Assessment of Donald Trump Administration’s Policies Historically: A Comparison with the Andrew Jackson Era
Şener ÇelikDonald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America, has adopted a conservative/right wing stance in domestic and foreign policy since his inauguration. In line with this stance, he embarked on discriminatory practices that led to xenophobia towards migrants and asylum seekers in the country; avoided military intervention in spite of his harsh rhetoric on the use of force abroad; and followed a protective policy in international trade. Trump has recently been compared to the 7th President, Andrew Jackson, in American academic circles and media, claiming that the country’s domestic and foreign policy shifted to an axis defined as the Jacksonian approach. Jackson was accused of xenophobia because of his hostile policies towards North American Indians; and was recognized as an isolationist and non-interventionist in avoiding the use of force. On the other hand, his approach to international trade was close to a liberal attitude. In this study, the similarities and differences between two statesmen were examined in terms of foreigners’ policy, use of force policy and international trade policy, so that, it aimed to evaluate contemporary United States policies from a historical perspective.
Donald Trump Yönetimi Politikalarının Tarihsel Açıdan Değerlendirilmesi: Andrew Jackson Dönemi ile Bir Karşılaştırma
Şener ÇelikAmerika Birleşik Devletleri’nin 45. Başkanı Donald J. Trump, göreve geldiği tarihten bugüne iç ve dış politikada muhafazakar/ sağ bir duruş benimsemiştir. Bu duruş doğrultusunda, ülkedeki göçmen veya sığınmacılara karşı yabancı düşmanlığına varan ayrımcı uygulamalara girişmiş; kuvvet kullanma konusunda, sert retoriğine rağmen askeri müdahalelerden kaçınmış; uluslararası ticarette ise korumacı bir politika takip etmiştir. Trump, ABD’deki akademik çevrelerde ve medyada son dönemde bu özellikleri nedeniyle ülkenin 7. Başkanı Andrew Jackson ile karşılaştırılmış, ülkenin iç ve dış politikasının Jacksoncu yaklaşım olarak tanımlanan bir eksene kaydığı iddia edilmeye başlanmıştır. Jackson, Kuzey Amerika Yerlilerine karşı izlediği düşmanca politikalar nedeniyle yabancı düşmanlığıyla suçlanmış; kuvvet kullanmaktan kaçınması nedeniyle de tecritçi ve müdahale karşıtı bir lider olarak tanınmıştır. Öte yandan, uluslararası ticarete yaklaşımı liberal bir çizgiye yakın olmuştur. Bu çalışmada, iki devlet adamı, yabancılar politikası, kuvvet kullanma politikası ve uluslararası ticaret politikası bağlamlarında karşılaştırılarak, aralarındaki benzerlik ve farklılıklar incelenmiş, günümüz ABD politikalarının tarihsel perspektiften değerlendirilmesi amaçlanmıştır.
Donald Trump has been one of the most controversial political leaders in the world since November 2016, when he was elected as 45th President of the United States, both for his personal character and for his conservative right-wing vision. Although he came from the business world, he challenged the ruling and business elite, which is called ‘the establishment’, at every opportunity, and displayed an attitude that could be called opposing to mainstream media. Trump, who founded his political philosophy and rhetoric on ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again’ slogans, signaled that he would be an actor who would make radical changes in domestic and foreign policy before he took office, and did not hesitate to explain that he would pursue a policy based on American exceptionalism and isolation. His actions, after winning the election, were essentially in harmony with this discourse.
The xenophobia that increased in the country with the strengthening of the white supremacist conservative ideology goes back to the Civil War period, especially after 9/11 in the United States, and the reaction against globalization and liberalism in the international arena played an important role in the election of Trump. Under these circumstances, Trump first attracted attention with his exclusionary and alienating attitude towards immigrants and asylum seekers living in the country. With the socalled travel ban, he tried to prevent the entry of Muslims and Latin Americans into the country, and attempted to end the program known as DACA, which allowed children, whose parents had entered the country illegally, to work and go to college. In line with this exclusionary and isolationist behavior in domestic politics, Trump stepped out of international agreements in which the United States was a party, cut-off relations with regional trade unions such as NAFTA and TPP, and entered an endless trade war with China. In the Middle East, the Trump Administration considered non-state actors as partners in the war against ISIS, but avoided military intervention in the region directly. Within the scope of this strategy, for instance, it provided training and equipment to the separatist Kurdish terrorist organization PYD/YPG in Syria, while never using military force in the combat zone.
Due to these introverted populist policies, Trump has recently begun to be compared with the 7th American President Andrew Jackson in American political science and International Relations circles. Although Jackson, one of 29 American Presidents of military origin, naturally had a very different agenda and problems between 1829 and 1837, it can be said that there are surprising similarities between the two leaders’ world views. Jackson, like Trump, was not a leader of tolerance toward strangers. In 1830, he forced North American Indians to emigrate from their eastern regions to the west and pursued a policy that killed thousands of Indians during the deportation known as Indian Removal. Although he was an officer who had risen to the rank of general, the United States under his Administration did not engage in wars and always avoided military intervention aboard. The only event that the federal government enacted a law on the use of force during Jackson’s period was, interestingly, not a foreign country, but South Carolina, which planned to leave the union. Although the Jackson Administration never used force on South Carolina, it managed to dissuade the state from its separatist policies with threat of using force. On the other hand, Jackson’s departure from Trump was the importance he placed on international trade. During his adminitration, the United States signed commercial agreements with a number of countries, including the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire and Britain.
Undoubtedly, Jackson and Trump are two important political figures in the United States, with similarities and differences. In this study, the similarities and differences between the two statesmen were examined in terms of foreigners policies, the use of force and international trade policies, showed that they have parallel world views and policy practices in terms of xenophobia and non-interventionism, while they differ in international trade policies. In fact, it is unlikely to find an absolute resemblance between the political priorities of Trump, a political leader in the era of globalization, and Jackson’s political agenda in the nineteenth century, when this concept was not yet in dictionaries. In this article, it was found that the two leaders have a parallel political paradigm in certain aspects, but based on this determination, it would not be right to define the current Administration in the United States as completely Jacksonian. Trump and Jackson were populist leaders with similar worldviews and political activities, surprisingly, with 179 years between their adminstrations. However, it would be extremist to conclude that there is an absolute congruence between the two leaders’ domestic and foreign policies and that the United States has time traveled back to the Jacksonian era today.
