America First policy will get America hurt first

Note: The following article is taken from the Chinese-language "Commentaries on International Affairs".

The United Nations has recently revealed that China has paid its membership dues in full. As the second-largest contributor to the general budget of the United Nations, its contribution makes up 12.01 percent of the total. Stefan Dujarrik, a spokesman for the United Nations secretary general, went so far as to express his appreciation for the contribution in Chinese at a press conference.

In stark contrast to China, the United States, which should pay the world's largest contribution, owed 1.12 billion U.S. dollars to the general budget and for peacekeeping operations as of January 1. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said the money owed by the United States exceeds one-third of the arrears for the peacekeeping budget.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence speaks at an America First Policies "Tax Cuts to Put America First" event, Friday, March 2, 2018, in Detroit. [Photo: IC]

A member state's contribution is mainly determined on its ability to pay, although factors such as its share of the global economy and per capita income are taken into account. The United States has a total economic output exceeding 20 trillion U.S. dollars – almost one-fourth of the world's total – and per capita income that has surpassed 60,000 U.S. dollars. Based on this, the United States should have shouldered the responsibility of covering 22 percent of the cost of the United Nation's general budget and about 28 percent of its peacekeeping costs. However, the world's largest developed economy has long been in arrears, and its demands for a reduction in its fees have placed an undue burden on peacekeeping work.

The United States is, of course, capable of paying its dues. It has chosen not to do so because of the contempt in Washington for the United Nations and other international organizations. The United States has grown comfortable with adhering to the rules when it is convenient and casting off its responsibilities when they contrast with what it perceives to be its national interest. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the United States has withdrawn from a slew of multilateral mechanisms, including the Paris Climate Agreement, UNESCO, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the Iran nuclear deal. And now, it's in the process of quitting the Arms Trade Treaty.

Despite being a founder and a leading member of the NATO alliance, the United States has seen fit to blatantly interfere in the internal affairs of its NATO allies, attack them with claims that they aren't paying their fair share, and threaten to tear apart the transatlantic partnership. At the same time, the United States ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, threatened the Europeans with sanctions if American arms companies were disadvantaged by the development of a European Union defense fund. Germany and France have publicly stated that they would aim to create a European army and seek security independence from the United States. After all, as the European Council President Donald Tusk exclaimed, with friends like that, who needs enemies?

At the same time, the United States is wielding a big stick in the form of punitive tariffs against its trading partners including China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, and Canada. Washington's unilateral tariff policies are also hitting the wallets of American consumers. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow has acknowledged that "it's the American importers, the American companies that pay what, in effect, is a tax increase and oftentimes passes it on to U.S. consumers." Since last year, the American economy has suffered a loss of 7.8 billion U.S. dollars, and farm incomes alone were down 12 percent last year because of the tariff rises. If an extra 25 percent tariff is imposed on 250 billion U.S. dollars of imports from China, and steel and aluminum products are hit with further tariffs, the United States is looking at a loss of 934,000 jobs.

China has already responded to the American tariff rises with countermeasures. The European Union trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom has said Brussels is finalizing a list of American imports that it will target with countermeasures of its own should Washington introduce new taxes on European vehicles. In April, Japan rejected a request by the United States for a reduction in agricultural tariffs. The United States is already excluded from the negotiations for the largest free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific region, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which are nearing completion. At the G20 Hamburg summit in July 2017, the United States was isolated for its uncooperative approach towards dealing with climate change. And in October 2018, the 12th Asia–Europe Meeting Summit issued a statement through the chair expressing collective support for the Iranian nuclear agreement from which Washington has withdrawn.

Given its actions are hurting its own economy and driving away its allies, why is the United States behaving this way? The reason is that it believes the international order it helped to establish after the Second World War no longer serves its own ends, and so Washington is trampling on the rules it helped to write so that it can maintain its hegemony over what it sees as a unipolar world in which it is the dominant power. This is at the heart of the America First philosophy, which is not a new idea, but one that Washington has started pursuing in a more radical and explicit way. But while Washington believes it's onto a winner with this approach, what is abundantly clear is that it is damaging America's international reputation and credibility. This hurts its national interests, and in doing so, does a disservice to the American people. By embracing the America First philosophy, Washington is going against the grain of world events, and risks finding itself standing alone in today's globalized and multipolar world.