A ‘pivot’ that never existed: America’s Asian strategy under Obama and Trump

Abstract

This article argues that Donald Trump’s Asian strategy hardly marks a radical transformation from Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’. This is because the ‘pivot to Asia’ never really existed. Although Obama was successful in building legitimacy for the strategy through international norms, he failed to translate his lofty rhetoric into practice. Much of his original pivot components (building a constructive relationship with China, coordinating with Asian allies and multilateralism in the Association of South East Asian Nations and the Trans-Pacific Partnership) has either failed or did not live up to expectations. Donald Trump was adamant that the Asian pivot was a bad strategy and that he would not follow it. But although he completely discarded Obama’s legitimization of the rebalance (as Trump speaks pragmatically and does not care about international norms), in actuality he has followed many of Obama’s policies, and even improved on some of them. That being said, Trump’s ‘pivot actions’ appear to be erratic, pragmatic short-term actions rather than a meticulously planned long-term strategy similar to Obama’s rebalance (which did not materialize). Thus, while Obama failed to transform the pivot into an effective strategy, neither is Trump’s effectiveness backed by a coherent Asian strategy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Donilon (2013) defined the pivot by means of five distinct categories: (i) coordination with American allies in Asia, (ii) cooperation with other Asian states, (iii) a constructive relationship with China, (iv) support for multilateral organizations such as ASEAN and EAS and (v) trade and investment cooperation through the TPP.

2 The Sunshine policy was a South Korean attempt to engage North Korea in friendly diplomatic relations and economic cooperation. It was executed roughly between 1998 and 2008, most notably by the administrations of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.

3 Obama has also visited or negotiated with other regional countries. In Myanmar, for instance, Obama made an official visit in 2012; a year later he welcomed Myanmar’s President, Thein Sein, to Washington.

4 Defined by export-based mercantilist economic policy with a heavy role of government and its directed credit. Other means of developmentalism include tariffs, or non-tariff barriers, undervalued currencies, enforced joint ventures, informal cultural discrimination against imports, and industrial policies with explicit targets from strategy ministries. See, for example, Kelly (2014) and Simone (2001).

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the research funding provided by Metropolitan University Prague under internal research grant no. 57-04.

Notes on contributors

Michal Kolmaš

Michal Kolmaš is an assistant professor of Asian studies at Metropolitan University Prague. He focuses and published on Japan´s foreign policy, national identity and Asian security in journals including The Pacific Review, Japanese Journal of Political Science and China Report. His latest book comes out with Routledge in 2019. Email: [email protected]

Šárka Kolmašová

Šárka Kolmašová is an assistant professor of international relations at Metropolitan University Prague. She focuses and published on military interventions, Responsibility to Protect and international institutions in journals such as Europe-Asia Studies, Gender & Politics and New Perspectives. Email: [email protected]