Five Pillars of Freedom: First Steps Toward a New Democratic Foreign Policy
Including how Democrats should talk about tariffs and trade!
A bonus post this week in anticipation of President Trump’s insane imposition of new tariffs on America’s trading partners around the world this afternoon, drawn from my recent report at the day job at the Progressive Policy Institute entitled “Five Pillars of Freedom: First Steps Toward a New Democratic Foreign Policy.”
Here’s a bit from the introduction:
Come January 20, 2029, any Democrat who succeeds Donald Trump as president must be prepared to confront the very different and much more dangerous world Trump will almost certainly create. The Democratic Party must begin thinking seriously about a new foreign policy approach now — one based on the party’s best internationalist traditions and the defense of freedom worldwide, not fantasies of “restraint” conjured up by progressive isolationists or the timid, managerial approaches of the Obama and Biden years.
Democratic foreign policy would have required a serious refresh even had Kamala Harris prevailed in November 2024. But Trump’s return to the presidency makes matters even more urgent: Unconstrained by more experienced and sober national security voices that understand the value of America’s alliances, Trump appears ready and willing to let his deepest and most destructive foreign policy impulses run wild — as became clear during his first weeks back in office. Long-standing American allies and friends have already found themselves treated as enemies, threatened with and subjected to economic and military pressure, while adversaries and autocrats find themselves welcomed as comrades and given leave to act as they please.
Like prudent military strategists who plan for every possible contingency, Democrats need to prepare for world more hostile to American interests and liberal values than at any point in living memory — and an America much weaker and far less able to defend them. Dictators in Moscow and Beijing will see their power and influence grow, possibly with Ukraine as a de facto Russian vassal state and Taiwan under China’s thumb. Other democracies could well follow America’s example and elect illiberal, far-right governments of their own, a task made all the easier by Trump’s gutting of USAID and the vital support it provides to those fighting for freedom and democracy abroad. NATO and other American alliances may either cease to exist altogether or stumble ahead shadows of their former selves, effectively unable to deter conflicts or defend their members. Future American promises and commitments will lack credibility, particularly when it comes to issues of trade and security…
It will, therefore, not be possible for a future Democratic president to proclaim, as President Joe Biden did, that “America is back” and restore the world as it was before. Institutions and relationships demolished, degraded, and debased by a second Trump presidency, both at home and abroad, cannot simply be resurrected as if nothing had happened over the previous four years. Reconstruction and rebuilding, not restoration and refurbishment, will be the order of the day for any future Democratic foreign policy worthy of the name — and it will need to be done at a moment when America finds itself in its most precarious strategic position since before the Second World War.
The report argues that a new Democratic foreign policy should make the strong and forthright of freedom around the world its central organizing principle, supported by four supporting pillars:
A strong defense capable of meeting present and future challenges.
Alliances that amplify American power and help secure American interests.
Free and open trade with friends and allies around the world.
A willingness to take risks and use American power to defend freedom overseas.
When it come to trade,
President Trump appears hellbent on giving the American public a crash course in the concrete domestic economic benefits of trade. Democrats should seize the opportunity Trump’s trade wars present and once again become the party of free and open trade — not treat trade policy as a political third rail or attempt to out-tariff a Republican Party now committed to protectionism.
That starts with a commitment to repair the damage done by Trump’s trade wars. Democrats should pledge to repeal each and every tariff Trump imposes on America’s friends and allies during his second term, starting with those foisted on America’s closest neighbors. To do so, the United States could either reinstate the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement — the NAFTA successor negotiated by the first Trump administration — should the Trump administration destroy it through tariffs, join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the twelve-nation trade deal that includes both Canada and Mexico as well as other allies like Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom, or both. With China angling to become a CPTPP member, it’s especially imperative that the United States sign on to the agreement — in part to ensure that Beijing does not become an irreplaceable export market and source of investment inroads for America’s long-time allies and friends…
American credibility on [trade] can be enhanced if at least one of the country’s two main political parties remains publicly and vocally committed to trade. Democrats ought to shed whatever protectionist impulses they retain and once more take up the cause of free and open trade with America’s friends and allies around the world.
There’s much more in the report itself, which you can find here!
