PPI President Will Marshall: "Three very different new surveys find that Americans don’t understand our approach to the world now. It’s time to change that." How Democrats Can Replace Trump’s Failing Foreign Policy by Will Marshall, PPI President and Founder It’s hard to know what kind of foreign policy Americans want today. The evidence is mixed. On the other hand, what they don’t want is growing clearer every day—Donald Trump’s brand of self-dealing, morally vacant diplomacy. That Trump views U.S. foreign policy as a vehicle for advancing his political and business interests is evident from the shocking Ukraine revelations and his brazen bid to award a lucrative contract for a G-7 summit to one of his floundering golf clubs. Meanwhile, his Syrian bugout has sparked a rare display of bipartisan outrage on Capitol Hill, and most Americans believe it’s damaged our global reputation as a reliable ally. Even the administration’s successful strike on ISIS leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi underscores Trump’s strategic cluelessness. That attack had to be launched from Iraq, thanks to his decision to leave only enough U.S. troops in Syria to guard oil wells—a dubious mission in the face of warnings that Syria remains “the world’s largest terrorist haven.” Even leaving impeachment aside, Trump’s cloddish misconduct of U.S. foreign relations creates an enormous opening for Democrats in 2020. But they’ll have to do a better job than he has of gauging public sentiment on America’s role in the world. Are Americans really weary of “endless war” and insisting on retrenchment? Or is it simply a matter of exercising restraint in wielding U.S. military power? To what extent does the public still subscribe to the internationalist outlook and vigorous leadership that defined our national strategy after World War II? Three major opinion surveys in 2019 reach very different conclusions, but all shed fascinating light on these questions. In February, a national survey by the Eurasian Group, “Worlds Apart: U.S. Foreign Policy and American Public Opinion,” found that U.S. foreign policy experts and the public are “worlds apart” in outlook. The experts still see an expansive global role for America, while the public favors a “less aggressive” approach to foreign relations, and especially military interventions. The survey also highlights deep partisan divides over the chief threats facing our country. For Democrats, it’s the rise of authoritarian governments around the world; for Republicans, it’s the fear that mass immigration is diluting our national identity. Nonetheless, the report says, Americas share in common a desire to give priority to “domestic needs and the health of American democracy, while avoiding unnecessary intervention beyond the borders of the U.S..” The public equally rejects the 1990s concept of “Indispensable America” and what the report calls “Moneyball America”—the idea that foreign policy should be “driven by calculation of costs and benefits to national interest.” Instead, says, Eurasia Group board president Ian Bremmer, the public favors an “Independent America” focused more on getting our own domestic house in order than trying to steer a fractious, multipolar world. Providing support for the view that voters favor “restrained engagement” was another major survey released last spring, “America Adrift: How the U.S. Foreign Policy Debate Misses What Voters Really Want.” Authored by Brian Katulis, John Halpin and other analysts at the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP), the report found “widespread confusion” as “voters in focus groups did not see an overarching principle, rationale, or clear set of goals in U.S. foreign policy.” Significantly, descriptions of traditional U.S. foreign policy goals fell flat with voters; nor were they moved by the idea of upholding an American-led “liberal international order.” Instead, Americans are looking inward. They want the United States to be strong at home, concentrating on investing in infrastructure, health care and education to ensure our economic competitiveness, rather than boosting defense spending. Their top foreign policy priorities are defending the homeland against terrorism and other external threats, and protecting U.S. jobs. A strikingly different picture emerges from the third and most recent survey of American attitudes on foreign policy, released this fall by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Its title fairly bristles with defiance of today’s conventional wisdom: “Rejecting Retreat: Americans Support U.S. Engagement in Global Affairs.” “Whether they identify as Democrats, Independents, or Republicans, large numbers of Americans continue to favor the foundational elements of traditional, post-World War II US foreign policy,” the report asserts. Unlike President Trump, who questions the value of NATO, most voters express strong support for U.S. security alliances and overseas U.S. military bases. Nor do they share his zero-sum understanding of international trade, which they see as benefiting our country and our trading partners. Voters in this survey want to maintain a qualitatively superior military to support an active U.S. role in assuring collective security in the world. They also adhere to a core premise of America’s post-war internationalist strategy—that promoting human rights and democracy abroad makes America safer. What to make of the dramatic differences in these readings of public opinion? No doubt they reflect the predilections of the organizations that commission them. None of the polls, however, finds majority support for Trump’s attempt to withdraw from international efforts to solve common global problems and push the country toward a ruthlessly transactional “America First” approach unmoored in U.S. political values. This presents Democrats an opening to take the offensive on security and foreign policy. For example, given high levels of Democratic and independent support for trade, they should step up criticism of Trump’s indiscriminate tariffs, which punish friends and foes alike, and promise to rejoin the Pacific free trade pact. The same goes for the Paris climate accords. Democrats should also go after Trump’s fawning attempts to buddy up to the world’s strongmen, which have failed to pay any dividends for the United States. And they should highlight Trump’s disastrous decision to rip up the Iran nuclear deal, which has only made Tehran more truculent and aggressive. Democrats also need to show voters how Trump’s concept of a selfish America ruthlessly pursuing its own national interests at everyone else’s expense is rapidly dissipating the global goodwill our country earned over seven decades by standing up for individual freedom and democracy in the world. He’s unilaterally disarming America of its soft power advantages over authoritarian rivals like Russia and China. In short, Democrats should start spelling out a new internationalist strategy tailored to the new distributions of power and responsibility in a multi-polar world. It should acknowledge that Americans are leery of military interventions and want to focus on rebuilding the domestic foundations of U.S. strength and influence in the world. At the same time, it should recognize that Americans value our friends and allies don’t want to go it alone in the world. And while some voters may share Trump’s appalling indifference to victims of tyranny and injustice around the world, they are far from a majority.  It will take time for such a strategy to incubate and win broad support. But Democrats can start now by campaigning on a promise to reground U.S. foreign policy in the core American ideals that Trump has betrayed. 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