It is the inevitable reality of having the most powerful office in the most powerful country on earth. All other world leaders, allies or enemies, are below you in the food chain and watch your every action. They take cues from you; they seek your leadership and try to find ways to exploit your weaknesses.
The main focus is aptly on the democratic damage that Trump’s claims will cause in the country. “His false claims that the elections are being rigged against him are part of that strategy. They are not true, but they will prepare his base to reject the results,” said Brian Klaas, assistant professor of global politics at University College London.
But experts say Trump’s comments also send the wrong message at a time of growing concern that leaders around the world are trying to exploit the coronavirus pandemic to erode the rule of law.
On the same day that Trump raised the idea of delaying the US election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that Hong Kong hold its own legislative elections on time in September.
“The problem is not just that Trump does not endorse the democratic process, it is that he uses the same strategies as undemocratic leaders to undermine the democratic process,” said Nic Cheeseman, professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham.
Cheeseman says there is a “real threat that Trump will send a message that he will not defend democracy” that less democratic world leaders will take this as a green light to lower their own standards.
“Leaders around the world really look at the international climate to see how they can get away with it. If you see that Trump is unwilling to promote democracy in other countries, then he backs that up by undermining democracy in his own country, the risk at stake for you, for example, manipulating your own choice is significantly reduced. ”
Trump’s tweet is the latest in a long line of rule-breaking moves that experts say have damaged America’s global reputation. During the course of his presidency, he has fought with friends and enemies alike, threatened supranational institutions such as NATO and the World Health Organization, and withdrew from multilateral treaties such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement .
These unilateral actions also lessen the diplomatic weight of the United States, according to Dr. Jennifer Cassidy, a diplomatic scholar at the University of Oxford.
“The truth is, that’s where the true soft power resides and he has done a lot of damage during his four years in office,” Cassidy said. “And while America’s allies might welcome a Biden presidency, seeing it as a return to something more normal, America’s enemies could be much slower to view the Trump presidency as an outlier. Yes Trump happened once, why would Iran or China believe someone, as if it never happened again? ”
It is also impossible to ignore that this behavior has been in evidence during the greatest crisis facing the world in decades.
“During a global pandemic, the world needs a leader, someone to help coordinate responses to a virus that knows no borders. Instead, Trump has spent much of his time searching for unproven drugs, tweeting conspiracy theories,” he said. Klaas. “When the world looks to the United States to lead, they are finding a man who is incapable of leading his country, let alone the world.”
Cheeseman believes their screams would have been louder if they had been organized by the world’s only hyperpower. “If the United States had brought together democratic countries from around the world to support democracy in the coronavirus era, I think it could have been really significant. The signal it sends is that we are watching you and we are on it.”
Instead, the President has spent much of the pandemic, having spent much of his presidency: fighting and sowing division both at home and abroad.
But experts said the consequences of their latest attempt to undermine the November elections could be more far-reaching than the damage caused by the pandemic.
“If he loses, he seems to be signaling that he will happily try to burn down America’s democratic institutions if he thinks it will help him save himself or help him save his face,” Klaas said.
Should this happen, it is difficult to see how it benefits someone in the United States who is not the President, nor how it stops the international impression that the United States is at serious risk of being in an inexorable fall to become an unstable political basket. .
And both the allies and enemies of the United States will be well aware that the country could do it again in four years, if someone other than Trump decides to run in 2024.
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