Trump and the Remaking of American Grand Strategy

"A brilliant, impeccably researched must-read analysis of the shifting tectonic plates of American power."

- Inderjeet Parmar, Professor of International Politics, City University of London, UK

This book offers a comprehensive explanatory account of Trump's foreign policy by assessing its nature, determining the extent to which it broke with the policy of preceding presidencies, and explaining this shift's genesis. We argue that Trump has succeeded in remaking America's grand strategy by unmaking its long-standing strategy of what we call Open Door Globalism, a strategy of economic expansionism through the promotion of open markets globally and its institutionalization into a US-led liberal world order. Trump has broken with Open Door Globalism in probably lasting ways by adopting an outlook and strategy of neo mercantilist economic nationalism based upon an 'America First' redefinition of US sovereignty and national interests. Explaining this Trumpian shift in US foreign policy we focus on the social sources of Trump's foreign policy-making elite's agency, analysing its embeddedness in elite networks and within the changing global and domestic context. The latter, coupled with a crisis of established elite power, also indicates why Biden has not returned to Open Door Globalism but doubled down on aspects of the Trumpian economic nationalist break.

Bastiaan van Apeldoorn is Professor of Global Political Economy and Geopoliticsat the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is the author of several books, edited volumes and articles in journals like International Affairs, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of European Public Policy, New Political Economy, Globalizations and Global Networks.

JaSa Veselinovic is a PhD Researcher in Political Science at the Berlin Graduate School for Global and Transregional Studies, SCRIPTS, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Naná de Graaff is Associate Professor in International Relations at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is the author of several books, edited volumes and articles in journals like International Affairs, Review of International Political Economy, European Journal of International Relations, and Global Networks. De Graaff chairs the EU-COST China in Europe Research Network.

Chapter 1: Introduction. - Chapter 2: Theorizing Trump: A Critical Political -Economy Approach. - Chapter 3: American Grand Strategy before Trump: The History and Nature of Open-Door Globalism. - Chapter 4: Enter Trump and the Trumpists: A Social Network Analysis of Trump s Foreign Policy-Makers. - Chapter 5: The Changing Global Context of US Foreign Policy: Great Power Competition and the China Challenge . - Chapter 6: The Trumpian Shift: From Open Door Globalism to Economic Nationalism. - Chapter 7: Conclusion: Trump and the Enduring Crisis of the American Power Elite.