THE IMPACT OF THE US “AMERICA FIRST” FOREIGN POLICY ON CHANGES IN THE WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER

Abstract

The article determines the parameters of the impact of the US “America First” foreign policy on the process of changes in the system of the world economic order. It is established that the policy has become a powerful catalyst for the systemic crisis and collapse of the global neoliberal world order, fragmentation of the world economy, and the transition to a qualitatively new order.

The opportunistic nature of the “America First” policy is stressed, with an emphasis on its frequent and unpredictable changes, lack of consistency and eclectic combination of archaic concepts with modernist principles. Its key properties are: a clear focus on protectionism as a tool for pressure on other countries to adjust the trade regime in favor of the US; transactionalism, aimed at concluding with “partner countries” agreements that are beneficial to the US; significant limitation of international legal regulation mechanisms with the replacement of the policy of multilateralism with a network of contradictory bilateral agreements; the US withdrawal from a number of important international organizations and agreements, which leads to the growing fragmentation of the world economy and the destruction of the basic structures that underpin the world order.

At the same time, this policy faces considerable opposition from alternative centers of global power –– China and Europe, as well as the Global South countries, which are objectively not interested in the complete dismantling of existing institutions of global regulation. This calls into question the ability of the United States to impose on other countries its vision of world order based on the concept of Pax Americana.

The Achilles heel of the “America First” policy is a high level of subjectivism, political voluntarism and personification, a tendency to offer oversimplified and simply primitive recipes for structurally complex and contradictory processes. This creates a significant challenge for the implementation of this course in the future and may result in undesirable and unpredictable consequences for the US. Under the above conditions, any state is to provide the formation and implementation of a flexible multi-variant development policy based on strategic autonomy and the ability to ensure the resilience of the national (socio-)economic system.