This Is the Thinking Behind Trump’s Puzzling Foreign Policy
What is “civilizationism”?
Mr. Schuette is a fellow in the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Guida is an editor in Times Opinion.
We are not done trying to make sense of the jolts and lurches of Trump 2.0. Take foreign policy: President Trump and a group of intellectuals of the “New Right” have transformed how America acts in the world.
But is there a grand strategy behind this convulsion? Leonard A. Schuette, a fellow in the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, thinks that there is, or that at least one in the works.
Schuette calls this strategy “civilizationism.” In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, he explained that this theory would structure the world into spheres of influence defined by civilizations, with hegemons (the United States, China) dominating their own spaces and pursuing peaceful coexistence rather than aspiring to global leadership.
With Trump meeting with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, this week, Schuette explored “civilizationism” and its implications at home and abroad in a written conversation with John Guida, an editor in Times Opinion. It has been edited for length and clarity.
John Guida: What were the pre-Trump 2.0 traditional foreign policy groups, and how do they contrast with “civilizationism”?
