Professors Emmanuel Jean-Francois, Nukhet Sandal, and Mario Grijalva discuss “How other countries view America’s current election in terms of being concerned with their own countries’ relationship with America” in Ohio University’s Ask the Experts Election 2020 series.
Sandal is Associate Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts & Sciences.
“Until the Trump administration, when we were teaching foreign policy we used to say that there’s not much difference between Democrat and Republican foreign policies. You have a certain trajectory and certain strategy; it is relatively boring. So when election time comes you would have maybe minor differences but it wouldn’t be anything major. With the Trump administration, the tenets of American foreign policy has been challenged in multiple ways…. There is this America first nationalism and a very personal style. The discourse is not through institutions anymore. It is President Trump’s personal bold expressions, usually not expected, inconsistent. So you don’t know what the next step will be. And most importantly, from my point of view if I wear my foreign policy hat, is the challenging of the really close, important alliances. NATO, for example, is the major alliance that was challenged…which led to a concern in European countries.”
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