President Trump is promoting "the national interest'' of the United States
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Trump, United States, national interest, foreign policy, American first, international politics, national security, ecology, political economy
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Abstract
The "national interest" has a long history of being an instrument of political action. By which it means, "the national interest" is a main engine that drives the behavior of states internationally. For this reason, analyzing a state's foreign policy implies studying the representation of its national interests. However, "the national interest's" definition is the object of a big division between objectivists and subjectivists. When objectivists, such as Morgenthau, believe that we can reach an objective and scientific definition of national interest and that it is defined in terms of power, subjectivists, such as Rosenau, challenge this definition of national interest and presume that national interest has two functions: firstly, national interest will be thought and elaborated by statesmen and, consequently, will be determined by how they think (their background, relationship with neighbors ... etc.), secondly, the national interest is being instrumentalized to justify and legitimize foreign policy decisions; therefore it is going to be part of the discourse of state representatives who try to legitimize their actions on the international scene. Therefore for Rosenau the national interest has no clear definition and cannot be measured; however, it can only be revealed in the process and the study of decision making in government. In this essay, we will be focusing on two actions of the Trump administration's foreign policy, through which we aim to explain and analyze how he promotes the national interest. Knowing that Trump's administration's foreign policy "American first" is considered a conservative realist. By which this means, but not only, it acknowledges that power has a main role in international politics.
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[...] This shows a contradiction between the argument and the decision. Another contradictory element in Trump representation of what is a threat for the national security, is the fact that his administration defends the "gun right" and as matter of fact the mass shooting takes hundreds of lives each year and scientific data has proved that mass shooting number of victims exceed those of terrorist attacks10. This presentation of the citizens of these five Muslim countries as terrorists or potential terrorists by this ban, can be seen as an essentialist presentation that attributes an essential character « terrorism » to these five nations. [...]
[...] Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games. International Organization, 427-460. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706785 - Torre-Schaub M., Delmas-Marty M., Bilan et perspectives de l'Accord de Paris (COP 21) : regards croisés : actes de la Journée d'études "Bilan et perspective post Cop 21" du 31 mai 2016, Paris : IRJS éditions, DL 2017 - French edition - Turner, M. G. (2015), Celebrating the past, embracing the future. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 13: 291-291. doi:10.1890/1540-9295-13.6.291 - Reiners, W. [...]
[...] A., Lockwood, J. A., Reiners, D. S. and Prager, S. D. (2017) years of ecology: what are our concepts and are they useful?. Ecol Monogr, 87: 260-277. doi:10.1002/ecm.1243 Press articles: - Giorgis, H., The Faulty Logic in Trump's Travel Ban, The Atlantic, Jan https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/trumps-travel-ban-logic-flaw/579631/ - Friedman, U., Where America's Terrorists Actually Come From, The Atlantic, Jan 2017 - Smilowitz, Elliot (June 2017). "Trump: We are getting out of Paris climate deal". [...]
[...] He described this accord to be "unfair" to the "US's businesses, workers, people and taxpayers". And added that this agreement leaves "the American workers and taxpayers absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production".15 So in another word, Trump withdrawal from Paris agreement was promoted to be done in the name of national interest and the protection of Americans interests. This discourse shows how Trump use the national interest to legitimate his foreign policy decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement Indeed, the desire to put forward the interests of the United States to the detriment of a collective interest is totally demonstrated through the withdrawal of the Paris agreements insofar as President Trump denounces an injustice: "The bottom line is that the Paris agreement is very unfair at the highest level to the United States"16. [...]
[...] The traumatic terrorist attack and how media produced it and reproduced it back then, has predisposed Americans to believe in political discourses that instrument people's fears from Islamic terrorism. Consequently, the executive order 13769 entitled "Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States" was signed in January 20179. It bans nationalities of (Yemen, Iran, Syria, Somalia and Libya) from entering the US. However, none of these five nationalities took part in the terrorist attack of 9/11, and nationalities who were related to this attack like Saudi-Arabia were not mentioned in this executive order. [...]
