US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s important speech at the Brookings Institution on April 27, 2023 resonated with the international community. In addition to being a comprehensive presentation of the Biden administration’s ‘security’ oriented economic program, the speech was also striking in that it contained some new clues.
Based on Jake Sullivan’s speech, we asked Prof. Dr. Seriye Sezen, Professor at Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences, about the new era of US foreign policy, possible scenarios for economic policies and the competition with China. On the state taking on more ‘roles’ in the economy, the possibilities of reconciliation between American politics and American capital, and the relations between the US and China with European countries and developing countries, Prof. Sezen’s assessments are quite remarkable.
Sullivan’s speeches are an elaboration of Trump-era policies
1) Jake Sullivan’s speech seems to echo reflections of thoughts that have been expressed for some time about the decline of US global hegemony. In short, neoliberalism and globalization are no longer working for the US. Economic protectionism, state intervention and geopolitics are now on the agenda. Do you think these themes will continue to dominate the White House whether Biden wins the elections or not?
There is no doubt that it will continue. Because the problem is not Biden or any other leader, or differences in political agenda or policy priorities between Republicans and Democrats. There may be some nuances between the two parties, their leaders and their policies, but the “national interest” determines the priority of American politics. The differences are about how to protect or maximize these interests. Moreover, the problem areas highlighted in Sullivan’s speech can be seen as a more nuanced and detailed version of Trump-era policies. At the same time, the scope of the speech is largely based on Biden’s January 2020 Foreign Affairs article, “Why America Must Lead Again: Rescuing U.S. Foreign Policy After Trump” published in Foreign Affairs in January 2020, before Biden became president, overlaps significantly with the content of the speech, except for naïve assessments such as “we assumed that the market is efficient under all circumstances and that all growth is good, but we were wrong”, which may sound like a criticism of neoliberalism.
First of all, it is useful to make a few observations. The first is the continuity of the updating of state-market relations in the face of capitalism’s crises. We have experienced this in past crises and we are experiencing it today. In this context, it is systemic that in every crisis of the system, the state withdraws or assumes a role depending on the nature of the crisis.
The second is the rise of China as a power challenging US global hegemony in the 21st century. Globalization has put China ahead of the US, the initiator of globalization, and China is largely a product of globalization. It is China’s rise as a power that benefits more from globalization than the US and even threatens its leadership that has led Trump to adopt anti-globalization, protectionist policies. On the other hand, globalization did not end with Trump saying “globalization is no longer working for me, let’s turn inward”. China has launched its own globalization initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative, and has brought developing countries, including some European countries, into the fold.
Under Biden, Trump policies such as the elimination of the China-US trade deficit and the redirection of US companies’ investments to the country have been taken to a higher level. In this context, the use of the “democracies-autocracies” discourse of the previous period, the pulling of NATO countries to the US side, the toughening of attempts to suppress China’s technological progress, and the launch of new initiatives against the Belt and Road Initiative can be mentioned in this context. In sum, the policies of the two administrations are driven by the same concern. The US is trying to preserve its hegemony by preventing China before it gains more power.
On the other hand, I have to keep my distance from the assessments that geopolitics has been prioritized in the Biden era. Whether we take this concept in its original narrow meaning or in its current, more expanded form, the economic, military and all kinds of security interests/policies of a state are not independent from geopolitics. The US economic policies and its global leadership are closely linked. For this reason, it is useful to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between domestic politics-economics and geopolitics shaping foreign policy, rather than evaluating them under separate headings. Today, if the global leadership of the US is becoming questionable, this is the result of the “relative” weakening of its power in economic, technological, financial, etc. areas that make the US a world-leading country, or at least the fact that this has also become questionable. What aggravates and makes the situation more urgent for the US is the emergence of China as a power.
Consequently, blocking China and restoring the US as the undisputed world leader will be the main policy no matter who wins the election. There is a consensus between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, and opinion polls show that there is no significant divergence between the attitudes of voters of both parties towards China.
The US-EU alliance is not strong and lasting
2) Sullivan’s speech is also a message to US allies. In a situation where the US wants to bind its partners tightly to a common economic strategy, what awaits countries that do not want to take sides in the US-China rivalry or want to benefit from it?
The US-China rivalry is forcing other countries to make a choice. The problem for other countries is that they will have to determine their positions in the face of the ongoing rivalry between the two powers not only in terms of the present, but also in terms of the shape this rivalry will take in terms of the global order.
While it is common to evaluate the countries of the world through Western-centric terminology, such as “West-East”, “developed-underdeveloped”, “south-north”, this kind of division leads us to the mistake of evaluating the countries in this classification as a whole, let alone the accuracy of the values based on the acceptance of this division.
The main discourse of liberal democracies, led by the United States, was that democracy and market economy were prerequisites for development and that countries that did not fulfill these conditions were doomed to remain backward. Within this framework, Western countries legitimized their right to intervene in the political choices of developing countries seeking their aid. However, the progress made by China, an authoritarian regime, and at the same time the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs and political preferences of other countries and mutual benefit in its relations with other countries, created a new form of relationship. Sullivan’s speech signals a change in direction, even though Biden stipulated that the countries that will benefit from the Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership initiative, which the G7 countries launched against the Belt and Road Initiative, must be democracies. Talking about the mobilization of trillions of investments in emerging economies, Sullivan felt the need to emphasize the necessity of using these resources through solutions created by the countries themselves. I don’t know to what extent this will be reflected in practice, but it is a new language, at least in terms of rhetoric, and it seemed to me to be a reflection of China’s relations with developing countries.
As for the situation of the EU countries. Although a US-EU alliance against Russia (and China-Russia cooperation) seems to have emerged with the invasion of Ukraine, I believe that this alliance is not solid and permanent. What China means to the US is not the same as what it means to European countries. Apart from the fact that the EU is China’s most important trade partner, the interests of each country differ. As a matter of fact, Macron’s warning after his visit to China, drawing attention to the drawbacks of dependence on the US and warning against the risk of Europe losing its strategic autonomy and turning into vassal states in the conflict between the two powers, is an indicator of this divergence. We should not forget the historical conflicts and disagreements between European countries.
Consequently, as a new world order in embryo is taking shape, with the US and China as its main components, other countries are inevitably faced with the necessity of updating their positions in line with their interests. Positions will be shaped not by abstract values and principles, but by material interests.
More public resources will be allocated to the private sector
3) Is it possible for the US to re-industrialize itself under the given circumstances? Moreover, Sullivan expects both Democrats and Republicans to reach a consensus. Can the knots in American domestic politics lead to such cooperation?
Sullivan’s warning that “we must rise together or fall together”, referring to President Kennedy’s remark that “a rising tide lifts all boats”, seemed to me as much a warning to American capital as to Republicans. By saying that if we lose to China, we will all lose together, Sullivan presents industrialization as a non-partisan, national issue.
The proposed industrialization strategy targets areas such as new technologies and renewable energy that will increase America’s competitiveness. Indeed, Sullivan cites the internet, NASA and DARPA as examples of successful industrialization in the past. As these examples from the past and the Republican-backed CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which includes incentives for the private sector, show, the role of the state in organizing, financing and directing science and technology, which is the transformative element of all production, especially military-based production, is greater in the US than one might think.
Second, American-style industrialization seems to involve the allocation of more public resources to the private sector, rather than through large-scale public investment that reduces or replaces the space for market forces. Therefore, the New Washington Consensus is not a break with the Washington Consensus, but a revision of it in line with the current needs of the US.
It is well known that it is the economic elites and organized groups representing business interests that shape American politics. Therefore, more than the compromise between Republicans and Democrats, the critical question is this: Can there be a compromise between American capital and American politics, Republican or Democratic? This compromise depends on the overlap between the national interest and profit maximization.
Next-generation technologies will determine competition with China
4) The fact that the US National Security Advisor gave a long speech on the economic policy of the White House is evidence that the global economy is now being evaluated through a ‘security’ lens. Is it possible to argue that private sector groups with greater integration with the US state will benefit more? This question can also be asked in reverse: Should we expect increased competition between capital groups in the coming period, or will we see a situation in which some ‘heads are crushed’ and others are forced to compromise?
As the post-1945 comprehensive national security approach adopted by the US has become widespread today, global security is seen as the provider and protector of national security. China’s new security architecture reflects this approach.
China has an important advantage in its competition with the US. While private capital is becoming increasingly powerful in China, Chinese politics, in other words the CCP, is able to control it to a large extent. It has more tools to steer private companies towards national priorities and to punish and reward them accordingly. In the US, as I have already emphasized, capital has the power to influence politics to a large extent. It is well known that Trump, who came to power with the slogan “America First”, lost the presidential race because capital groups saw anti-globalization policies as a threat to corporate profits. On the other hand, it should be emphasized that a US policy focused solely on the domestic arena is also not in the interest of capital groups, given the US military bases stationed all over the world to protect all kinds of interests, including corporate interests.
In this context, Sullivan’s speech seemed to me like a pre-campaign speech for the 2024 presidential election. A speech that emphasized the main economic problems, income inequality, pointed to the need for public investment, but declared that all this would be done without frightening or excluding capital. It is important to emphasize that the industrial strategy will be limited to certain sectors that are fundamental for economic growth, strategic for national security, and where the private sector is not ready to make the investments needed to secure national ambitions on its own, and that it does not intend to replace the private sector. Since more public investment requires more budget, this speech can also be seen as a message to Congress, which will have to approve the budget.
As for the question of which capital group will benefit more from this policy. Biden’s foreign policy has served and will serve the arms industry very well. The sector that will determine the continuation of the US global leadership and its competition with China is the next generation technologies. Therefore, no matter who comes to the presidency, technology companies will continue to benefit and be supported by the state. These are also the sectors where “national interest and profit maximization” do not conflict. Finally, I should add the renewable energy sector.
