Aaron David Miller
Aaron David Miller: In this multipolar world with our own domestic house in a fair amount of turmoil, how do you create addition—in terms of people who are willing to associate with you—rather than subtraction?
Jake Sullivan: It’s very difficult to answer that question in a moment of such profound turmoil and upheaval in America’s approach to the world.
But what I can say is the hand we passed on to the Trump administration when we left on January 20 was a hand that involved a growing and dynamic transatlantic alliance, with us adding to NATO two important and capable partners who became allies, Finland and Sweden. It involved a deepening relationship with our Asian allies that we were working with not just on hard security issues, but on technology, on clean energy, on infrastructure, and on so much else. It involved a deepening relationship with India, the world’s largest democracy, if an imperfect democracy. It involved new relationships with countries like Vietnam and Angola.
All of that was built around the basic idea that the United States could bring a value proposition to the world in terms of our capacity to help mobilize countries to solve problems. What I have been struck by is instead of trying to carry forward the momentum of addition, they are pursuing a policy of subtraction, starting with the transatlantic alliance, but also even closer to home, with Canada. That is a source of real concern.
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