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Pulling out of international climate treaties. Disrupting long-standing alliances. Ripping up trade agreements.
Donald Trump has spent his political career promising to do all of these things and, now that he’s back in the White House, he’s already on his way towards accomplishing them. In just the first few days since taking office, he has ordered the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords, announced his intention to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and continued to make noises about taking back the Panama Canal.
There’s plenty more to come. As Trump sees it, the U.S. is in constant competition with ― and facing constant threats from ― other countries. It’s a nearly Hobbesian worldview in which there’s rarely common good to be found, or mutual benefit to cooperation. It’s what he means when he vows, as he did in Monday’s Inaugural address, that “during every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first.”
Trump is by no means the first American politician to talk or to think this way. But he’s the first to make this posture the official policy of the U.S. government — at least since the end of World War II, when U.S. leaders led the effort to create the agreements and relationships that Trump is trying to tear down.
They did so in part because, after a worldwide economic depression and two horrific world wars, they had come to believe that more cooperation among countries would ultimately make the U.S. richer and safer. Seven decades of progress, prosperity and (relative) peace suggest they were largely right.
That doesn’t mean global connectedness have always worked out to the benefit of Americans, or the rest of the world for that matter. That is why, for example, even defenders of international organizations like the United Nations have called for major reforms ― or why even many promoters of freer trade support initiatives that would protect U.S. workers from low-wage competition.
But Trump has in mind a much more radical shift. And maybe no single Trump decision better illustrates his intentions than his order pulling the U.S. out of the World Health Organization ― a move that, public health experts told me this week, is fraught with danger.
They don’t simply worry that withdrawing from WHO could undermine a vital international agency. They also fear that it will endanger Americans, making the nation more vulnerable to deadly diseases and new pandemics. And they make a compelling case.
“Preventing and controlling outbreaks is not just about the health of communities but also about economics and national security,” Preeti Malani, an infectious disease professor at the University of Michigan, told me.
The concern led to a series of agreements including the 1892 International Sanitary Convention and 1926 International Maritime Sanitary Convention. These agreements set early, rudimentary standards for how to report outbreaks and when to impose quarantines.
The establishment of WHO accelerated and strengthened these efforts — by, among other things, creating systems for global sharing of disease data, launching worldwide vaccination campaigns and coordinating responses to outbreaks. WHO played an essential role in the eradication of smallpox, by most accounts, and in the near-eradication of polio.
That kind of work is still going on today, as is the response to sudden health threats. Just a few months ago, WHO coordinated what now looks like a successful effort to contain and then wipe out an outbreak of Marburg virus in Rwanda. It’s an awful disease that leads to bleeding, severe vomiting, neurological issues and eventually a painful death. But in the end there were just 66 reported illnesses and 15 fatalities, and within three months the lack of new cases allowed local officials to declare the outbreak over.
“We found out about it quickly, and that was the way the warning system is supposed to work, and precautions were taken,” says Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy for the nonpartisan research organization KFF. “These are not things that the average American is going to always feel, but that’s partially because the system is designed to try to contain outbreaks when they happen.”
Back in 2014, WHO wasn’t as successful at stopping an outbreak of Ebola, a closely related virus, that started in the western part of Africa before spreading to Europe and the U.S. Both at the time and later, experts faulted WHO for not raising alarms about the appearance of the disease earlier. But it was still WHO that coordinated the subsequent international response, whose success at preventing the virus from killing many more people won widespread acclaim.
“WHO emergency teams were on the ground, they were isolating cases, they were providing health care,” Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told me. “They did the contact tracing and eventually stopped the pandemic in its tracks.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-trumps-america-first-strategy-213433025.html
Donald Trump has spent his political career promising to do all of these things and, now that he’s back in the White House, he’s already on his way towards accomplishing them. In just the first few days since taking office, he has ordered the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords, announced his intention to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and continued to make noises about taking back the Panama Canal.
There’s plenty more to come. As Trump sees it, the U.S. is in constant competition with ― and facing constant threats from ― other countries. It’s a nearly Hobbesian worldview in which there’s rarely common good to be found, or mutual benefit to cooperation. It’s what he means when he vows, as he did in Monday’s Inaugural address, that “during every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first.”
Trump is by no means the first American politician to talk or to think this way. But he’s the first to make this posture the official policy of the U.S. government — at least since the end of World War II, when U.S. leaders led the effort to create the agreements and relationships that Trump is trying to tear down.
They did so in part because, after a worldwide economic depression and two horrific world wars, they had come to believe that more cooperation among countries would ultimately make the U.S. richer and safer. Seven decades of progress, prosperity and (relative) peace suggest they were largely right.
That doesn’t mean global connectedness have always worked out to the benefit of Americans, or the rest of the world for that matter. That is why, for example, even defenders of international organizations like the United Nations have called for major reforms ― or why even many promoters of freer trade support initiatives that would protect U.S. workers from low-wage competition.
But Trump has in mind a much more radical shift. And maybe no single Trump decision better illustrates his intentions than his order pulling the U.S. out of the World Health Organization ― a move that, public health experts told me this week, is fraught with danger.
They don’t simply worry that withdrawing from WHO could undermine a vital international agency. They also fear that it will endanger Americans, making the nation more vulnerable to deadly diseases and new pandemics. And they make a compelling case.
What The WHO Does, How It Came To Be
WHO is a United Nations sub-agency charged with promoting better health around the world. It dates to 1948, although its conceptual origins go back to the 19th century, when increases in global shipping created concerns about the spread of disease from dockworkers and locals to mariners, who would then take illnesses with them to other ports.“Preventing and controlling outbreaks is not just about the health of communities but also about economics and national security,” Preeti Malani, an infectious disease professor at the University of Michigan, told me.
The concern led to a series of agreements including the 1892 International Sanitary Convention and 1926 International Maritime Sanitary Convention. These agreements set early, rudimentary standards for how to report outbreaks and when to impose quarantines.
The establishment of WHO accelerated and strengthened these efforts — by, among other things, creating systems for global sharing of disease data, launching worldwide vaccination campaigns and coordinating responses to outbreaks. WHO played an essential role in the eradication of smallpox, by most accounts, and in the near-eradication of polio.
That kind of work is still going on today, as is the response to sudden health threats. Just a few months ago, WHO coordinated what now looks like a successful effort to contain and then wipe out an outbreak of Marburg virus in Rwanda. It’s an awful disease that leads to bleeding, severe vomiting, neurological issues and eventually a painful death. But in the end there were just 66 reported illnesses and 15 fatalities, and within three months the lack of new cases allowed local officials to declare the outbreak over.
“We found out about it quickly, and that was the way the warning system is supposed to work, and precautions were taken,” says Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy for the nonpartisan research organization KFF. “These are not things that the average American is going to always feel, but that’s partially because the system is designed to try to contain outbreaks when they happen.”
Back in 2014, WHO wasn’t as successful at stopping an outbreak of Ebola, a closely related virus, that started in the western part of Africa before spreading to Europe and the U.S. Both at the time and later, experts faulted WHO for not raising alarms about the appearance of the disease earlier. But it was still WHO that coordinated the subsequent international response, whose success at preventing the virus from killing many more people won widespread acclaim.
“WHO emergency teams were on the ground, they were isolating cases, they were providing health care,” Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told me. “They did the contact tracing and eventually stopped the pandemic in its tracks.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-trumps-america-first-strategy-213433025.html