Donald Trump's America First agenda is more relevant now than ever before

The argument

Supporters who predicted Donald Trump's re-election argued that his 'America First' agenda had become more relevant in 2020 than when he first campaigned on it, and that events had vindicated its core instincts. America First held that the United States should prioritise its own interests — securing its borders, bringing manufacturing and supply chains home, reducing dependence on foreign powers, driving harder bargains on trade, and avoiding entanglement in distant conflicts. Proponents contended that the upheavals of 2020 had made each of these themes feel urgent rather than abstract, and that voters would reward the candidate who had been making the case all along. The pandemic was central to the argument. When Covid-19 exposed how reliant the United States had become on overseas manufacturing for medicines, medical equipment and other essentials — much of it from China — proponents argued that this was exactly the vulnerability America First had warned against, and that Trump's push to repatriate production and confront China looked prescient. The disruption of global supply chains and the scramble for protective equipment seemed to confirm that economic self-reliance was a matter of national security, not mere protectionism. From this standpoint, a moment of global instability and renewed great-power rivalry was precisely when voters would want a leader committed to putting national interests first. Proponents argued that the crises of 2020 had shifted the public mood towards self-reliance and scepticism of globalisation, playing to Trump's long-standing message and his record of acting on it. Because Donald Trump's America First agenda had become more relevant than ever, this argument held, he would be re-elected.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics answered that the pandemic cut the other way as an electoral matter: the very disruption America First warned of arrived on Trump's own watch, and voters could as readily blame the incumbent for supply shortages and the crisis response as credit his agenda for anticipating them. They noted that public opinion on trade and globalisation was mixed, that many voters prioritised competent pandemic management over self-reliance slogans, and that the 'relevance of an agenda' does not translate into votes when the electorate holds the sitting president responsible for the disorder around them. In the event, Trump lost the 2020 election.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The pandemic's exposure of supply-chain reliance occurred under Trump's own presidency, so voters could blame the incumbent as readily as credit his agenda. [Rejecting P3] A moment of instability does not reliably favour the incumbent; anxious voters may prefer a change of management over the leader presiding over the disorder, as the 2020 result indicated.