughts, and floods on insurance and mortgage markets. 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Market Risk Advisory Committee, 
Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System: Report of the 
Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee, Sept. 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In conversations with Committee staff, foreign officials 
acknowledged that these withdrawals, particularly the 
withdrawal from the JCPOA, will make countries think twice 
before reaching future agreements with the U.S. As Richard 
Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in 
2020, ``For friends and allies, the possibility of withdrawal 
can leave them to question their decision to place their 
security in American hands.''\160\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \160\ Richard Haass, ``Trump's foreign policy doctrine? The 
Withdrawal Doctrine,'' Opinion, The Washington Post, May 27, 2020.

Our Closest Allies: Alienated and Abused
    President Trump has eschewed traditional U.S. foreign 
policy relationships, which emphasized enhancing and preserving 
the longstanding ties between allied countries, rooted in 
shared values, security, and aspirations. Instead, his 
transactional approach seeks to elicit something from the other 
side, regardless of the long-term consequences, and uses 
insults and bullying tactics along the way. As a former U.S. 
Ambassador to Canada put it, Trump's method rests on two key 
questions: ``What can I get from the other country? And, what 
are their pain points to make them give it to me?''\161\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \161\ Interview of Former U.S. Ambassador, May 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------




``What can I get from the other country? And, what are their 
pain points to make them give it to me?''


                      --Former U.S. Ambassador, on Trump's approach





    Supporters have argued that Trump's transactional approach 
enables the President to strike deals for the United States 
that provide concrete results for the American people.\162\ 
But, characterized by short-sightedness, Trump is content to 
rip up agreements that protect global and U.S. interests alike, 
even if it means fraying the foundational fabric of U.S.-
multilateral alliances. He has made steep tariff threats, 
weaponized economic tools, and blindsided foreign governments 
with announcements of unilateral U.S. policy changes--toward 
countries long considered close allies and partners.\163\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \162\ See, e.g., Leon Hadar, ``The Limits of Trump's Transactional 
Foreign Policy,'' The National Interest, Jan. 2, 2017.
    \163\ See, e.g., Thomas Wright, ``Trump's Foreign Policy is No 
Longer Unpredictable,'' Foreign Affairs, Jan. 18, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------




``We are sticking out our foot to trip our allies.''


                                      --Former Senior U.S. official





    As a former senior official who served in the Trump 
administration put it to Committee staff, ``We are sticking out 
our foot to trip our allies.''\164\ Another former senior 
official observed that the Trump administration takes a 
punishment-based approach, saying, ``Everything in this 
administration is about sticks, with no carrots.''\165\ 
Canadians, Germans, and others have expressed disbelief that 
the United States is using tools on them usually reserved for 
rogue regimes, not allies. As one foreign official told 
Committee staff, ``You can't deal with us as though we are 
North Korea.''\166\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \164\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, July 
2019.
    \165\ Interview of Former U.S. Ambassador, June 2019.
    \166\ Interview of Foreign Official, Mar. 2019.

Canada: A National Security Threat?
    President Trump's preferred method of using tariffs as a 
stick has had the unusual consequence of declaring close U.S. 
allies, such as Canada, to be deemed a national security 
threat. In March 2018, he did just that, invoking national 
security authorities to impose steel and aluminum tariffs 
against the United States' northern neighbor, close security 
partner, and principal trade partner.\167\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \167\ Ana Swanson, ``Trump to Impose Sweeping Steel and Aluminum 
Tariffs,'' The New York Times, Mar. 1, 2018. Congress created the 
Section 232 process in the Trade Act of 1962 to ensure that U.S. 
imports do not cause undue harm to U.S. national security. 
Congressional Research Service, Section 232 Investigations: Overview 
and Issues for Congress, Apr. 7, 2020. 1986 was the last time a 
president imposed trade restrictions under Section 232. Congressional 
Research Service, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, June 
3, 2020. The U.S. and Canada have long-standing mutual security 
commitments and maintain close intelligence and law enforcement ties 
and have engaged in a variety of initiatives to strengthen border 
security and cybersecurity in recent years. See Congressional Research 
Service, Canada-U.S. Relations, June 14, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Canadian officials were outraged by Trump's action. 
Canada's then-Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland called it 
``absurd.''\168\ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it 
``inconceivable'' that Canada could be a national security 
threat, and emphasized, ``This decision by the U.S. 
administration will hurt Canadians. It will hurt Americans. And 
we regret that deeply.''\169\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \168\ Brian Mann, ``Canada Responds To Tariffs,'' NPR, June 2, 
2018.
    \169\ Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, ``Justin Trudeau's 
speech in response to Donald Trump's tariff announcement,'' May 31, 
2018; Brian Mann, ``Canada Responds To Tariffs,'' NPR, June 2, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked President Trump 
how Canada could be a national security threat to the United 
States, President Trump invoked the War of 1812.\170\ (Trump 
said to Trudeau, ``Didn't you guys burn down the White 
House?'').\172\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \170\ Jordan Weissman, ``When Justin Trudeau Asked How Canada Could 
Be a National Security Threat to the U.S., Trump Brought Up the War of 
1812,'' Slate, June 6, 2018.
    \171\ Id. This did happen in the War of 1812, but it was the 
British who torched Washington.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In retaliation, Canada filed an appeal with the WTO and 
imposed tariffs on more than $16 billion worth of American 
products.\172\ The dispute threw the G7 Summit in 2018 into 
``disarray.''\173\ Following the summit, Trudeau made clear 
that Canada would protect its interests, prompting one of 
President Trump's top trade advisers to accuse Trudeau of 
trying ``to stab [President Trump] in the back on the way out 
the door,'' and remarked there was a ``special place in hell'' 
for leaders like Trudeau--a comment for which he subsequently 
apologized.\174\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \172\ The tariffed products included soup, beer, toilet paper, 
whiskey, ketchup, lawn mowers, yogurt, and dishwasher detergent. 
``Canada hits US with retaliatory tariffs: `We will not back down': 
Country announced taxes on items including ketchup, lawnmowers, whiskey 
and yoghurt amounting to $12.6bn,'' The Guardian, June 29, 2018. See 
also Brian Mann, ``Canada Responds To Tariffs,'' NPR, June 2, 2018.
    \173\ ``G7 summit ends in disarray as Trump abandons joint 
statement,'' BBC, June 10, 2018.
    \174\ Comments of Peter Navarro, Fox News Sunday, June 10, 2018; 
Alan Rappaport, ``Navarro Apologizes for `Special Place in Hell' 
Comments About Trudeau,'' The New York Times, June 12, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Although the United States ultimately removed tariffs on 
steel and aluminum imports from Mexico and Canada during the 
final phase of United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) 
negotiations, the damage had already been done to U.S.-Canada 
relations.\175\ Polling of the Canadian public confirms what 
SFRC Democratic staff heard from current and former diplomats 
and officials. Seventy percent of Canadians reported an 
unfavorable view of the United States in 2020, a record high 
from when the Pew Research Center started tracking such 
responses in 2000.\176\ Canadian confidence in the U.S. 
president to do the right thing regarding world affairs was 
down to 20% in 2020, compared to 83% in 2016.\177\ When 
Canadians were asked by Pew to describe the United States in 
one word, after common words like ``Trump'' and ``President,'' 
the next most used words were ``chaos,'' ``confused,'' 
``bully,'' and ``disappointing.''\178\ As a former U.S. 
Ambassador to Canada told Committee staff, ``Trump is causing 
existential damage to the U.S.-Canada relationship.''\179\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \175\ Congressional Research Service, Section 232 Investigations: 
Overview and Issues for Congress, Apr. 7, 2020.
    \176\ Richard Wike et al., ``U.S Image Plummets Internationally as 
Most Say U.S. Has Handled Coronavirus Badly,'' Pew Research Center, 
Sept. 15, 2020; Shannon Schumacher & J.J. Moncus, ``The U.S. in One 
Word: Canadians Say `Trump,' Mexicans Point to `Money' and `Work,' '' 
Pew Research Center, Apr. 6, 2020.
    \177\ Richard Wike et al., ``U.S Image Plummets Internationally as 
Most Say U.S. Has Handled Coronavirus Badly,'' Pew Research Center, 
Sept. 15, 2020; Richard Wike et al., ``Trump Ratings Remain Low Around 
Globe, While Views of U.S. Stay Mostly Favorable: Little trust in 
Trump's handling of international affairs,'' Pew Research Center, Jan. 
8, 2020.
    \178\ Shannon Schumacher & J.J. Moncus, ``The U.S. in One Word: 
Canadians Say `Trump,' Mexicans Point to `Money' and `Work,' '' Pew 
Research Center, Apr. 6, 2020.
    \179\ Interview of Former U.S. Ambassador, May 2019.

Weaponizing Tariffs for Non-Trade Issues with Mexico
    President Trump has also sought to use the threat of 
tariffs against another strategic economic partner, Mexico, 
currently the United States' largest trading partner, with 
trading between the countries amounting to more than $600 
billion.\180\ Relations between the United States and Mexico 
have grown closer over the past three decades, making 
significant progress from the time when the two countries were 
called ``distant neighbors.''\181\ In the wake of 9/11, Mexican 
and U.S. security services built a strong mutually beneficial 
relationship, including the sharing of sensitive 
counterterrorism information.\182\ U.S.-Mexican relations 
before President Trump entered office were in what one expert 
deemed the ``best shape they have ever been in,'' with 
intensive economic, social, and security connections and 
cooperation between the two governments and societies.\183\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \180\ Ken Roberts, ``It's Official: Mexico Is No. 1 U.S. Trade 
Partner For First Time, Despite Overall U.S. Trade Decline,'' Forbes, 
Feb. 5, 2020; U.S. Census Bureau, ``Top Trading Partners--December 
2019,'' Foreign Trade, 2019, https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/
statistics/highlights/top/top1912yr.html.
    \181\ Franklin Foer, ``Mexico's Revenge,'' The Atlantic, May 2017; 
Andrew Martinez, ``Distant Neighbors: The massive misunderstandings 
that plague the relationship between the United States and Mexico,'' 
Slate, Apr. 14, 2009
    \182\ Franklin Foer, ``Mexico's Revenge,'' The Atlantic, May 2017.
    \183\ Dan Restrepo et al., ``Preserving and Strengthening the U.S.-
Mexico Relationship,'' Center for American Progress, Jan. 30, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The U.S.-Mexico relationship has benefited from a barrier 
between the normal commercial disputes that occurred between 
the economically intertwined countries, and other, non-trade 
issues, such as migration and security. Before Trump, it was 
understood that it would be damaging if commercial and trade 
disputes were allowed to contaminate other parts of the 
relationship. Trump, on the other hand, has directly mixed 
migration and trade policy together, which has hurt all aspects 
of U.S-Mexican relations.\184\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \184\ Interview of Former U.S. Ambassador, June 2019. Seven former 
U.S. ambassadors to Mexico who served Democratic and Republican 
administrations wrote a letter expressing concern about the Trump 
administration's approach. Open letter from former U.S. ambassadors to 
Mexico (John Negroponte, James Jones, Jeffrey Davidow, Antonio Garza, 
Carlos Pascual, Earl Anthony Wayne and Roberta Jacobson), June 5, 2019; 
Frederick Kempe, ``Trump is playing a risky game by weaponizing US 
economic power with tariffs,'' CNBC, June 8, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In May 2019, Trump surprised Mexico and members of his own 
Cabinet by announcing via Twitter a tariff on goods imported 
from Mexico that would increase steadily unless Mexico stopped 
the flow of migrants into the United States.\185\ Trump then 
extended his demands against Mexico beyond immigration, 
insisting Mexico stop an ``invasion'' of drug dealers and 
cartels.\186\ In response to President Trump's tweet, Mexican 
president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote him a letter, 
urging him to engage in diplomatic dialogue.\187\ Obrador said 
that he did not want confrontation and that Mexico was doing as 
much as possible to stem the flow of migrants ``without 
violating human rights.''\188\ He wrote that people do not 
leave their homes unless it is truly necessary, and posed a 
poetic plea to President Trump to consider those who seek, 
through effort and work, to live free from misery: ``The Statue 
of Liberty is not an empty symbol.''\189\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \185\ @realDonaldTrump, ``On June 10th, the United States will 
impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, 
until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our 
Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal 
Immigration problem is remedied,...at which time the Tariffs will be 
removed. Details from the White House to follow.'' May 30, 2019, 
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1134240653926232064. See 
also Tracy Wilkinson, ``Mexico begins trying to talk its way out of 
Trump's latest tariff threat,'' Los Angeles Times, June 3, 2019, 
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-us-mexico-tariffs-lobbying-
trade-20190603-story.html.
    \186\ President Donald J. Trump, Statement from the President 
Regarding Emergency Measures to Address the Border Crisis, The White 
House, May 30, 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/
statement-president-regarding-emergency-measures-address-border-
crisis/.
    \187\ Letter from President of Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador 
to President Donald Trump, May 30, 2019, available at https://
lopezobrador.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/30-05-2019-Carta-al-
presidente-Trump.pdf (English translation: https://embamex.sre.gob.mx/
eua/index.php/en/recent/1543-letter-to-president-trump).
    \188\ Ana Swanson, ``Trump's Tariff Threat Sends Mexico, Lawmakers 
and Businesses Scrambling,'' The New York Times, May 31, 2019.
    \189\ Letter from President of Mexico Andres Manuel Lpez Obrador to 
President Donald Trump, May 30, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump's threat subsided a month later when the 
two countries announced an agreement on migration, but it did 
not erase the sting.\190\ Under pressure from the Trump 
administration to stop the flow of migrants from Central 
America to the U.S. southern border, Mexico's protection of 
vulnerable migrants has suffered. Mexico's National Guard used 
brutal force to turn back a migrant caravan at its southern 
border, and Mexican immigration authorities and police have 
failed to protect asylum seekers from violent crime in Mexico's 
northern border region since tens of thousands have been pushed 
back by U.S. policies.\191\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \190\ U.S.-Mexico Joint Declaration. U.S. Department of State, June 
7, 2019.
    \191\ See, e.g., Maureen Meyer & Gina Hinojosa, ``Mexico's Human 
Rights Landscape During President Lpez Obrador's First Year in 
Office,'' WOLA, https://www.wola.org/analysis/mexico-human-rights-
lopez-obrador/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Well before President Trump's tariff threats, the U.S.-
Mexico relationship had already suffered severe consequences. 
The President's insistence that Mexico pay for a border wall, 
inflammatory rhetoric on migration and insults against 
Mexicans, along with his repeated attempts to end Deferred 
Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) took a considerable 
toll.\192\ Security cooperation between the two countries 
dropped following President Trump's inauguration, and priority 
U.S. extradition requests declined during Trump's first two 
years.\193\ After a ``testy'' call in 2018 with then-President 
Enrique Pena Nieto in which Trump refused to drop his 
unsuccessful attempts to get Mexico to pay for the wall, Pena 
Nieto cancelled plans for his first visit to the White 
House.\194\ As Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to 
the United States said of Trump: ``His relationship with Mexico 
isn't strategically driven. It's not even business; it's 
personal, driven by motivations and triggers, and that's a huge 
problem. It could end up with the U.S. asking itself, `Who lost 
Mexico?' ''\195\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \192\ See, e.g., Jesus Velasco, ``The Future of U.S.-Mexico 
Relations: A Tale of Two Crises, Center for the United States and 
Mexico Baker Institute for Public Policy, Aug. 2018; Monica Verea, 
Anti-Immigrant and Anti-Mexican Attitudes and Policies during the First 
18 Months of the Trump Administration, Norteamerica, Revista Academica, 
Vol. 2, Issue 3, 2018, https://doi.org/10.22201/
cisan.24487228e.2018.2.335. Fareed Zakaria, ``Trump is destroying three 
decades of hard work with Mexico,'' Opinion, The Washington Post, June 
6, 2019.
    \193\ CRS, Mexico: Background and U.S. Relations, May 12, 2020, at 
18; Interview of Former U.S. Ambassador, June 2019.
    \194\ Philip Rucker et al., ``After testy call with Trump over 
border wall, Mexican president shelves plan to visit White House,'' The 
Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2018.
    \195\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A former U.S. ambassador posited that the real question for 
Mexico in dealing with the United States is: What does good 
behavior get you?\196\ The former ambassador noted that Mexico 
has more trepidation now because it does not know what the 
Trump administration will do.\197\ Mexican public opinion 
reflects that reality. Mexican public confidence in the U.S. 
president has hovered in the single digits under Trump's 
presidency, down approximately 40 points from 2009-2017.\198\ 
When the Mexican public was asked to describe the United States 
in one word, after words such as ``money'' and ``work,'' the 
next most commonly mentioned words included ``discrimination,'' 
``racism,'' and, simply, ``bad.''\199\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \196\ Interview of Former U.S. Ambassador, June 2019.
    \197\ Id.
    \198\ ``Confidence in the U.S. President,'' Global Indicators 
Database, Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/
database/indicator/6/country/MX (updated Mar. 2020).
    \199\ Shannon Schumacher & J.J. Moncus, ``The U.S. in One Word: 
Canadians Say `Trump,' Mexicans Point to `Money' and `Work,' '' Pew 
Research Center, Apr. 6, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/
2020/04/06/the-u-s-in-one-word-canadians-say-trump-mexicans-point-to-
money-and-work/.

A Strained Relationship: Germany
    Perhaps no other close U.S. relationship has experienced 
greater strain than the one between the United States and 
Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who forged a close 
relationship with President Obama, has been the recipient of 
repeated scorn and attacks by President Trump.\200\ While 
Merkel can clearly withstand a few petty insults, it is an open 
question whether the U.S.-German relationship will continue to 
suffer after Trump.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \200\ See, e.g., Soraya Sardhaddi Nelson, ``Obama Calls German 
Chancellor Angela Merkel `His Closest Ally,' '' NPR, Nov. 17, 2016. 
Carl Bernstein, ``From pandering to Putin to abusing allies and 
ignoring his own advisers, Trump's phone calls alarm US officials,'' 
CNN, June 30, 2020; Jake Lahut, ``Trump was `near-sadistic' in phone 
calls with female world leaders, according to CNN report on classified 
calls,'' Business Insider, June 29, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Germans have maneuvered carefully to maintain strong 
commercial and defense ties, although President Trump's 
penchant for treating Germany as a distant foe rather than a 
close ally continues to put those ties to the test. He pulled 
U.S. forces from Syria with no warning to Germany, despite 
Germany's role as a NATO ally that has provided longstanding 
support for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL.\201\ He also 
imposed or threatened steep tariffs on European products, and, 
most recently, pursued a dramatic partial withdrawal of U.S. 
troops from a country that has been home to one of the largest 
U.S. military contingents since World War II. These unilateral 
moves have chipped away at the longstanding sense of trust and 
cooperation. As the U.S. later prepared to withdraw troops from 
Syria, U.S. Special Representative for Syria Engagement James 
Jeffrey asked Germany for ground troops to partially replace 
U.S. soldiers (which Germany declined to do).\202\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \201\ Alexandra Ma, ``French President Macron dunked on Trump for 
pulling out of Syria without telling his NATO allies,'' Business 
Insider, Nov. 7, 2019.
    \202\ Ben Knight, ``US calls for German ground troops in Syria,'' 
Deutsche Welle, July 7, 2019; ``Syria: Germany rejects US demand for 
ground troops,'' Aug. 7, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    While even close allies have conflict and disagreement, 
what sets these moves apart is that the U.S. acted without 
consultation or prior warning--treating a close ally as it 
might any other country, or worse, an adversary. As Norbert 
Rottgen, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the 
German parliament, put it, the ``troop withdrawal from northern 
Syria constitutes another abrupt and destabilizing foreign 
policy move by the United States.''\203\ Regarding the tariffs, 
Merkel said ``the measures carry the threat of a spiral of 
escalation that will result in damaging everyone.''\204\ One 
German parliamentarian in the Social Democratic Party said of 
the U.S. troop withdrawal from Germany, ``capriciousness and 
pressure'' could not be ``the basis for working together in 
partnership.''\205\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \203\ James McAuley & Rick Noack, ``Withdrawal of U.S. troops from 
northern Syria angers, worries Europeans,'' The Washington Post, Oct. 
7, 2019.
    \204\ Ana Swanson, ``White House to Impose Metal Tariffs on E.U., 
Canada and Mexico,'' The New York Times, May 31, 2018.
    \205\ ``German defense minister: Planned US troop withdrawal 
`regrettable,' '' Military Times, Aug. 2, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Before President Trump, allies had come to expect 
consultation on key decisions, particularly those related to 
defense or sanctions policy. President Trump, on the other 
hand, has gone out of his way to ignore allies' concerns.

Navigating and Hedging Against a Less-Engaged
  United States
    U.S. inconsistency under President Trump has led U.S. 
partners and allies to try to diversify risk and hedge against 
the United States. U.S. partners and allies continue to hope 
the United States will return to its previous role in world 
affairs, but they are preparing for a world without U.S. 
leadership, or where other global powers compete for the lead 
role. Many are making these short-term and long-term decisions 
knowing they run counter to U.S. desires, but they feel they 
have no choice but to attempt to protect themselves and pursue 
their own national interests independent of an erratic, 
unreliable, and often counterproductive United States under 
President Trump.\206\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \206\ Interview of Former U.S. Ambassador, June 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As the U.S. has torn up agreements and issued threats, some 
countries have developed backup plans in case relations with 
the United States do not work out. As a former senior U.S. 
official put it, ``Trump has demonstrated that everything is 
reversible, so other countries feel they need to find their own 
way.''\207\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \207\ Interview of Former Assistant Secretary of State, May 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The United Kingdom's engagement in various degrees of 
hedging is remarkable given the ``special relationship'' 
between it and the United States. In July 2019, Britain 
declined to join a U.S. naval coalition in the gulf following 
Iran's seizure of a British-flagged ship.\208\ Instead, Britain 
said it sought to create a European-led group. Jeremy Hunt, 
U.K. Foreign Secretary at the time, told Parliament of the 
prospective European naval group: ``It will not be part of the 
U.S. maximum pressure policy on Iran because we remain 
committed to preserving the Iran nuclear agreement.''\209\ 
Then-Foreign Secretary Hunt also called for Britain to 
``decisively increase'' its defense spending to cope with 
future threats from all over the globe, including the danger of 
an ``accidental'' U.S.-Iran war.\210\ The move would have been 
unthinkable a few years earlier, but demonstrated how much the 
ground had shifted due to the U.S. withdrawal on JCPOA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \208\ Greg Myre, ``U.K. Says It Won't Join The U.S. In Maximum 
Pressure Campaign Against Iran,'' NPR, July 22, 2019.
    \209\ Id.
    \210\ Gordon Rayner & Con Coughlin, ``Jeremy Hunt `wants to double 
defence spending' as he calls on UK to project more hard power,'' The 
Telegraph, May 13, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Another form of allied hedging is increasing investments in 
a country's own defense, partly to show the U.S. they are 
committed to defense spending, but also because Trump might not 
be a passing phase. U.S. allies are increasingly worried about 
their security dependence on the U.S. and looking for ways to 
defend themselves if the United States further withdraws from 
the world. As Committee staff heard from foreign officials, 
some countries are working to ensure that they do not end up 
with systemic dependence, unable to defend themselves without 
U.S. assistance. As European allies in particular eye a second 
term Trump presidency warily, Europe could chart a more 
independent course, further diminishing U.S. influence. Some 
countries are waiting, expectantly, for when and if the U.S. 
re-engages. For example, Committee staff heard from officials 
in the Asia-Pacific region they are holding the door open for 
U.S. re-engagement. Meanwhile, U.S. allies in Europe are trying 
to manage and preserve the trans-Atlantic alliance and 
multilateral organizations. A former senior official emphasized 
to Committee staff that the idea that the United States is an 
outside power, like Russia and China, is a real problem for 
U.S. allies.\211\ Experts and officials in Europe have begun to 
imagine what was once unthinkable: in ten to twenty years, the 
transatlantic alliance might not be there, and there might also 
be nothing to replace it.\212\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \211\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, May 
2019.
    \212\ Interviews of Foreign Think Tank Experts, Mar. 2019.

Circumventing U.S. Unilateral Actions
    The Trump administration's unilateral actions are also 
causing allies to take steps to insulate themselves and reduce 
their vulnerability to U.S. economic influence.\213\ European 
countries were incensed by U.S. re-imposition of sanctions and 
addition of new sanctions on Iran following Trump's May 2018 
withdrawal from the JCPOA.\214\ In response, they developed a 
special purpose vehicle, termed the Instrument in Support of 
Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), to allow certain transactions with 
Iran to move forward without any connection to the dollar or 
other nexus U.S. jurisdiction.\215\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \213\ Fareed Zakaria, ``The dollar won't always be king of 
currency. Other countries want to topple it,'' The Washington Post, 
June 13, 2019.
    \214\ Stephanie Zable, ``INSTEX: A Blow to U.S. Sanctions?'' 
Lawfare, Mar. 6, 2019, https://www.lawfareblog.com/instex-blow-us-
sanctions.
    \215\ Congressional Research Service, Iran Sanctions, July 23, 
2020. At a February 2019 conference convened by the United States to 
build greater international support for U.S. efforts to pressure Iran, 
Vice President Pence called the effort ``an ill-advised step that will 
only strengthen Iran, weaken the EU, and create still more distance 
between Europe and the United States.'' James Shotter et al., ``Mike 
Pence attacks European allies on `ill-advised' Iran strategy,'' 
Financial Times, Feb. 14, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Despite Trump administration opposition, nine European 
countries have joined INSTEX.\216\ On March 31, 2020, INSTEX 
completed its first transaction, for over $500,000 worth of 
medical equipment.\217\ INSTEX is a costly signal from Europe 
to the United States that it is prepared to pursue greater 
independence in its foreign policy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \216\ ``Six more countries join Trump-busting Iran barter group: 
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden sign up to 
Instex mechanism that sidesteps US sanctions,'' Reuters, Nov. 30, 2019.
    \217\ ``Europe's trade system with Iran finally makes first deal,'' 
AP, Mar. 31, 2020; Laurence Norman, ``EU Ramps up Trade System with 
Iran Despite U.S. Threats: Officials believe the export of medical 
equipment using the EU's trade mechanism will be the first of 
many,''The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 31, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Notably, since President Trump's withdrawal from the JCPOA, 
China has continued engagement with Iran's economy, despite the 
threat from re-imposed U.S. sanctions. China and Iran are 
reportedly negotiating a long-term strategic agreement that 
would provide for vast amounts of investments by China in 
Iran's economy.\218\ In contrast, companies in other countries, 
including Japan and South Korea, have curtailed economic ties 
with Iran in order to avoid U.S. sanctions that could restrict 
their access to the U.S. market.\219\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \218\ Alam Saleh et al., ``Iran's Pact with China Is Bad News for 
the West,'' Foreign Policy, Aug. 9, 2020.
    \219\ See, e.g., Julian Ryall, ``South Korea responds angrily to 
Iran threats over frozen assets,'' Deutsche Welle, July 23, 2020; 
Garrett Nada & Alex Yacoubian, ``Iran and Japan Struggle Over Ties and 
Trade,'' The Iran Primer, U.S. Institute of Peace, updated Dec. 20, 
2019, https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2019/dec/17/iran-and-japan-
struggle-over-ties-and-trade.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    During Trump's presidency, the European Union has also 
sought to boost the role of the Euro in international 
transactions and its use as a reserve currency to challenge the 
dominance of the dollar.\220\ U.S. foreign policy has long been 
underpinned by the status of the U.S. dollar as the dominant 
global currency.\221\ The success of U.S. sanctions depends on 
the U.S. dollar as the dominant currency for global trade.\222\ 
As some observers have noted, it should serve as a warning sign 
for the United States that there are growing efforts to 
transform dissatisfaction with a dollar-dependent system into 
action.\223\ U.S. economic and financial diplomacy depends in 
part on trust that the United States will champion fair and 
cooperative rules, meaning that it is poised to be a casualty 
of President Donald Trump's ``America First'' approach.\224\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \220\ Francesco Guarascio, ``EU pushes for broader global use of 
euro to challenge dollar,'' Reuters, Dec. 5, 2018.
    \221\ 221 See Congressional Research Service, The Dollar and the 
U.S. Trade Deficit, Feb. 14, 2020.
    \222\ See Stephanie Zable, ``INSTEX: A Blow to U.S. Sanctions?'' 
Lawfare, Mar. 6, 2019, https://www.lawfareblog.com/instex-blow-us-
sanctions; Ben Bernanke, ``The dollar's international role: An 
``exorbitant privilege''?'' The Brookings Institution, Jan. 7, 2016, 
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-
international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/.
    \223\ See Stephanie Zable, ``INSTEX: A Blow to U.S. Sanctions?'' 
Lawfare, Mar. 6, 2019.
    \224\ Christopher Smart, ``The Future of the Dollar--and Its Role 
in Financial Diplomacy,'' Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 
Dec. 16, 2018, https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/12/16/future-of-
dollar-and-its-role-in-financial-diplomacy-pub-77986.

Re-enforcing Fears About U.S. Unpredictability 
    Trump's actions have also caused many allies to question 
the long term reliability of the United States as an 
international partner. After the unilateral actions of the 
George W. Bush administration, many international actors feared 
the United States was unbound by the law and rules of the 
international system, despite the outsized U.S. role in 
developing these norms. These concerns have multiplied under 
President Trump, leaving many wondering if they can ever trust 
the United States again. As one foreign policy expert abroad 
told Committee staff, President Trump is an illustration of the 
instability and partisanship of the U.S. political system.\225\ 
By this line of thinking, the United States went from Bush to 
Obama to Trump--what's next?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \225\ Interview of Foreign Think Tank Expert, Mar. 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Flip-flops from one administration to the next are not new. 
U.S. allies clearly remember that President George W. Bush 
withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol to curb 
greenhouse gas emissions and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) 
Treaty with Russia.\226\ Since President Reagan, every change 
in party in the White House reverses or re-implements the 
harmful Global Gag Rule (also known as the Mexico City policy), 
which restricts access and funding for abortion services.\227\ 
While foreign officials acknowledged that they have become 
accustomed to some shift in positions when there are changes in 
the U.S. presidency, many noted that the unreliability under 
Trump has been remarkable. Allies have been able to count on 
the U.S. to consult or notify them before making significant 
changes. Now, however, they never know when the President will 
suddenly change his mind or reverse a prior approach, and, like 
members of his administration and the public, they learn of 
groundbreaking developments via President Trump's tweets.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \226\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, May 
2019; Stefan Kornelius et al., ``Merkel: Europe must unite to stand up 
to China, Russia and US: German chancellor also shares views on Brexit 
and climate crisis in interview,'' The Guardian, May 15, 2019; Julian 
Borger, ``Bush kills global warming treaty,'' The Guardian, Mar. 29, 
2001.
    \227\ President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City 
policy on January 23, 2017, just days after taking office Kaiser Family 
Foundation, ``The Mexico City Policy: An Explainer,'' Jan. 28, 2019, 
bit.ly/3pXAnka; Planned Parenthood Global, Assessing the Global Gag 
Rule: Harms to Health, Communities, and Advocacy, Jan. 23, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As a former senior State Department official told Committee 
staff, other countries are right to have newfound concerns with 
U.S. unpredictability.\228\ The damage caused by a withdrawal 
from a singular body or agreement goes beyond the immediate 
implications for that set of issues: withdrawing from 
international agreements has broader implications.\229\ And 
other countries watching the U.S. swing from one position to 
the next are taking note. As the same U.S. official noted, 
``there's no telling what's on the back end.''\230\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \228\ Interview of Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, July 
2019.
    \229\ Id.
    \230\ Id.

Navigating U.S. Disarray
    President Trump's erratic policies have also forced 
countries to adopt creative workarounds to manage the 
unpredictability and maintain good relations with a volatile 
president who eschews traditional forms of communication and 
channels. Foreign governments seeking to navigate U.S. policy 
have adopted a number of strategies, ranging from flattering 
the President to working through his immediate family. These 
strategies also highlight the breakdown of traditional U.S. 
diplomatic interactions and the sidelining of professional 
diplomats who normally manage U.S. foreign relations.
    As a former senior official who served in the Trump 
administration told Committee staff, foreign counterparts have 
frequently used nontraditional channels of diplomacy, bypassing 
the normal channels, because there are only a couple people in 
the Trump administration who actually know what is going 
on.\231\ Foreign officials confided in U.S. officials in the 
Trump administration that they were trying in vain to find a 
whisperer or policy advisor who was a clear conduit to the 
President.\232\ It often proved futile, as officials came and 
went, and fell in and out of favor with him.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \231\ Interview of Former Senior U.S. Official, July 2019.
    \232\ Interview of Former Assistant Secretary of State, May 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A common strategy is cultivating relationships with Trump 
family members like Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law 
and senior advisor. The Mexican government reportedly pursued a 
strategy of ignoring President Trump's tweets and relying 
instead on information from Kushner.\233\ The Mexican 
government even awarded Kushner one of the country's highest 
honors, the Order of the Aztec Eagle, for his ``significant 
contributions in achieving the renegotiation of the new 
agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada.''\234\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \233\ Erin Banco & Asawin Suebsaeng, ``Mexican Officials Have a 
Trick for Navigating Trump: Ignore the Tweets and Go to Jared: As the 
president threatened to inflict economically painful tariffs, his son-
in-law made more diplomatic overtures,'' The Daily Beast, June 12, 
2019.
    \234\ Erin Banco & Asawin Suebsaeng, ``Mexican Officials Have a 
Trick for Navigating Trump: Ignore the Tweets and Go to Jared: As the 
president threatened to inflict economically painful tariffs, his son-
in-law made more diplomatic overtures,'' The Daily Beast, June 12, 
2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As one former senior U.S. official told Committee staff, 
``Jared is conducting amateur foreign policy and he moonlights 
extensively, without any expertise, and the results have 
severely damaged our national interests.''\235\ It was reported 
that officials in at least four countries--United Arab 
Emirates, China, Israel, and Mexico--had privately discussed 
ways they could manipulate Jared Kushner by taking advantage of 
his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties, and 
lack of foreign policy experience.\236\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \235\ Interview of Former Senior U.S. Official, July 2019.
    \236\ Shane Harris et al., ``Kushner's overseas contacts raise 
concerns as foreign officials seek leverage,'' The Washington Post, 
Feb. 27, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Another strategy is avoiding engagements with President 
Trump, working instead with lower-ranking officials. As a 
Politico piece summarizing interviews with foreign diplomats 
noted, a White House visit had gone from ``the ultimate prize'' 
to ``something to be avoided.''\237\ Some cited the visit by 
the Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, which became an awkward 
joint press conference when Trump turned it into ``a rally-
style tirade against the Ukraine scandal whistleblower and the 
media.''\238\ According to one State Department official, when 
foreign embassies and leaders meet with President Trump, 
``every single one walks out disappointed.''\239\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \237\ Ryan Heath, ``Foreign diplomats brace for 4 more years of 
Trump: US president's reelection would be a geopolitical earthquake,'' 
Politico, Jan. 3, 2020.
    \238\ Id.
    \239\ Id.

Conclusion
    Today, the United States is more isolated and less trusted 
by other global actors. Trump has demonstrated to the world 
that everything that the United States does is reversible and, 
therefore, countries may need to find their own way. 
Withdrawing from existing international arrangements also 
undermines our allies' sense of stability and increases 
unpredictability in the global environment.
    The President's version of diplomacy--part bullying, part 
shaming, part stick--contains little incentive for cooperation. 
Countries that have invested time and energy in partnerships 
have been as equally burned as those who have thumbed their 
nose at our demands. U.S. diplomats and foreign officials have 
remarked that the United States has made it ``harder to be 
friends.'' Countries have seen that the United States may not 
be a trusted partner, and even close allies can be relegated to 
treatment more closely resembling that of an adversary, 
regardless of shared security, borders, or values. As a former 
Assistant Secretary of State who served in the Trump 
administration put it, ``the moorings have been 
detached.''\240\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \240\ Interview of Former Assistant Secretary of State, May 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Trump's maxim when it comes to important international 
agreements has amounted to ``repeal, and don't replace.'' While 
some have tried to hold a place for the United States to 
return, it is clear that it will need to reengage with besieged 
multilateral institutions, reestablish trust with our abused 
allies, and assert a consistent global approach if the world is 
to once again view the United States as a serious and 
responsible power.
    241Some Americans may be content to see a President play 
tough with foreign leaders. But the full costs of alienating 
close allies remain to be seen. Will close partners, such as 
those who came to the U.S. defense in the wake of 9/11, be as 
eager and committed to come to our defense again? Will other 
countries take the political risk of engaging and negotiating 
with the United States after it has abandoned so many 
international agreements?\241\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \241\ See Joshua Keating, ``Why Would Any Country Trust America 
Again? Thanks to Trump, any agreement made with a U.S. president is 
likely to be broken by the next one,'' Slate, May 24, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    U.S. foreign policy moving forward will need to recognize 
that other international actors will be skeptical of the 
staying power of the United States and it will take time to 
rebuild U.S. alliances and partnerships.



                               Chapter 3



                  Empowering Adversaries and Autocrats

                              ----------                              

    President Trump has empowered U.S. adversaries by isolating 
the United States from its allies, disengaging from 
multinational organizations, and ignoring or downplaying human 
rights abuses. Autocrats around the world have seized the 
opportunity to consolidate their power through repressive 
means. Under President Trump, it has become clear that the 
United States will not push back when authoritarian leaders 
expel an academic institution, carry out a judicial power grab, 
or assassinate a U.S.-based journalist.
    Despite leading the most powerful and influential democracy 
in the world, President Trump has undermined efforts to promote 
democracy and defend human rights, at home and abroad.\242\ He 
appears to dislike the give-and-take of the democratic process 
and instead admires displays of strength that demonstrate power 
and crush dissent. He has been hostile to and critical of 
democratic leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and 
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and appears more 
willing to say positive things about authoritarian leaders like 
Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un.\243\ Trump has 
rewarded leaders such as Erdogan and Orban with military 
support, Oval Office meetings, and lavish praise, despite their 
increasingly anti-democratic policies.\244\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \242\ See, e.g., John Bellinger & Richard Fontaine, ``To Strengthen 
Trump's National Security Approach, Promote Human Rights,'' Lawfare, 
Jan. 10, 2018, https://www.lawfareblog.com/strengthen-trumps-national-
security-approach-promote-human-rights; Thomas Carothers & Frances Z. 
Brown, ``Can U.S. Democracy Policy Survive Trump?'' Carnegie Endowment 
for International Peace, Oct. 1, 2018.
    \243\ See, e.g., Philip Rucker, `` `Dictator envy': Trump's praise 
of Kim Jong Un widens his embrace of totalitarian leaders,'' The 
Washington Post, June 15, 2018; Nahal Toosi, ``It's `Dictator Day' at 
the U.N.--with Trump in the middle: From Bolsonaro to Sisi to Erdogan, 
the early speaking lineup at the U.N. General Assembly is replete with 
autocratic leaders,'' Politico, Sept. 24, 2019; Domenico Montanaro, ``6 
Strongmen Trump Has Praised--And The Conflicts It Presents,'' NPR, May 
2, 2017.
    \244\ Deirdre Shesgreen et al., `` `A big fan': Trump welcomes 
Turkey's Erdogan despite bipartisan concern over Syria attack,'' USA 
Today, Nov. 13, 2019; Aime Williams & Valerie Hopkins, ``Trump praises 
Hungary's Orban in White House visit,'' Financial Times, May 13, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Trump administration has accelerated the decline in 
global freedom in three ways. First, his domestic attacks on 
U.S. democratic institutions and constitutional principles have 
provided a roadmap and given cover to autocrats' efforts to 
roll back civil liberties and domestic checks on their power. 
As President Trump deployed military force against peaceful 
anti-racism protesters in front of the White House, our allies 
and proponents of democracy responded in horror, while 
governments with poor human rights records celebrated.\245\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \245\ Uki Goni et al., `` `Trump is tearing apart America': how the 
world sees the US protests: The racial tensions in the US have 
emboldened both President Trump's allies and his enemies,'' The 
Guardian, June 7, 2020 (``I think Americans are not aware, or don't 
have the experience, to realise what it means for the military to be 
out on the streets in charge of domestic security,'' said a survivor of 
an Argentine death camp); Ciara Nugent & Billy Perrigo, `` `The Edge of 
an Abyss.' How the World's Newspapers Are Responding as the U.S. 
Descends Into Chaos,'' Time, June 2, 2020; Oliver Holmes & Daniel 
Boffey, `` `Abuse of power': global outrage grows after death of George 
Floyd: Protests spread to Sydney and Paris, as diplomats question use 
of force in US,'' The Guardian, June 2, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Second, President Trump has embraced autocratic rulers and 
belittled democratic leaders. This has legitimized the rule of 
some of the world's most brutal dictators and undermined 
efforts by U.S. allies to counter autocratic tendencies.
    Third, President Trump has diminished the role that 
supporting democracy and defending human rights plays in U.S. 
foreign policy.\246\ President Trump has replaced a foreign 
policy that champions U.S. values with one focused primarily on 
short-term self-interest. This desire for ``quick wins'' has 
come at a cost.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \246\ See, e.g., John Bellinger & Richard Fontaine, ``To Strengthen 
Trump's National Security Approach, Promote Human Rights,'' Lawfare, 
Jan. 10, 2018, https://www.lawfareblog.com/strengthen-trumps-national-
security-approach-promote-human-rights; Thomas Carothers & Frances Z. 
Brown, ``Can U.S. Democracy Policy Survive Trump?'' Carnegie Endowment 
for International Peace, Oct. 1, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Four years of President Trump's foreign policy have 
weakened the United States' ability to push back against 
Chinese and Russian efforts to gain influence on the world 
stage. The Trump administration's disdain for multilateral 
organizations has accelerated China's efforts to gain 
leadership in key international institutions, moving them in a 
direction more favorable to Chinese interests. China has worked 
hard to present itself as championing ``multilateralism, the 
United Nations, the World Health Organization, free trade and 
international cooperation,'' while undermining these 
organizations from within.\247\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \247\ Wang Yi, State Councilor and Foreign Minister, People's 
Republic of China, Speech, Special Video Conference of China and Latin 
American and Caribbean Countries' Foreign Ministers on COVID-19, July 
23, 2020.

A Roadmap for Repression 
    As discussed in Chapter 1, the domestic policies of the 
Trump administration have damaged the international credibility 
and standing of the United States. The illiberal policies of 
the Trump administration have had another profound effect: they 
have provided an example to autocratic states for their own 
repressive policies. Two important illustrations include how 
Trump's attacks on freedom of the press and the rule of law 
have been emulated by autocratic governments.

Breaking Democratic Norms: the ``Fake News'' Refrain
    One of President Trump's frequent refrains is that the 
media broadcasts and publishes ``fake news.''\248\ This goes 
hand-in-hand with Trump's repeated attacks on the media and 
individual reporters who cover him.\249\ As a January 2019 
analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists showed, from 
the summer of 2015 when Trump announced his candidacy for 
president until the end of 2018, Trump sent more than 1,300 
tweets that were ``critical, insinuating, condemning, or 
threatening'' about the media.\250\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \248\ See, e.g., Committee to Protect Journalists, The Trump 
Administration and the Media, Apr. 16, 2020, https://cpj.org/reports/
2020/04/trump-media-attacks-credibility-leaks/.
    \249\ Four hundred of Trump's tweets referred to more than 100 
individual journalists at 30 news organizations. Committee to Protect 
Journalists, The Trump Administration and the Media, Apr. 16, 2020, 
https://cpj.org/reports/2020/04/trump-media-attacks-credibility-leaks/. 
In 2016, CBS reporter Lesley Stahl, who conducted Trump's first 
interview as president-elect, said Trump admitted to her, shortly 
before the 2016 election, that Trump's goal in attacking the press is 
to reduce their credibility: ``He said, `You know why I do it? I do it 
to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative 
stories about me, no one will believe you.' '' Jon Levine, ``Lesley 
Stahl: Trump Said He Wants to `Discredit' the Media `So No One Will 
Believe' Negative Stories (Video),'' The Wrap, May 22, 2018, https://
www.thewrap.com/lesley-stahl-trump-target-media-discredit-bad-stories/. 
See also Joel Simon & Alexandra Ellerbeck, ``The president's phantom 
threats: Trump so far has failed to follow through on his promised 
press assault. Could it still come?'' Columbia Journalism Review, 
Winter 2018, https://www.cjr.org/special--report/president-threats-
press.php.
    \250\ Stephanie Sugars, ``From fake news to enemy of the people: An 
anatomy of Trump's tweets,'' Committee to Protect Journalists, Jan. 30, 
2019, https://cpj.org/2019/01/trump-twitter-press-fake-news-enemy-
people/. Interestingly, Trump did not use the ``fake news'' refrain 
until after he was elected president. See id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Trump's rhetoric and threats toward the media have 
influenced how other leaders deal with their own domestic 
press.\251\ As a spokeswoman for Reporters Without Borders 
noted, ``authoritarian regimes all over the world can now take 
full advantage of Trump's war with the media by discrediting 
mainstream news coverage and calling it `fake news.' ''\252\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \251\ See, e.g., Spencer Feingold, ``'Fake news' and Trumpian 
rhetoric echo around the world: President Trump's rhetoric has been 
used to justify human-rights abuses, attacks on the press and more,'' 
Salon, Nov. 27, 2018.
    \252\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------




                       The ``Fake News'' Refrain

Syria, Feb. 2017: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used the 
term ``fake news'' to try to discredit Amnesty INternational's 
2017 report on torture and mass hangings in military prisons.


Cambodia, Mar. 2018: At a ceremony, Cambodian Prime Minister 
Hun Sen pointed out New York Times' journalists in the crowd 
and noted the paper had been given ``fake news'' awards by 
Trump. He then warned that if The Times' reporting was not 
suitable positive, ``the Cambodian people will remember your 
faces.''


Indonesia, Jan. 2019: President Joko Widodo called a report on 
missing ballot boxes for the upcoming election: ``a hoax'' and 
``fake news.''


Tunisia, April 2019: Then-Prime Minister Youssef Chahed noted 
the threat of fake news, calling it ``the number one enemy of 
our country.''





    A former U.S. Assistant Secretary who served in the Trump 
administration told Committee staff, ``I never heard the word 
`fake news' in Africa before Trump. African heads of state now 
talk about fake news.''\253\ In March 2017, the Cambodian 
government justified attacks on journalists by saying that 
Trump rightly, like them, felt that ``news published by 
[international] media institutions does not reflect the real 
situation.''\254\ A former Obama administration official 
described the undermining effect of President Trump's attacks 
on the media: ``The fact that the president is willing to 
attack the media so explicitly and so directly makes it harder 
to point out and to stand up for those attacks in other parts 
of the world, including China.''\255\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \253\ Interview of Former Assistant Secretary of State, May 2019.
    \254\ Samuel Osborne, ``Cambodia threatens foreign news media 
citing Donald Trump's example: `Freedom of expression must respect the 
law and the authority of the state' spokesman warns,'' The Independent, 
Mar. 1, 2017.
    \255\ David Nakamura, ``As China blocks U.S. media, Trump denounces 
the same companies on Twitter,'' The Washington Post, June 9, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Trump's attacks on the media, according to a former State 
Department official, also ``legitimize the threat environment 
for journalists.''\256\ Trump's own repeated attacks on 
journalists provide cover for foreign leaders to threaten 
journalists, such as President of the Philippines Rodrigo 
Duterte's threats and politically motivated prosecution of 
journalist Maria Ressa.\257\ At a photo opportunity with 
President Putin, Trump said about the media, ``[G]et rid of 
them. Fake news is a great term, isn't it? You don't have this 
problem in Russia but we do.''\258\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \256\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, May 
2019.
    \257\ Id.; Philippine Journalist Maria Ressa: `Journalism Is 
Activism,' '' NPR, Aug. 6, 2020.
    \258\ Since Putin became president, twenty six journalists have 
been murdered many of them investigative reporters examining 
governmental abuses. Julian Borger, ``Trump jokes to Putin they should 
`get rid' of journalists,'' The Guardian, July 28, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Trump's attacks on journalists also provide an excuse for 
foreign leaders to censor and intimate domestic critics. For 
years, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban closed space for 
civil society and pro-democracy advocates, and undermined the 
independent media.\259\ Orban's government has picked up 
Trump's rhetoric of fake news, using it as weapon to attack any 
reporting on his rollback of democracy and civil society in 
Hungary.\260\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \259\ Zack Beauchamp, ``It happened there: how democracy died in 
Hungary: A new kind of authoritarianism is taking root in Europe--and 
there are warning signs for America,'' Vox, Sept. 13, 2018. By 2017, 90 
percent of all media in Hungary was owned by the government or an ally 
of Orban's Fidesz party. Id.
    \260\ Andraw Gergely & Veronika Gulyas, ``Orban Uses Crisis Powers 
for Detentions Under `Fake News' Law,'' Bloomberg, May 13, 2020; 
Vlagyiszlav Makszimov, ``Hungarian PM Orban accuses EPP of spreading 
fake news,'' Euractiv, May 5, 2020, https://www.euractiv.com/section/
future-eu/news/hungarian-pm-orban-accuses-epp-of-spreading-fake-news/; 
Benjamin Novak, Hungary Moves to End Rule by Decree, but Orban's Powers 
May Stay: Legislation to drop the state of emergency prompted by the 
coronavirus was seen by some as effectively codifying Prime Minister 
Viktor Orban's extended authority,'' The New York Times, June 16, 2020.

Rule of Law
    The rule of law is one of the fundamental principles of 
American democracy and foreign policy. It is based on the idea 
that all persons, institutions, and entities are accountable to 
the law and that the laws the legislative branch passes must be 
underpinned by the powers laid out in the U.S. Constitution. At 
its heart is the idea that every person is equally subject to 
the laws of a society.\261\ The United Nations emphasizes the 
importance of rule of law to international peace and security 
and political stability, to economic and social progress and 
development, and to protection of people's rights and 
fundamental freedoms.\262\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \261\ See, e.g., ``Overview--Rule of Law: US Courts Educational 
Program,'' Federal Courts, https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-
resources/educational-activities/overview-rule-law (last visited Sept. 
24, 2020).
    \262\ ``What is the Rule of Law,'' United Nations, https://
www.un.org/ruleoflaw/what-is-the-rule-of-law/ (last visited May 28, 
2020).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For decades, U.S. foreign policy has sought to promote the 
rule of law as a vital mechanism to promote democracy, serve as 
a check on government overreach, and strengthen protections for 
human rights. The United States promotes the establishment of 
the rule of law in other countries, such as by training foreign 
lawyers and judges.
    President Trump, far from promoting the rule of law, has 
shown astounding contempt for it. He has tried to influence 
judicial proceedings by attacking judges, calling on 
prosecutors and judges to reward his friends and punish his 
enemies.\263\ He has obstructed and questioned the fundamental 
legitimacy of Congressional oversight and Special Counsel 
Mueller's inquiry.\264\ He has sought to stretch executive 
privilege beyond its recognized limits, using it in an attempt 
to shield him and anyone in the White House from 
accountability.\265\ He has attacked U.S. elections and even 
questioned the peaceful transfer of power, a fundamental pillar 
of democracy.\266\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \263\ See, e.g., @realDonaldTrump, `` `Sotomayor accuses GOP 
appointed Justices of being biased in favor of Trump.' @IngrahamAngle 
@FoxNews This is a terrible thing to say. Trying to `shame' some into 
voting her way? She never criticized Justice Ginsberg when she called 
me a `faker'. Both should recuse themselves,'' Feb. 24, 2020, https://
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232155591537254400; 
@realDonaldTrump, ``There has rarely been a juror so tainted as the 
forewoman in the Roger Stone case. Look at her background. She never 
revealed her hatred of ``Trump'' and Stone. She was totally biased, as 
is the judge. Roger wasn't even working on my campaign. Miscarriage of 
justice. Sad to watch!'' Feb. 25, 2020, https://twitter.com/
realDonaldTrump/status/1232395209125707776; @realDonaldTrump, ``There 
are a lot of CRIMINALS in the Caravan. We will stop them. Catch and 
Detain! Judicial Activism, by people who know nothing about security 
and the safety of our citizens, is putting our country in great danger. 
Not good!'' Nov. 21, 2018, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/
1065359825654169600.
    \264\ See Letter from Pat A. Cipollone to Rep. Jarrold Nadler, 
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, May 15, 2019; Paul 
Rosenzweig, ``Trump's Defiance of the Rule of Law,'' The Atlantic, June 
3, 2019.
    \265\ See Richard Lempert, ``All the president's privileges,'' The 
Brookings Institution, Dec. 19, 2019.
    \266\ Joshua Chaffin, ``US election in danger: Trump seeks to 
undermine legitimacy of vote,'' Financial Times, Sept. 30, 2020; ``US 
election: Trump won't commit to peaceful transfer of power,'' BBC, 
Sept. 24, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The nationalist conservative governments in Central Europe 
have also seen Trump's rhetoric and conduct as a vote of 
support for their own attempts to enhance their power at the 
expense of the judiciary.\267\ In Poland, for example, the 
government has been seeking for years to exert control over its 
judicial branch.\268\ The European Union has repeatedly 
expressed concern about the erosion of the rule of law inside 
the country and threatened to punish the Polish government if 
it pushed through attempts to enshrine executive control over 
the judiciary.\269\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \267\ See, e.g., Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2019: 
Democracy in Retreat, 2020, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
world/2019/democracy-retreat; Al Jazeera, ``Hungary's PM Orban endorses 
Trump's re-election bid,'' Sept. 21, 2020.
    \268\ Marc Santora and Joanna Berendt, ``Poland Overhauls Courts, 
and Critics See Retreat From Democracy,'' The New York Times, Dec. 20, 
2017; ``In Poland, the rule of law is under ever greater threat,'' 
Opinion, Financial Times, Feb. 9, 2020
    \269\ See Press Release, European Parliament, ``Rule of Law in 
Poland: concerns continue to grow among MEPs'', May 25, 2020, https://
www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20200520IPR79509/rule-of-law-
in-poland-concerns-continue-to-grow-among-meps; Alicja Ptak, ``EU's top 
judge warns Poland over overhaul of judiciary'' Reuters, Jan. 9, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The State Department, as is customary, put out a series of 
statements in support of the rule of law and expressing concern 
about attacks on the rule of law in Poland.\270\ Despite this, 
President Trump has praised the Polish government and, early in 
his administration, visited Poland, during which he gave a 
speech that was seen as supportive to the conservative 
government.\271\ Committee staff heard from a U.S. human rights 
advocate that the perception in Poland is ``if Trump's on your 
side, things should be okay'' and there is no need to worry 
about what the State Department says.\272\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \270\ U.S. Department of State, 2018 Country Reports on Human 
Rights Practices: Poland, Section 1-E: Denial of Fair Public Trial, 
March 13, 2019, https://www.state.gov/reports/2018-country-reports-on-
human-rights-practices/poland/; U.S. Department of State, 2017 Country 
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Poland, Section 1-E: Denial of Fair 
Public Trial, April 20, 2018. https://www.state.gov/reports/2017-
country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/poland/. Interview of Senior 
Staff Member, International Human Rights Organization, July 2019.
    \271\ Christian Davies et al., ``Trump says west is at risk, during 
nationalistic speech in Poland,'' The Guardian, July 6, 2017.
    \272\ Interview of Senior Staff Member, International Human Rights 
Organization, July 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Some observers contend that respect for the rule of law is 
declining in many EU member states, with the World Bank's 
Worldwide Governance Indicators showing deterioration of rule 
of law in 17 EU member states from 2009 to 2018.\273\ Concerns 
about rule of law persist and have increased toward Poland, 
Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Malta.\274\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \273\ See, e.g., Ian Bond & Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska, ``Democracy 
and the Rule of Law: Failing Partnership?'' Centre for European Reform, 
Jan. 20, 2020, https://www.cer.eu/publications/archive/policy-brief/
2020/democracy-and-rule-law-failing-partnership.
    \274\ Congressional Research Service, Memo for Committee Staff, 
Aug. 26, 2020.

Embracing Autocrats 
    It is no secret that President Trump appears to have a 
profound affinity for dictators and autocrats. He praises 
authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, 
Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, and Kim Jong-un of North 
Korea, even going so far as to defend their repressive anti-
democratic methods for holding power.\275\ President Trump on 
numerous occasions has sided with Putin's account and dismissed 
Russian interference in U.S. elections, despite the unambiguous 
findings by the U.S. intelligence community and Special Counsel 
Robert Mueller that the Russians did so.\276\ Trump said in 
February 2019 that he believed North Korean dictator Kim Jong-
un's claim that he did not have prior knowledge of the 
mistreatment of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who 
died days after being released, in a coma, from 17 months in 
captivity.\277\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \275\ See Chris Cillizza & Brenna Williams, ``15 times Donald Trump 
praised authoritarian rulers,'' CNN Politics, July 2, 2019.
    \276\ See John Bowden, ``Trump's evolving remarks on Russian 
election interference,'' The Hill, June 1, 2019; Anne Gearan & Karoun 
Demirjian, ``Trump dismisses new report on 2016 election interference 
as his allies continue to pursue theories it debunks,'' The Washington 
Post, Aug. 19, 2020; Jonathan Lemire & Zeke Miller, ``Like old pals, 
Trump, Putin make light of election meddling,'' AP, June 28, 2019; 
``Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections,'' 
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Jan. 6, 2017.
    \277\ Josh Dawsey, `` `He tells me he didn't know': Trump defends 
Kim Jong Un over death of Otto Warmbier,'' The Washington Post, Feb. 
28, 2019.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------




``He tells me he didn't know about it, and I take him at his 
word.''

              --Trump on Kim Jong-un and the death of Otto Warmbier



``Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!''

                          --Trump on whether Crown Prince Mohammed 
                bin Salman knew of the plan to kill Jamal Khashoggi



``President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his 
denial today.''

     --Trump on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election






    At the same time, Trump has criticized, attacked, and 
demeaned the leaders of democratic countries that have 
historically been our most steadfast allies. Canadian Prime 
Minister Justin Trudeau has endured a constant stream of 
insults from Trump, who accused him of being ``very dishonest 
and weak'' and of making up ``false statements.''\278\ In July 
2019, President Trump issued a volley of insults at then-
British Prime Minister Theresa May, calling her ``foolish'' and 
saying her Brexit plan had been a disaster because she ignored 
his advice.\279\ Trump also has called German Chancellor Merkel 
a ``catastrophic leader'' and the ``person who is ruining 
Germany.''\280\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \278\ Dan Bilefsky & Catherine Porter, ``Trump's `Bully' Attack on 
Trudeau Outrages Canadians,'' The New York Times, June 10, 2018.
    \279\ Rowena Mason et al., ``Trump lashes out at `foolish' May as 
crisis over ambassador grows: US commerce secretary pulls out of trade 
talks as president calls envoy `very stupid,' '' The Guardian, July 9, 
2019.
    \280\ Rick Noack, ``What's with Trump and female world leaders?'' 
The Washington Post, Nov. 30, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The juxtaposition of Trump's conduct toward authoritarian 
versus democratic leaders is not lost on global audiences. The 
rest of the world has noted President Trump's abandonment of 
the United States' traditional support for democracy and 
observed that the President sees no inherent difference between 
the conduct of authoritarian and democratic states.\281\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \281\ See Jonathan Chait, ``Trump Is Failing at Governing But 
Winning at Authoritarianism,'' NY Mag Intelligencer, May 20, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Trump's affinity for authoritarian leaders dovetails with 
his tendency to ignore and downplay human rights violations and 
rollbacks of democracy. Countries with authoritarian, 
autocratic, or otherwise unsavory leaders know they can 
disregard with impunity human rights and the rule of law 
because President Trump prizes his personal relationship with 
them. An Assistant Secretary of State who served in the Trump 
administration told Committee staff, ``People like Erdogan and 
Orban feel a lot freer to be dictators because we embrace 
them.''\282\ After all, President Trump complimented Chinese 
leader Xi Jinping on becoming president for life; he 
complimented North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un; he 
congratulated Russian president Putin on his reelection despite 
his staff including in his briefing materials a plea: ``DO NOT 
CONGRATULATE.''\283\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \282\ Interview of Former Assistant Secretary of State, May 2019.
    \283\ Carol Leonnig et al., ``Trump's national security advisers 
warned him not to congratulate Putin. He did it anyway,'' The 
Washington Post, March 20, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The following case studies illustrate the consequences of 
President Trump's approach to authoritarian leaders and how it 
has further enabled them to consolidate their rule.

Saudi Arabia: No Consequences for Brutal Repression 
    U.S.-Saudi relations for decades have reflected deep 
economic, diplomatic, energy, and security cooperation along 
with profound concerns about Saudi Arabia's governance and 
human rights record.\284\ The Trump administration has swung in 
one direction, ignoring and excusing brutal and barbaric human 
rights violations while pursing arms sales and close ties with 
the Kingdom.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \284\ See ``U.S.-Saudi Arabia Relations,'' Council on Foreign 
Relations, Dec. 7, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    An early indication of President Trump's decision to pursue 
a close relationship with Saudi Arabia was his decision to make 
the country his first overseas visit.\285\ Since World War II, 
presidents have chosen a North American neighbor such as Canada 
or Mexico, or a European democratic ally such as Great 
Britain.\286\ In bucking this tradition and choosing Saudi 
Arabia, Trump sought to emphasize U.S. economic and defense 
ties with the Gulf. Yet he ignored any concerns about human 
rights abuses or authoritarianism. The personal and sometimes 
financial relations of President Trump and his son-in law Jared 
Kushner with Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (MBS), the Crown 
Prince, have also hovered in the background of the President's 
desire to establish close ties early in his presidency.\287\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \285\ Karen DeYoung, ``First stop on Trump's first official trip 
overseas signals Saudi Arabia's importance,'' The Washington Post, May 
19, 2017,
    \286\ Eliza Mackintosh, ``How Trump's first foreign trip compares 
with past presidents,'' CNN, May 20, 2017.
    \287\ See David D. Kirkpatrick et al., ``The Wooing of Jared 
Kushner: How the Saudis Got a Friend in the White House,'' The New York 
Times, Dec. 8, 2018; Mohammad Bazzi, ``The heart of the US-Saudi 
relationship lies in the Kushner-prince friendship,'' Financial Times, 
Mar. 10, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The extent of President Trump's willingness to excuse any 
level of human rights abuse was demonstrated by his reaction to 
the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, U.S. 
resident, and columnist for The Washington Post. On October 2, 
2018, Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul 
and never re-emerged.\288\ On October 6, Turkish investigators 
concluded Khashoggi was killed by a 15-member team of Saudi 
agents while inside the consulate.\289\ The U.S. government 
reportedly later reached a similar conclusion, including that 
Khashoggi was killed on the orders of Crown Prince bin 
Salman.\290\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \288\ Joyce Lee & Dalton Bennett, ``The assassination of Jamal 
Khashoggi,'' The Washington Post, April 1, 2019.
    \289\ Id.
    \290\ Shane Harris et al., ``CIA concludes Saudi crown prince 
ordered Jamal Khashoggi's assassination,'' The Washington Post, Nov. 
16, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump did not publicly acknowledge the U.S. 
government's conclusion that Khashoggi killing was authorized 
by the Saudi government. Instead, he went out of his way to 
repeatedly defend the Crown Prince.\291\ On November 20, 2018, 
President Trump issued a statement, ``On Standing with Saudi 
Arabia,'' in which he speculated that maybe the Crown Prince 
had knowledge of Khashoggi's killing--or ``maybe he 
didn't!''\292\ Over the ensuing months, not only did the Trump 
administration fail to condemn the Crown Prince for Khashoggi's 
killing, it worked assiduously to remove his ``pariah status'' 
and rehabilitate his global image.\293\ Two months after 
Khashoggi's death, Trump was exchanging pleasantries with the 
Crown Prince at the Group of 20 (G20) summit and was 
encouraging U.S. business to invest in Saudi Arabia.\294\ Six 
months later, his administration pushed through $8 billion in 
arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 
over the strenuous objections of Congress, and despite 
increasing ties between the countries and China.\295\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \291\ Joyce Lee & Dalton Bennett, ``The assassination of Jamal 
Khashoggi,'' The Washington Post, April 1, 2019; Shane Harris et al., 
``CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi's 
assassination,'' The Washington Post, Nov. 16, 2018.
    \292\ Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with 
Saudi Arabia, Nov. 20, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-
statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-standing-saudi-arabia/.
    \293\ Aaron David Miller & Richard Sokolsky, ``Opinion: Trump And 
Pompeo Have Enabled A Saudi Cover-Up Of The Khashoggi Killing,'' NPR, 
Oct. 2, 2019.
    \294\ David Herszenhorn. ``Trump praises Saudi crown prince, 
ignores questions on Khashoggi killing,'' Politico,'' June 29, 2019; 
Sonam Sheth and John Haltiwanger, `` `I saved his a--': Trump boasted 
that he protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after Jamal 
Khashoggi's brutal murder, Woodward's new book says,'' Business 
Insider, Sept. 10, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-
woodward-i-saved-his-ass-mbs-khashoggi-rage-2020-9.
    \295\ Sonam Sheth and John Haltiwanger, `` `I saved his a--': Trump 
boasted that he protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after 
Jamal Khashoggi's brutal murder, Woodward's new book says,'' Business 
Insider, Sept. 10, 2020; see also Nicolas Parasie & Robert Wall, 
``Russia and China Target Middle East Arms Deals,'' The Wall Street 
Journal, Apr. 6, 2019.

Hungary: Embraced in the White House
    Since 2010, Prime Minister Orban has overseen Hungary's 
democratic backsliding. The Obama administration grew critical 
of the Hungarian government over these concerns, despite 
Hungary's status as a member of the EU and NATO.\296\ As a 
result, the Obama administration did not engage in high-level, 
bilateral meetings, and sought to support press freedom through 
grants to independent media outlets and support to civil 
society groups.\297\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \296\ See Joanna Kakissis, ``In Trump, Hungary's Viktor Orban Has a 
Rare Ally in the Oval Office,'' NPR, May 13, 2019.
    \297\ See Patrick Kingsley, ``Hungary's Leader Was Shunned by 
Obama, but Has a Friend in Trump,'' The New York Times, Aug. 15, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Trump administration, in contrast, has set aside prior 
U.S. concerns about the state of democracy in Hungary and 
embraced the Orban government. The Administration claims that 
its strategy of working with Orban is to prevent him from 
forging closer ties with China and Russia. Yet the result has 
been the opposite. Russian influence in Hungary during the 
Trump administration has grown as Orban has pursued his 
``Eastern Opening'' foreign policy approach, cultivating 
economic cooperation with Russia and China and seeking to 
position Hungary for a more multipolar world order.\298\ 
Hungary's ``Eastern Opening,'' which started before Trump 
became president, has included the movement of Russian money 
into Hungary, intelligence sharing, increasing commercial ties 
and a decision to move the Moscow-based International 
Investment Bank (IIB) to Budapest.\299\ Observers have 
expressed concerns that this arrangement poses 
counterintelligence and economic security threats to Hungary, 
NATO, and the EU.\300\ Additionally, Hungary has considerable 
ties to Russia in the energy sector: Russia provides all of the 
natural gas imported by Hungary, accounting for nearly one 
third of the country's primary energy supply.\301\ In 2018, 
Hungary denied a U.S. request to extradite two Russian arms 
dealers accused by the U.S. of conspiring to sell Russian-made 
military grade weapons including anti-aircraft missiles. The 
Orban government instead sent them back to Russia.\302\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \298\ Congressional Research Service, Memorandum: Hungary: 
Political and Economic Environment and U.S. Relations, June 24, 2019.
    \299\ International Investment Bank (IIB) Press Release, 
``International Investment Bank headquartered in Budapest will focus on 
further sustainable development of member states economies and 
integration,'' June 25, 2019. Andras Racz, ``A foot in the door? 
Russia's International Investment Bank moves to Hungary,'' European 
Council on Foreign Relations, Mar. 18, 2019,'' Financial Times, Mar. 
26, 2019; Interview of Senior Staff Member, International Human Rights 
Organization, July 2019.
    \300\ Andras Racz, A foot in the door? Russia's International 
Investment Bank moves to Hungary, European Council on Foreign 
Relations, Mar. 18, 2019. See also Congressional Research Service, 
Memorandum: Hungary: Political and Economic Environment and U.S. 
Relations, June 24, 2019.
    \301\ Congressional Research Service, European Energy Security: 
Options for EU Natural Gas Diversification, Feb. 26, 2020.
    \302\ U.S. Department of State, Hungary: Lyubishin Extradition, 
Nov. 27, 2018; see also ``U.S. says Hungary refuses to extradite 
suspected Russian arms dealers,'' Reuters, Nov. 27, 2018; Michele 
Kelemen, ``Trump Welcomes Hungary's Authoritarian Prime Minister, 
Viktor Orban, At White House,'' NPR, May 13, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Orban's ``Eastern Opening'' foreign policy approach also 
includes deepening ties with China. Hungary has ignored U.S. 
warnings about the national security dangers presented by 
Chinese telecommunications companies, allowing Huawei to build 
its largest service center in Europe outside of Budapest.\303\ 
Further, Hungary's proposed $3 billion high-speed rail link 
between Budapest and Belgrade is reportedly financed in large 
part by China's export-import bank, with a consortium of 
Chinese and Hungarian companies expected to perform the 
construction.\304\ China views the proposed railway as an 
important means for transporting Chinese goods into Central 
European markets.\305\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \303\ See Michele Kelemen, ``Trump Welcomes Hungary's Authoritarian 
Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, At White House,'' NPR, May 13, 2019; 
``Hungary Sees Huawei as Strategic Partner Despite Security Concerns,'' 
Reuters, Apr. 9, 2019. See also Congressional Research Service, 
Memorandum: Hungary: Political and Economic Environment and U.S. 
Relations, June 24, 2019.
    \304\ Jonathan Gorvett, ``Hungary Ponders Pitfalls of Chinese Rail 
Line,'' Asia Times, Apr. 14, 2019. See also Congressional Research 
Service, Memorandum: Hungary: Political and Economic Environment and 
U.S. Relations, June 24, 2019.
    \305\ See Congressional Research Service, Memorandum: Hungary: 
Political and Economic Environment and U.S. Relations, June 24, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In the last three years, Hungary's retreat from democracy 
and embrace of authoritarian practices has continued. After 
years of noting Hungary's downward trend, in 2019, Freedom 
House concluded that Hungary was only a partially free country, 
placing it in the same category as Pakistan and Zimbabwe, and 
marking the first time an EU country has been designed ``partly 
free'' by Freedom House.\306\ This was based in part on the 
``sustained attacks on the country's democratic institutions by 
Prime Minister Orban's Fidesz party, which has used its 
parliamentary supermajority to impose restrictions on or assert 
control over the opposition, the media, religious groups, 
academia, NGOs, the courts, asylum seekers, and the private 
sector since 2010.''\307\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \306\ Freedom House, Democracy in Decline: Freedom of the World 
Report, 2019.
    \307\ Freedom House, Democracy in Decline: Freedom of the World 
Report, 2019, at 13.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump ignored all these concerns and has embraced 
Orban. The capstone was an official White House meeting between 
the two leaders, the first White House visit by a Hungarian 
prime minister since 2005.\308\ The visit prompted delegates 
from the opposition coalition in Hungary to travel to 
Washington, DC, to meet with Congress and speak up against 
repression under Orban. At the time of Trump's meeting with 
Orban, Hungarian human rights lawyer Marta Pardavi expressed 
concern about her country's direction, citing Orban's attacks 
on groups like hers, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, which 
provides legal services for asylum-seekers and for 
Hungarians.\309\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \308\ Layla Quran, ``Why Trump is meeting the Hungarian prime 
minister Bush and Obama shunned,'' PBS, May 13, 2019.
    \309\ Michele Kelemen, ``Trump Welcomes Hungary's Authoritarian 
Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, At White House,'' NPR, May 13, 2019.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------




In an Oval Office press conference following the meeting, 
President Trump ignored a question about democratic backsliding 
in Hungary, and praised Orban as a tough but respected leader.







    Before the Trump-Orban White House meeting, the Chairman 
and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 
led a bipartisan letter to President Trump expressing concerns 
about the erosion of democracy in Hungary, Hungary's embrace of 
Russia, and the implications for U.S. interests in Central 
Europe if President Trump did not raise these concerns.\310\ In 
an Oval Office press conference following the meeting, 
President Trump ignored a question about democratic backsliding 
in Hungary, and praised Orban as a tough but respected 
leader.\311\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \310\ Letter from Senators Robert Menendez, James Risch, Marco 
Rubio, and Jeanne Shaheen to President Trump, May 10, 2019, https://
www.foreign.senate.gov/press/ranking/release/menendez-risch-rubio-
shaheen-express-concern-for-democratic-erosion-in-hungary-ask-trump-to-
raise-issues-with-orban.
    \311\ Michele Kelemen, ``Trump Welcomes Hungary's Authoritarian 
Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, At White House,'' NPR, May 13, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Following the Trump-Orban meeting, President Trump called 
Ranking Member Menendez--an extremely rare occurrence. 
President Trump told Senator Menendez that he had received the 
letter from him and Chairman Risch, just met with Orban, and 
thought that Senator Menendez had got it all wrong. President 
Trump told Senator Menendez that Orban is a ``good guy'' and 
Hungary was agreeing to buy a lot of U.S. military equipment.






``The President's actions have . . . limited our ability to 
promote or influence democracy.''

                                      --Former Senior U.S. Official


Hampering Efforts to Promote Democracy
  and Human Rights
    President Trump has also empowered those seeking to tighten 
autocratic grips on power by weakening U.S. efforts to promote 
democracy and transparency around the world. In addition to 
embracing autocratic rulers, President Trump has attacked and 
weakened U.S. anticorruption tools and refused to support 
critical anti-corruption efforts. And, regardless of the 
official messages that U.S. diplomats carry to their foreign 
counterparts, they cannot overcome the example President Trump 
sets through his own bully pulpit.
    As a former senior U.S. official told Committee staff:


        Democracy promotion is relevant to other countries 
        either because they need our help to resolve problems 
        within their democracies, or they understand how 
        important democratic practice is to us and recognize 
        that we will limit our engagement with countries that 
        do not match our values. The President's actions have, 
        over time, undermined both, and therefore limited our 
        ability to promote or influence democracy.\312\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \312\ Interview of Former Senior U.S. Official, Sept. 2020.


    President Trump has long disparaged the Foreign Corrupt 
Practices Act, a post-Watergate 1977 U.S. law that bars payoffs 
to foreign officials by companies, as a ``horrible law'' and 
wanted to repeal it once in office.\313\ He repeatedly sought a 
nearly 40 percent cut to a U.S. government program dedicated to 
fighting global corruption.\314\ One of the first significant 
pieces of legislation that President Trump signed rescinded a 
key U.S. tool for combatting corruption abroad: an SEC rule to 
prevent bribery, which required oil and gas companies to 
disclose payments made to other governments.\315\ Trump also 
withdrew the U.S. from the Extractive Industries Transparency 
Initiative (EITI), an international effort to fight corruption 
in oil, gas, and mineral extraction.\316\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \313\ Jeanna Smialek, ``Trump Tried to Kill Anti-Bribery Rule He 
Deemed `Unfair,' New Book Alleges: The president asked administration 
officials to help kill the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to 
a new book from two Washington Post reporters,'' The New York Times, 
Jan. 15, 2020. See also Renae Merle, ``Trump called global anti-bribery 
law `horrible.' His administration is pursuing fewer new 
investigations: The Justice Department has touted record fines, 
including a $3.9 billion penalty against Airbus announced Friday,'' The 
Washington Post, Jan. 31, 2020.
    \314\ In FY2019 and FY2020, President Trump sought slashes to the 
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE), which 
combat weak rule of law and widespread corruption by strengthening law 
enforcement capacity. FY2020 Congressional Budget Justification, 
Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, https://
www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1868/FY--2020--CBJ.pdf. See 
also Congressional Research Service, Countering Corruption Through U.S. 
Foreign Assistance, May 27, 2020.
    \315\ 315 Steven Mufson, ``Trump signs law rolling back disclosure 
rule for energy and mining companies,'' The Washington Post, Feb. 14, 
2017; Trevor Sutton, ``The Trump Administration's Dangerous 
Indifference to Corruption,'' Center for American Progress, Apr. 24, 
2017.
    \316\ Julia Simon, ``U.S. withdraws from extractive industries 
anti-corruption effort,'' Reuters, Nov. 2, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    President Trump also failed to stand up for 
internationally-backed anti-corruption efforts, including in 
Guatemala. In August 2018, Guatemalan President Morales 
declared he was abolishing the International Commission against 
Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which supported corruption 
probes that resulted in the indictment of Guatemala's former 
president and vice president; the prosecution of dozens of 
prominent government officials; the ouster of more than a dozen 
corrupt judges and thousands of police officers; and the 
detention of powerful drug traffickers.\317\ The CICIG has 
previously received strong bipartisan support and was 
investigating Morales for corruption.\318\ In stark contrast to 
previous administrations, the Trump administration was largely 
silent about Morales' move against the CICIG.\319\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \317\ Griff Witte et al., ``Around the globe, Trump's style is 
inspiring imitators and unleashing dark impulses,'' The Washington 
Post, Jan. 22, 2019; WOLA, ``Fact Sheet: the CICIG's Legacy in Fighting 
Corruption in Guatemala,'' Aug. 27, 2019, https://www.wola.org/
analysis/cicigs-legacy-fighting-corruption-guatemala/.
    \318\ Mary Beth Sheridan, ``How U.S. apathy helped kill a 
pioneering anti-corruption campaign in Guatemala,'' The Washington 
Post, June 14, 2019.
    \319\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Committee staff heard from former U.S. diplomats who served 
in the Trump administration that U.S. diplomats on the ground 
saw first-hand how President Trump's actions undermined the 
U.S. government's ability to promote democracy. ``They just 
didn't take us seriously anymore,'' said one former Foreign 
Service Officer, on her interactions with her foreign 
counterparts.\320\ ``It was hard to lobby the Somali government 
for free, fair, more representative electoral process and for 
human rights when Trump and Tillerson were saying that human 
rights weren't important.''\321\1 As a former U.S. official 
told Committee staff, ``Promotion of human rights and 
democratic values are not being carried out with the same vigor 
by our diplomats, partly because the example the U.S. is 
setting undermines their credibility on these issues, partly 
because the administration does not care about these issues, 
partly because there are not ambassadors in relevant 
positions.''\322\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \320\ Interview of Former Foreign Service Officer, Apr. 2019.
    \321\ Id.
    \322\ Interview of Former Director, National Security Council, July 
2019.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------




``Promotion of human rights and democratic values are not being 
carried out with the same vigor by our diplomats.''


                                             --Former U.S. Official





    Some diplomats have had Trump's rhetoric thrown back at 
them.\323\ A former senior U.S. official told Committee staff, 
``It is difficult to raise human rights in meetings with 
foreign counterparts when the President could contradict you at 
any point. You don't want to drop the hammer on someone for 
democracy or human rights issues, and then have Trump say, 
`He's my buddy.' That hurts the State Department.''\324\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \323\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, May 
2019.
    \324\ Interview of Former Senior U.S. Official, May 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For example, as a former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico 
recounted, Mexican officials were not subtle in communicating 
that the United States could no longer lecture them on 
conflicts of interest, given the ways that the Trump 
administration was short-circuiting processes and institutions 
in favor of direct access to the White House and President 
Trump's family.\325\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \325\ Interview of Former U.S. Ambassador, June 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------




``They just didn't take us seriously anymore,'' said one former 
Foreign Service Officer, on her interactions with foreign 
counterparts.






    It is also harder--if not impossible--for the U.S. to 
credibly promote values like transparency and good governance 
given President's Trump behavior as well as that of other 
senior administration officials. As one former Assistant 
Secretary of State told Committee staff, ``How do you tell a 
country to be more transparent about its finances when your 
President isn't releasing his tax returns? It sends a very bad 
signal and is having an impact.''\326\ Another former Acting 
Assistant Secretary of State put it this way: ``Our diplomats 
go in to make demarches on anti-corruption, rule of law, or 
freedom of the press, and they know the person they are talking 
to is quietly laughing at them on the inside over the hypocrisy 
of the message. It is embarrassing to go in with a demarche 
when you have all of that baggage in Washington.''\327\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \326\ Interview of Former Assistant Secretary of State, May 2019.
    \327\ Interview of Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State, 
Sept. 2020.

Ceding Ground to Adversaries 
    Both Russia and China recognize the strategic opportunity 
presented by the disarray of the Trump administration and its 
chaotic approach to foreign policy, and are eager to capitalize 
on U.S. wavering to expand their global influence.\328\ When 
the United States withdraws from diplomatic agreements and is 
absent from multilateral fora, when the United States abandons 
its allies and partners, and when the United States walks away 
from upholding democratic principles, it creates opportunities 
for China and Russia to advance their interests at the expense 
of both the United States and a sustainable liberal 
international order. Diminished U.S. credibility and leadership 
on human rights has allowed China to build a coalition at the 
United Nations that has enabled genocide in Xinjiang and 
defended China's actions in Hong Kong.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \328\ See Bobo Lo, ``Global Order In The Shadow Of The Coronavirus: 
China, Russia And The West: It's time to rethink global governance and 
its priorities,'' Lowy Institute, July 29, 2020, https://
www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/global-order-shadow-coronavirus-
china-russia-and-west#--ftn13.

Providing Openings to China
    The growing power of China at the United Nations and the 
United States' unwillingness to stand up to Chinese human 
rights abuses has been apparent in a series of clashes at the 
UN over Xinjiang. In 2018, the United States withdrew from the 
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), citing ``political bias,'' 
particularly towards Israel, noting there had been more 
resolutions passed against Israel than North Korea, Iran, and 
Syria combined.\329\ The byproduct of the United States' 
withdrawal is that China is able to more easily build a 
coalition of ``like-minded'' countries to defend its repressive 
actions.\330\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \329\ Nikki Haley, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United 
Nations, and Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State, ``Remarks on the UN 
Human Rights Council,'' U.S. Department of State, June 19, 2018.
    \330\ See Dave Lawler, ``The 53 Countries Supporting China's 
Crackdown on Hong Kong,'' Axios, Jul. 3, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For example, China has amassed sufficient support for its 
actions and policies in Xinjiang, hampering the ability of the 
UN to address the issues in a substantial way.\331\ It also 
recently received support from 53 countries for its new, 
abusive national security law for Hong Kong, while only 27 
criticized it.\332\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \331\ Lindsay Maizland, ``Is China Undermining Human Rights at the 
United Nations?'' Council on Foreign Relations, July 9, 2019; Sheena 
Chestnut Greitens et al., ``Understanding China's `preventive 
repression' in Xinjiang,'' Lawfare, Mar. 1, 2020; Sophie Richardson, 
``China's Influence on the Global Human Rights System,'' Global China: 
Assessing China's Growing Role in the World, The Brookings Institution, 
Sept. 2020.
    \332\ Dave Lawler, ``The 53 Countries Supporting China's Crackdown 
on Hong Kong,'' Axios, Jul. 3, 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In July 2019, more than 20 ambassadors wrote to the UNHRC 
calling on China to refrain from the arbitrary detention and 
restrictions on freedom of movement of Uyghurs and other Muslim 
and minority communities in Xinjiang.\333\ The United Kingdom, 
Canada, and Germany joined the letter, but not the United 
States.\334\ In response, China marshaled 37 countries to write 
four days later in support of its policies in Xinjiang.\335\ 
The pro-China letter commended China's ``remarkable 
achievements in the field of human rights,'' and was signed by 
countries with poor human rights records, including Saudi 
Arabia, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Belarus, and 
Myanmar.\336\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \333\ Roie Yellinek & Elizabeth Chen, ``The ``22 vs. 50'' 
Diplomatic Split Between the West and China Over Xinjiang and Human 
Rights,'' The Jamestown Foundation, Dec. 31, 2019, https://
jamestown.org/program/the-22-vs-50-diplomatic-split-between-the-west-
and-china-over-xinjiang-and-human-rights/.
    \334\ Tom Miles, ``Saudi Arabia and Russia among 37 states backing 
China's Xinjiang policy,'' Reuters, July 12, 2019. Catherine Putz, 
``Which Countries Are For or Against China's Xinjiang Policies? Last 
week, two coalitions sent competing letters to the UN Human Rights 
Council criticizing or backing China's Xinjiang policies,'' The 
Diplomat, July 15, 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-
countries-are-for-or-against-chinas-xinjiang-policies/.
    \335\ Tom Miles, ``Saudi Arabia and Russia among 37 states backing 
China's Xinjiang policy,'' Reuters, July 12, 2019.
    \336\ ``37 countries defend China over Xinjiang in UN letter,'' 
Channel News Asia, Jul. 13, 2019, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/
asia/37-countries-defend-china-over-xinjiang-in-un-letter-11716668; Tom 
Miles, ``Saudi Arabia and Russia among 37 states backing China's 
Xinjiang policy,'' Reuters, July 12, 2019. In 2020, the total number of 
signatories in support of China to 50. Roie Yellinek & Elizabeth Chen, 
``The ``22 vs. 50'' Diplomatic Split Between the West and China Over 
Xinjiang and Human Rights,'' The Jamestown Foundation, Dec. 31, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    While a dozen United Nations Special Rapporteurs issued an 
unprecedented and devastating assessment of the Chinese 
government's counterterrorism law in November 2019, showing the 
way the law is being used to justify gross violations of basic 
rights and freedoms in Xinjiang, China's diplomacy enabled by 
the lack of U.S. leadership has rendered these international 
institutions unable to act.\337\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \337\ UN Special Rapporteur, Comments on the Effect and Application 
of the Counter-Terrorism Law of the People's Republic of China, the 
2016 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Implementing Measures, Office of 
the High Commissioner for Human Rights, OL CHN 18/2019, Nov. 1, 2019, 
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Terrorism/SR/OL--CHN--18--
2019.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A similar story of dueling statements at the UNHRC played 
out in 2020: 27 countries signed a statement criticizing 
China's national security law for Hong Kong and its abhorrent 
policies in Xinjiang.\338\ The United States was, once again, 
not a signatory. And, again in an echo of the July 2019 events, 
Cuba led 53 countries in signing a joint statement supporting 
China's actions in Hong Kong.\339\ The signatories in support 
of China included at least 40 countries that have signed onto 
China's Belt and Road infrastructure project, and many of the 
African signatories are trying to renegotiate debt payments to 
China amid sharp COVID-related downturns.\340\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \338\ Julian Braithwaite,UK Ambassador to the WTO and UN in Geneva, 
``UN Human Rights Council 44: Cross-regional statement on Hong Kong and 
Xinjiang,'' June 30, 2020, https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/un-
human-rights-council-44-cross-regional-statement-on-hong-kong-and-
xinjiang. The full list of countries that signed the statement 
criticizing China was: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Canada, 
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Germany, Japan, 
Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Marshall Islands, 
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, 
Switzerland, and the U.K. Id.
    \339\ Dave Lawler, ``The 53 countries supporting China's crackdown 
on Hong Kong,'' Axios, July 3, 2020.
    \340\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Keith Harper, who served as the U.S. representative to the 
UNHRC from 2014 to 2017, says America's absence is one major 
reason why the balance tipped so dramatically in China's favor, 
noting that for countries who decide to side with China, 
``there's no detriment . . . because the U.S. isn't at the 
table.''\341\Meanwhile, as China has become the third-largest 
contributor to the UN regular budget and second-largest 
specifically to UN peacekeeping missions, China is starting to 
steer allocation of the UN budget away from human rights, 
including recent efforts to cut funding for key human rights 
positions as well as the Human Rights Up Front initiative.\342\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \341\ Id.
    \342\ Colum Lynch, ``At the UN, China and Russia Score Win in War 
on Human Rights,'' Foreign Policy, Mar. 26, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As one former senior State Department official observed, 
the Trump administration's attempted bullying of the 
international community before the U.S. withdrawal from the 
UNHRC demonstrated a lack of understanding of diplomacy. The 
U.S. negotiating position was effectively ``Do what we say or 
we leave.''\343\ The former official pointed out that ``[o]f 
course autocrats' response to that was, ``Great!''\344\ In a 
remarkable twist in the story of U.S. withdrawal from the 
UNHRC, then-Ambassador Nikki Haley decided to lay the blame for 
the U.S. withdrawal on NGOs, asserting that human rights groups 
like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were no 
different from Russia and China.\345\ Nearly 20 human rights 
organizations sent a letter in response protesting Haley's 
attempt to deflect blame.\346\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \343\ Interview of Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, July 
2019.
    \344\ Id.
    \345\ Stephanie Murray, ``Nikki Haley casts blame on NGOs for U.S. 
withdrawal from rights council,'' Politico, June 20, 2018.
    \346\ See, e.g., Joint NGO letter to Ambassador Haley, June 22, 
2018, available at https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/
AMR5186752018ENGLISH.pdf. Brent Griffiths, ``NGOs to Nikki Haley: Not 
our fault U.S. left U.N. Human Rights Council,'' Politico, June 24, 
2018.

Failing to Promote Democratic Values Abandons a Critical Policy
  Tool for Countering Russian and Chinese Influence
    The Trump administration, while allegedly seeking to 
position U.S. foreign policy to compete with Russia and China, 
has in fact unilaterally disarmed a critical weapon in the 
``arsenal of democracy:'' our values in the competition between 
democracy and authoritarianism.\347\ This competition, based 
upon the ideas around which societies organize themselves, and 
between the forms of government they adopt, is critical for 
U.S. global leadership and influence. While the United States 
has long stood for the promise and success of democracy--a 
``shining city on a hill,'' as President Reagan, channeling 
John Winthrop, so memorably put it--China and Russia are now 
seeking to show the allure of authoritarian political 
systems.\348\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \347\ President Donald Trump, National Security Strategy of the 
United States of America, Dec. 2017.
    \348\ Hal Brands, ``Democracy vs. Authoritarianism: How Ideology 
Shapes Great-Power Conflict,'' Survival, Oct.-Nov. 2018, at 61-114.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Trump administration's unwillingness to promote or 
defend democratic values, at home or abroad, and its embrace of 
a transactional foreign policy have damaged U.S. efforts to 
combat authoritarian powers in three ways. First, neglecting 
the ideological component of the competition provides powers 
like China and Russia with an opportunity to promote their 
systems at the United States' expense. In the past, promoting 
human rights and democracy has been a powerful tool in 
successful U.S. efforts to contain and defeat hostile 
powers.\349\ The Trump administration's abandonment of 
democratic values limits the United States ability to draw a 
stark contrast between a society governed by liberal democracy 
and the repressive authoritarian systems of China and Russia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \349\ During other global struggles with authoritarian powers, the 
United States sought to distinguish its foreign policy from the pure 
power politics that other states practiced. U.S. efforts to promote 
democratic values weakened communist leaders' hold on their own people 
and played an important role in ending the Cold War. See, e.g., Lowell 
Schwartz, Political Warfare against the Kremlin: U.S. and British 
Propaganda Policy at the Beginning of the Cold War, Palgrave Macmillan, 
2009.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    With the United States absent, China has shown itself to be 
more than ready to step in to support anti-democratic actions 
in other countries. For example, after the U.S. and the EU 
withdrew support for the Cambodian July 2018 general election 
following the dissolution of the main opposition party, jailing 
of critics, and shuttering of dissenting media outlets, China 
supported the ``election,'' providing equipment including 
ballot boxes and voting booths.\350\ The irony and risk of 
China providing equipment for elections was not lost on 
observers.\351\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \350\ ``China believes Cambodia's election will be fair, confirms 
support,'' Reuters, Jan. 4, 2018. See also Philip Heijmans, ``Hun Sen--
and China--Win Cambodia Elections,'' Newsweek, July 29, 2018; James 
Hookway, ``Cambodian Strongman Claims Victory in Election Widely 
Criticized as a Farce: Hun Sen extends rule but there are growing 
questions over the 65-year-old's durability,'' The Wall Street Journal, 
July 30, 2018.
    \351\ See, e.g., Hannah Beech, ``Embracing China, Facebook and 
Himself, Cambodia's Ruler Digs In,'' The New York Times, Mar. 17, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Second, failing to frame the ideological component of the 
struggle has weakened U.S. alliances, which area key strategic 
advantage the United States holds over Russia and China. The 
alliances that the United States has built over the past 
seventy years are based on interests, to be sure, but they are 
animated by shared values, and are embedded in a broader effort 
to promote an international order that serves global stability, 
security and prosperity. Under the Trump administration, 
however, U.S. allies see themselves as victims of a self-
interested and transactional U.S. approach, and not partners 
contributing to a joint campaign to protect the free world from 
malign influence. Allies are increasingly asking what 
distinguishes the predatory way the United States practices 
international relations from Russia and China.
    Third, a short-term transactional approach fails to 
recognize the benefits the United States receives in a world 
with more democracies and fewer authoritarian states and where 
countries abide by international law, norms and institutions. A 
world with fewer and less stable democracies is a world that is 
less free and fair, and that provides Russia and China (as well 
as other bad actors) more opportunities to expand their 
influence at the expense of the United States. As a July 2020 
Lowy Institute report on global order in the wake of COVID-19 
argued, we are in ``a growing strategic, political, and 
normative void--a new world disorder,'' dominated by narrow 
self-interest and the steady de-universalization of norms.\352\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \352\ Bobo Lo, ``Global Order in the Shadow of the Coronavirus: 
China, Russia and the West: It's time to rethink global governance and 
its priorities,'' Lowy Institute, July 29, 2020.

Conclusion
    President Trump's abandonment of democratic values at home 
and abroad will likely rank as one of the most consequential 
components of his foreign policy. The decline of U.S. power has 
already reduced the United States' leverage to curtail human 
rights abuses by autocrats. Trump's public embrace of 
autocratic leaders and disregard for the importance of 
democratic norms has accelerated this process. His attacks on 
U.S. democratic institutions have been seen as a green light by 
authoritarian leaders for their efforts to consolidate power 
and rollback civil liberties. Many authoritarian leaders have 
welcomed a U.S. president who is unwilling to stand up against 
and, in the worst cases, embrace their tactics to suppress 
democratic opposition. Anti-democratic forces have become more 
entrenched during Trump's time in office, which will make the 
reversal of the downward slide in global freedom more 
difficult.
    Now more than ever, for the United States to champion the 
ideals that set American democracy apart, it must first live up 
to those ideals at home. The undermining of basic democratic 
principles by an American president threatens not just a 
vibrant U.S. democracy, but the strength of democracies around 
the world.
    Meanwhile, as the United States withdraws and fails to take 
up the mantle of democracy, China has made significant 
international strides during the Trump administration. As the 
United States seeks to compete with China, according to his own 
National Security Strategy, President Trump has abandoned a 
number of levers that should be assisting us: U.S. alliances, 
democratic values, and the international institutions the 
United States was pivotal in creating. As a former Japanese 
official told Committee staff, the Asia-Pacific region would 
like China to emulate the very norms, rules, and values that 
the U.S. is casting off.\353\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \353\ Interview of Former Japanese Official, June 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Yet, officials abroad are not uniformly negative about the 
United States' ability to regain the upper hand. In 
conversations with Committee staff, foreign observers and 
policy experts maintained that the U.S. still is, or has the 
potential to be, the de facto world leader, and is still the 
only country who can wave the flag for human rights, democracy, 
and values. Similarly, one foreign official told Committee 
staff that the United States' greatest argument over China has 
been the values that it embodies and stands for, drawing a 
contrast to China's brute economic force.\354\ This provides 
some hope that, if the United States is active abroad and true 
to its principles, it has a chance of unifying our allies and 
rebuilding a more free and fair world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \354\ Interview of Foreign Official, Mar. 2019.

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                               Chapter 4



                      The World Ahead: Conclusion,



                     Findings, and Recommendations

                              ----------                              

Conclusion
    Today, after nearly four years of President Trump at the 
helm of U.S. foreign policy, America's closest allies are 
alienated, and our adversaries have gained influence. The U.S. 
role as the guardian of democracy has slipped; instead, the 
U.S. president provides implicit encouragement to those seeking 
to strengthen an autocratic grip. U.S. diplomats have little 
credibility when demanding that foreign governments respect the 
rule of law and a free press.
    President Trump's ``America First'' approach has damaged 
relations with key allies and deepened mistrust of the United 
States. U.S. withdrawal from international institutions has 
exacerbated global threats and left the United States isolated. 
President Trump's failure to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic 
at home and abroad has called into question whether the United 
States is still able to respond to and manage major 
international crises. His neglect of climate change will only 
exacerbate the challenges facing the United States, from 
unprecedented fires to coastal flooding. The divisive tone set 
by President Trump on racism and injustice has called into 
question how the United States can lead in the world when it 
has yet to heal its own deep divisions.
    In short, President Trump's foreign policy has made 
Americans less safe and secure. The next U.S. president will 
face a radically altered international landscape. While many of 
the challenges from January 2017 remain, the global environment 
is more unstable and hostile, and the United States is in a 
weakened state to address them. The world has adjusted to a 
United States less interested and less able to influence world 
affairs. Setting the clock back to January 2017 will not be an 
option for a new administration. Instead, the United States in 
January 2021 will need to concentrate on rebuilding U.S. 
foreign policy institutions such as the State Department, 
healing the damage the Trump administration has inflicted on 
U.S. relations with allies and partners, and adjusting our 
foreign policy for a new era.
    With these challenges in mind, this report makes the 
following findings and recommendations:


Findings
   President Trump's foreign policy has been marked by chaos, 
        neglect, and diplomatic failures. Former Trump 
        administration officials admit the President's 
        impulsive, erratic approach has tarnished the 
        reputation of the United States as a reliable partner 
        and led to disarray in dealing with foreign 
        governments. Foreign officials are often uncertain 
        about who speaks for the United States. Critical 
        neglect of global challenges has endangered Americans, 
        weakened the U.S. role in the world, and squandered the 
        respect it built up over decades. Sudden 
        pronouncements, such as the withdrawal of U.S. troops 
        from Syria, have angered close allies and caught U.S. 
        officials off-guard. U.S. officials keep their heads 
        down in the hopes that President Trump won't upend U.S. 
        policy in a tweet.

   President Trump's decision-making is highly personalized 
        and ego-centric. Key foreign policy choices and actions 
        are often undertaken that are advantageous for Donald 
        Trump personally, financially, and politically, 
        regardless of their impact on American interests. This 
        is most apparent when Trump's decisions directly 
        contradict his own administration's policy documents 
        and are opposed by his national security staff.

   The Trump administration neglected a variety of serious 
        global threats that threaten Americans' security and 
        prosperity, including climate change, pandemics, and 
        nuclear proliferation. The tragedy of neglecting these 
        issues and the need for international efforts to combat 
        them has been demonstrated by the utter failure of the 
        U.S. and global response to COVID-19. Trump's approach 
        to climate change is one of deliberate neglect, with 
        the United States abandoning international climate 
        efforts and fostering the increasing use of fossil 
        fuels at home.

   President Trump's narrow and transactional view of 
        international relations has alienated U.S. allies and 
        partners. U.S. allies have been the targets of 
        President Trump's transactional approach to foreign 
        policy and are increasingly asking how the U.S. 
        approach to international relations differs from that 
        of Russia and China. The Trump administration's use of 
        tariffs against allies has led them to halt or 
        reconsider cooperation with the United States in a 
        number of critical areas. U.S allies are increasingly 
        ignoring U.S. objections to their policies because they 
        believe the United States is deliberately undermining 
        their interests

   International allies and partners of the United States have 
        begun to move on, viewing the United States not as the 
        democratic leader of the free world, but rather as a 
        destabilizing global force they need to manage. 
        President Trump's abuse of power in the conduct of U.S. 
        foreign policy is causing our allies to take steps to 
        insulate themselves. They are hedging against the 
        United States by pursuing trade agreements with other 
        countries to reduce their dependence on the United 
        States, and forming alternative security partnerships 
        in case the United States abandons them. They are 
        pursuing international engagement, including new 
        multilateral agreements, without U.S. participation or 
        influence.

   Foreign governments have pursued a variety of strategies to 
        navigate President Trump's chaotic and impulsive 
        decision-making. In order to protect their interests, 
        foreign governments and other overseas actors have 
        developed a number of methods to attempt to manage the 
        President, including flattering him, and working 
        through his immediate family. Some have also chosen to 
        avoid engaging with him if possible, working instead as 
        best they can with lower ranking officials.

   The Trump administration's domestic policies, including 
        separating families at the border, sharply reducing 
        refugee admissions, attacking the rule of law and free 
        press, and failing to promote racial equality, have 
        damaged the United States' credibility and standing in 
        the world. U.S. presidents in the past have sought to 
        showcase the United States as a model for what a 
        society can achieve when it is based upon democracy and 
        freedom. President Trump, on the other hand, through 
        his rhetoric and domestic policies, has consistently 
        shown his disdain for pluralism, human rights, civil 
        society, the press, and rule of law. These policies 
        have caused traditional U.S. allies to question the 
        values of the United States, and provided authoritarian 
        leaders an opportunity to consolidate their power.

   Autocratic leaders, on the other hand, have seen President 
        Trump's conduct and behavior as a green light for their 
        own anti-democratic efforts. Trump's attacks on the 
        news media have been picked up around the world and 
        have legitimized foreign leader's efforts to censor and 
        intimidate domestic critics. His attacks on the rule of 
        law inside the United States have been mirrored by 
        authoritarian leaders as they seek to cement their 
        power and avoid prosecution for abuses of office.

   Countries with authoritarian and autocratic leaders are 
        less concerned about violating the human rights of 
        their citizens because they know the United States 
        under President Trump will ignore their repressive 
        activities. Authoritarian leaders in Europe, Asia, 
        Africa, and the Middle East have seen very little, if 
        any, pushback from the highest levels of the Trump 
        administration when they take antidemocratic steps and 
        suppress dissent. Instead, some of these leaders have 
        been welcomed to the White House, which enhances their 
        legitimacy at home. State Department efforts to promote 
        democracy and human rights are ignored and laughed at 
        by foreign officials because they are completely at 
        odds with President Trump's own behavior.

   Countries such as Russia and China have capitalized on the 
        absence of U.S. leadership. The United States' 
        diplomatic withdrawals and absences have created 
        opportunities for China and Russia to advance their own 
        interests, at the expense of U.S. interests. Chinese 
        leadership at the UN provides it with prestige and 
        influence inside the organization, allowing China to 
        steer UN policy away from criticism of its human rights 
        record.

   Failing to promote democratic values abandons a critical 
        policy tool for countering Russian and Chinese 
        influence. The Trump administration, while 
        acknowledging the centrality of great-power competition 
        in global affairs, has unilaterally disarmed the United 
        States in response to the ideological challenge posed 
        by China and Russia. Its failure to provide an 
        effective democratic contrast to authoritarian 
        political systems assists Chinese and Russian efforts 
        to globally promote their system of governance.

   Resetting U.S. foreign policy back to what it was in 2016 
        is not possible. World events and President Trump's 
        foreign policy have fundamental altered the global 
        situation. Moving forward, the United States must 
        adjust to the new international environment and change 
        its policies accordingly.

Recommendations
   The United States should restore democracy, rule of law, 
        human rights, and cooperation with allies and partners 
        as key principles of U.S. foreign and national security 
        policy. The U.S. should reinvest in the alliances and 
        partnerships that are vital for protecting it from 
        international threats.

   The United States should communicate to democratic allies 
        and partners that its relations with them are based 
        upon shared interests and values. While there will 
        always be economic competition between the United 
        States and its allies, the United States should return 
        to a policy that sees allies' success as positive for 
        the United States. The United States should make clear 
        that democratic values are a pillar of our foreign 
        policy, and nations that adhere to these principles 
        will be preferentially treated in comparison to 
        autocratic states and leaders.

   Halting the decline of global freedom and democracy should 
        be a critical objective for U.S. foreign policy. 
        Increasing the number of democracies around the world 
        and the degree of freedom foreign citizens enjoy 
        improves U.S. safety and security. A policy of 
        promoting democracy will help check Chinese and Russian 
        influence, increase the reliability of U.S. partners, 
        and improve the effectiveness of international 
        institutions based upon democratic principles.

   Autocratic leaders should be put on notice that the United 
        States will hold them accountable for violations of 
        human rights and efforts to repress their citizens. The 
        United States must make it clear, through rhetoric and 
        actions, to autocrats around the world that there will 
        be consequences for violating human rights, and 
        repressive power grabs. The U.S. government should 
        never be seen as failing to condemn or defending anti-
        democratic methods of holding onto power.

   The United States should hold the Trump administration 
        accountable for its attacks on democratic norms and 
        values. While the U.S. will need to move forward and 
        set a strong example, it cannot ignore the damage done 
        by the Trump administration to democratic institutions 
        and values. Our country must engage in some accounting 
        of the damage done and take steps to protect our 
        democracy from future abuses.

   The United States should prioritize engagement with 
        multilateral institutions. It should re-engage with 
        international institutions that assist the United 
        States in promoting inclusive economic growth, 
        democracy, and a stable international environment.

   The United States must confront the serious dangers 
        Americans and the world face from global threats, 
        including climate change, pandemics, authoritarianism, 
        and nuclear proliferation, which the Trump 
        administration has ignored. The COVID-19 crisis has 
        been a profound example of the world's 
        interconnectivity and the need to prevent, confront, 
        and contain global threats. To secure Americans and 
        ensure domestic prosperity, the United States needs to 
        engage and lead global efforts to combat global 
        threats.

   Effectively competing against Russia and China should be 
        one of the United States central foreign policy goals. 
        This can best be accomplished by working closely 
        together with our allies. The United States should 
        embrace all of our national tools to combat the growing 
        influence of China and Russia on global affairs. This 
        should include working in close coordination with our 
        democratic allies and promoting democratic values as a 
        contrast to the repressive and authoritarian systems of 
        Russia and China.

   The United States is strongest in the world when it is 
        addressing its domestic flaws, including inequality and 
        racial discrimination. The United States was founded on 
        the principle that all people are equal. Its failure to 
        live up to this principle, especially its long history 
        of racial discrimination, is well understood both at 
        home and abroad. The United States should return to a 
        foreign policy that emphasizes equality, democracy, and 
        human rights, and should communicate to other nations 
        that the United States understands its deep flaws and 
        is working to address them.

   The United States should achieve bipartisan agreement on 
        key foreign policy and national security policies, to 
        alleviate international fears that the United States is 
        an unreliable partner. The next administration should 
        seek Congressional approval for its foreign policy 
        efforts as a way to build lasting bipartisan consensus 
        for its policies. Although difficult, it would 
        demonstrate to international partners that U.S. 
        policies and positions will endure from one 
        administration to the next.

   Congress must reassert its oversight role of the Executive 
        branch and invest in its capacity to legislate and 
        oversee U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. system of 
        government relies on checks and balances, and requires 
        a robust legislative branch. Decades of Congress 
        underinvesting in its own structures, expertise, and 
        personnel have left it unprepared to effectively stand 
        up to the Trump administration's rampant disregard for 
        laws and norms, and overt circumventing of Congress. 
        Congress must be an effective partner and 
        counterbalance to the Executive in charting a whole-of-
        government path forward to reestablishing the United 
        States as a credible ally and principled world power.

   The United States should return professionalism, 
        competency, and high standards to the conduct of U.S. 
        foreign policy. Restoring overseas confidence in the 
        United States requires highly qualified diplomats who 
        conduct themselves in a predictable and transparent 
        manner. A national security establishment with clear 
        and consistent policy guidance will be able to 
        consistently and confidently communicate the views of 
        the United States. The next administration must reduce 
        politicization of foreign policy by nominating highly 
        qualified and experienced individuals to serve as 
        Ambassadors and in other leadership positions at the 
        Department, and enhancing accountability at the 
        Department for misconduct and mismanagement.

   Congress and the next administration must work together to 
        revitalize and improve key foreign policy institutions, 
        such as the State Department, to reflect a commitment 
        to a 21st-century foreign policy strategy. The U.S. 
        must reinvest in diplomacy, building a 21st-century 
        diplomatic corps empowered to address increasingly 
        complex global challenges, such as climate change, 
        cybersecurity, and global health issues. In restoring 
        U.S. global leadership and high standards of competency 
        and professionalism in its diplomatic engagements, the 
        U.S. government must address long-standing vacancies at 
        the State Department, promote more career servants into 
        senior leadership positions at the Department to 
        provide more stability in foreign policy across 
        administrations, and increase diversity at all levels 
        of foreign policy leadership. To recalibrate resources, 
        workforce planning, the budget, and priorities at the 
        State Department, Congress must pass robust State 
        Department authorization legislation.