DBR40

Public Opinion on "America First" with WBEZ's Worldview

Good afternoon, ladies, and gentlemen. My name is Ian multicollinearity. Be debated for strategic content at the Council on Global Affairs. We're excited to have partnered with WBEZ. Again, there'll be recording in installment of their worldview showed here today for broadcast at a later date. We're going to discuss the 2017 Chicago cancel service or equal to the B. Some copies over there still. So, you pick up on the way home. And the format that it'll be broadly center to most, most cancel programs, there'll be conversation followed by an audience Q&A, and maybe a few small adjustments to accommodate the radio recording. We're going to play it a couple of short contextual video clips during the discussion. And we're also going to ask audience members to stand at the sides and used to make from there, which is a little different from what we would normally do. And we can also ask a question online tissue, our app just tapers CHI dot c and f dot io directly into your browser. And you can ask a question there. We're live streaming today's event. As always, we welcome social media, but please silence your phones before we begin. Views expressed by individuals we host or their own and do not represent institutional positions or views of the Cancel. And today's conversation will be moderated by Joe McDonald from WBEZ. Their flight flagship global affairs program, worldview normal. Introduce our guests and kick off the discussion. So, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming to Ramadan or even older migration. Dina smells. Hello everyone.

Thanks for coming out on this beautiful, gorgeous afternoon and spending away from this gorgeous afternoon. I think we'll have an interesting discussion this afternoon. And you can hear that I think we're going abroad. This broadcast, this on Tuesday. If things go as planned on WBEZ, I'm going to kind of read a little script. That will be what people hear when they go on the radio. And then we'll just take off and hit the discussion running. Today's program comes to you from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. We're recording at the conference center at the base of the Prudential building. And we're here to find out about what Americans are thinking about America first, the latest Chicago Council survey on foreign policy reveals public opinion six months into the Trump era. And with me to talk about what's happening with the Trump era is Evo daughter, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former Permanent Representative to NATO. Great to see you Evo, Thanks for having us here. Great to be here. And also, here as Dina smells, senior fellow, full PPE and public opinion and foreign policy person here at the Council. The 2017 Council survey is her project. Thanks for joining us, Tina. Thank you. And Michael dashes here, professor and director of the International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame agree to CMYK. Great to be here.

I wanted to ask first before we get into the numbers about the whole concept of America first, as a foreign policy vehicle, the whole a Make America Great Again, had a domestic flavor to it. It was not a foreign policy idea per se. And a lot of people are wondering, you know, people saw President Trump at the UN trying to translate this into a foreign policy concept. Do you have a good grip of what America first means? Important policy context, devo. A good grip is hard to get when it comes to the explanations by the President on foreign policy or frankly, a lot of other things. But I think there is behind his, his thinking about foreign policy, a worldview. And it's a pretty consistent worldview that adds up to America first. If you go back in 1987, Donald Trump published a one-page, full-page ad in The New York Times. And if you replace Japan and China and a couple of other things, it very much reads like his campaign and indeed his speech on foreign policy sets and what is, it's basically the idea that the global leadership, but the United States has engaged in some really 1945 that created a global order that was shaped by, maintained by and benefit of the United States. That the burden of that leadership has become too large. That we are paying too much to 42 allies who are in order to defend them. That the trade agreements that we have. Negotiated, had benefited others more than us. And in fact, it come at our expense that the international deals that we have negotiated are, and he would put it the worst deals we've ever negotiated in history, and that he would have better deals. But the bottom line is if you put America first, then you wouldn't be paying the large burden of global leadership that we have been paying for the last 60 years. That's really the essence of the idea of Mike dash way I know you're a fan of Walter Russell Mead and some of his writings on what he describes Sonya as well and our Jacksonian philosophies and trends in US foreign policy. And how does that apply to what America first is to you? Well, I think that Donald Trump really epitomizes needs notion of a Jacksonian. I think you know, when, whoever, whether it was the President or one of his speech writers who coined the phrase America First.

It's clear historical resonance with the isolationists during the second World War, I think, obscured a little bit what Trump was really about. This isn't really isolationism. It's Jacksonian is, it's a notion that the United States will engage abroad, but it will do so when it's in America's interest not to uphold certain abstract notions of what should be the best international order to maintain a system that is mutually beneficial? I think for a Jacksonian like Trump, the key question is, if we trade with somebody, does it benefit us? If we're engaged in a military alliance with somebody? Are we getting it? Is our partner paying their fair share? And that's not exactly your grandfather's isolationism. It's a different form of international engagement. I think one that certainly challenges, as EvoS suggested, important pillars of the American foreign policy view since the end of the Second World War. But it's also not. Charles Lindbergh or Robert Taft reincarnated. And Walter Russell Mead talks about this being our first Jacksonian president since World War $0.02 established a liberal order. This is like a bull in a China shop to the assembled. Yeah, although remember, Meade wrote the piece in 97, I think in the national interests. And the guy he had in mind as the Jacksonian was then John McCain, the maverick. So I think, you know, Mead was wrong about who is going to be the first Jacksonian president. But he was absolutely right in having detected a different foreign policy strain that began maybe with Pat Buchanan, but certainly continued through Tea Party and other elements like that to sort of come to fruition with the election of Donald Trump. Dina, when we get down into the numbers of the Council survey, there seems to be not a lot of evidence that President Trump has persuaded anybody that his foreign policy is the best foreign policy. And there seems to be a reaction to it That's sometimes surprising in the trade area. And there's immigration, there's any strange surprises. Yeah. Let me talk a little bit about that. Yeah.

At first, I have two classes there we are. So, we looked at this idea of assertive nationalism. The fact that the United States, that the world owes the United States more than the United States. There was the world with just the America first principles that Eva was talking about. And then we went specifically looked at trade and immigration and alliances. And yes, what we found is there is a small percentage of Americans, 21%, in fact, that have a very favorable view of Donald Trump. And so, these we identified as core Trump's supporters in that group of people, feels very strongly that those immigrants are a threat, a critical threat to the security of the United States. They think that trade deals benefit others more than they benefit the United States. And they, they're pretty positive alliances. Nonetheless, even though days they support Trump's approach of or one of his stated approaches, he may have reversed it, that we should withdraw our security guarantees to our allies until they pay up their spending increases that they promised. So, there is a small group, but the rest of Americans. Continue to support a foreign policy that, that the United States has had since the, for 70 years, which is it in fact, record numbers of Americans now support trade. Think it has benefits for jobs as benefit for the US economy and for us consumers. 69% of Americans now say that NATO is essential. That's up from last year, 65 percent. And 65 percent of Americans say that undocumented immigrants that live in the United States should be offered a path to citizenship. And that's an all-time high as well. So, while foreign policy attitudes are really slow, to shift that one of the remarkable things about working on the Chicago Council survey is that since 1974, so many of these attitudes and readings have been stable and constant. But we have seen shifts, but they're away from the America first and more, perhaps sometimes when a principal or a value is threatened and there's more support for it. And so, in some ways there's been honest or reaction in favor of some of the long-held tenants of us. Why I was really surprised about the trade results that here was an idea that was kicked around in the campaign by the left and the right, Bernie Sanders was kick into it as hard as Donald Trump was. And yet the number, the support for it goes up. Do you guys have some explanations for that? One guy was no. Fear is a good explanation. I maybe a little ambivalent about the nafta agreement, but the idea that it's going to go away really fast in a goofy manner. That is going to be the stabilizing is worry. Somebody like me, what I will stick with nafta, I would rather do that if I was ambivalent about. Yes. So the trade questions are there in one of the chapters here, and there's one reading that is up among Republicans and Democrats, and that is the one I mentioned that trade benefits jobs, the economy, and US consumers. But it's clear when you dig down into the data that those people who describe themselves as republicans and those that describe themselves as Democrats, have, they come at it at a different angle. So, the democrats seem to want to affirm Support for free trade, even though the trade deals were based on both sides in this campaign. But Democrats have become more and more pro trade over time. And the trends show that. And then Republicans, I think you see that they're more positive about the potential benefits of trade. But when you ask about trade agreements, specifically nafta, they're more negative now than they've ever been. Even though 53 percent overall say nafta is a good thing, they are less positive about globalization though that stable in total over time. So, I think my, my reading of the data is that republicans, perhaps being that because there is a Republican Congress now and then I republican president, that perhaps they will be able to clue is better deals that happened in the past. Yes. I think there's a lot of hope in that reading. Yeah. You know what, I was looking at that data I was wondering, is this a glass half empty or half full? Because you could say the rebound and support for trade was a reaction to the Trump administration and an affirmation of a commitment to a continuation of the liberal order of free trade. But I had in the dark of night, last night that, that bleaker thought that in fact, maybe the numbers are actually sort of bringing together two very different sorts of groups. One group that might have been energized in support of free trade, and that would probably be the Democrats. But the republicans could be people who think now that we've got an America first president and the master of the art of the deal. We're not going to sign anymore. That's terrible. Trade agreements that, you know, sell us down the river. So, I think there's different ways of retrieving that. Did you have that opinion about the, the south Korea numbers on security, the gigantic leap and we're going to defend South Korea. You could read that as half empty or half full to. It's either you're like, gosh, we really love our allies, or it's, I really want to bomb North Korea and support the president, Dr. yeah. Yeah, it's disentangling the complex motives that could lead people to answer poll question in a similar way, I think is one of the big challenges to figuring out what's. Going on beneath these numbers and the leap and that one was so dramatic from its cruising along in the mid-30s, the whole time, 30% people want to support South Korea in a war with North Korea, and then it jumps up to seven. Well, it was about 48, had been creeping up over the past couple of years, but this is the first time they did a majority. And you're right, The interesting. So, Republicans have, there's a different philosophy that republicans and Democrats have in terms of foreign policy, in terms of public opinion. Where democrats tend to rely on multilateralism. And Republicans tend to support more the peace through strength. Kind of they, they support some multilaterals them to, but they believe in a really strong military. And so, they've always been more supportive of the use of force. So, on that particular question, if North Korea in the question audience is that would you favor or oppose the use of US troops in the following situations? And one of them is if North Korea invaded South Korea, and overall 62 percent say they would support sending US troops. So, this is the strict disk measure of supporting our allies. So, 62% is a really healthy level of support in a hypothetical situation, 71% of core Trump's supporters and 70 percent of Republicans agree to that, where 1610 democrats and independents do. But that's a pretty when we first saw that. That was a shift that is really telling on all sides because it increased across the board or possibly for different reasons as you mentioned, but it's still across the board. How did you read the alliances kind of shifts that were going on in the survey myths? Somebody who was the head of an organization that Donald Trump use bashes regularly. So, I think, I think you can, you can go down deep in the data and find whatever argument to support for whatever argument you want to hang. I gave you look at the overall trend and that's one of the things that the Chicago Council survey is done. You are seeing a big shift and it is, and it is across the board on alliances. So, for the first time, on the Korea question, for the first time, we've asked this question since the 1990s, I believe. Now when majority of American 62 percent think that the United States should fulfill its treaty commitments. By the way, it's a treaty commitment. We are committed to defending South Korea because we have a, a commitment to it. By the way, we, we have 28 thousand troops in South Korea and we're at the border and under the UN helmet are in fact in-charge of the, the, the, the forces on the ground there. So, it's a good thing that American support something that is real. The other numbers on, on I was on a NATO. Very strong support for NATO. NATO is essential to American security. On it, just essentials to Europe security. Miracles think it's essential to American security. That may come as a surprise to the president who thinks NATO is fundamentally about us helping to defend Europe, but also a majority for the first time. Since we've asked a question the last few years, thought that the United States should defend NATO allies like the three Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. And I think that has to do with two things. One, a reaffirmation, the basic belief that alliances are in America's interest, which by the way, has been our fundamental bi-partisan foreign policy since 1949. And secondly, a sense that the threat to our allies has gone up, the Russian threat to our allies in the Baltic States and of course, the North Korean threat to South Korea. And that re-affirming alliances in that period, maybe the best way to deter, to prevent a war from happening. Recall, we are there. We have alliances because we learn a very valuable lesson in the first half of the 20th century, which is that when the United States is not in Europe, for that matter in Asia, wars tend to happen. Since 945, we've been in Europe and in Asia, and warps haven't happened. And as a result, the lesson here is that alliances are good to prevent for many Americans basically buy into that. We can then have debates about relative burden that needs to be borne by the various allies. And one thing I think is valuable, but President Trump is put on the table list this idea that the bargain but who pays how much may need to be revisit 70 years after the end of the cold off the World War II. And it's something that a lot of Americans have tried to push on our allies. And he may do it more effectively just because of the way he's doing it than, than, than others have. But I read this as a reaffirmation of a strategy that the United States, Republican, Democrat, United States as pursuit effectively since the end of World War 2. Is the argument that the President makes though, that Europeans should pay more, a greater percentage of their GDP. A little specious that really the US pays a greater share of its GDP because it's maintaining a global empire of bases which the NATO alliance is and exactly In, invested in. Well, So the species, this isn't the idea that the United States percentage it spends on defense or anything we spend on defense, would go down if light were to spend more, that there is somehow a relationship between America's expenditures on defense and what the Allies are spending on defense. We're spending what we are spending on defense because we think it's necessary for our national security. National security isn't D global. It's not just with regard to NATO or a, or Asia. And if the Europeans where to spend more on defense, we would still be spending the same as we are on the fence. That's where I think the argument of the president. Loses, loses its luster. That said, there is no doubt that the Europeans should be spending more on their defense. Just to put it in context. In the year 2000, ten years after the war, European countries on average spent 2% of GDP on defense. By the year 2007, a full year before the financial crisis, that had declined to 1.5%. And then by the time after the financial crisis and further cuts it happened, it had declined on average to 1.25%. It's now back up. And the main reason in his backup is because Vladimir Putin's Russia has invaded Ukraine and created a sense that there is now a security challenge in, in Europe that didn't exist before. And as a result, unsurprisingly, Europeans are spending more on defense. I think that she's fed more than they're doing now. I think they should get to that level of spending that they have pledged to do quicker than they are. But they are spending more on defense. I'm talking with Evo dollar, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Dina smelt, Senior Fellow at the Council in charge of Chicago Council survey on foreign policy, which we're discussing. And Michael dash is a professor at the University of Notre Dame. I wanted to talk about the immigration section of the report, which was interesting. And here is the long-term trend again is of note. Democrats are going a different direction than Republicans on immigration and they started from the same spot. They started just equally worried about immigration and now they're in completely different places. Dina? Yes. So, on page 26 of the report for those have their report, which is on our website. There is a gap of 41 percentage points between the number of Republicans and Democrats who say that immigration is a critical threat. And in 2002 they were basically all it 1610. So, what has happened over time is that republicans basically stayed the same. And Democrats have become a more diverse political constituency over time. The, when we look at the demographics of a typical Democrat in 201998 versus today, we have, it's a much more it's still majority white, but it's much more mixed actually, all the demographics are in the back of the report. And, but the Republican Party today is still as it's, it's not that different than it was back in the day. So that is one of the reasons for this change is just the demographics of the party itself. And blacks have been Carl and I. Carl's in the back who works with me, and I are working on another project. And we looked at black attitudes towards immigration as a threat over time. And they have halved in their concern and Hispanics to have come down. They were a majority also concerned back in 2 thousand and well, I guess 98 till today. So, so that's what's kind of happening and helping to drive that. But I think there's a lot of attention to this graph because it's really interesting and alarming to see this large partisan divide, which I do think is a really big problem on so many issues today. But not enough emphasis on the fact that overall when you look at a potential solution. So, in this case, for undocumented immigrants. 65 percent overall say that undocumented immigrants that work in the United States should be allowed to have a path to citizenship either without conditions or with a penalty and a waiting period. And that includes a majority of Republicans, average republicans. Now if you looked at the core Trump Republicans, so those Republic into the very favorable view of Trump, even they are divided. About half of them say that undocumented immigrants should have a path to citizenship. So sometimes I think that when we focus on the difference in the sense of alarm, there's a huge difference, but when we look at a possible solution, there's more. There is majority support for it. You also dig into the issue of what is taking jobs in the report from the United States and most people, the Republicans are very heavy on the emigration and not on the technology. And the reverse is true for Democrats, is how I remember that, right? Well, majority of Americans Overall think that more jobs, manufacturing jobs, the United States are lost due to trade. Trade agreements. And outsourcing really is how we worded it than toward automation. And I see this is a big policy problem of the future. How are we going to address the fact that it is automation and what are we going to do for those kinds of jobs. So yeah, but Democrats are the only ones whose thing, those people who described and so the Democrats are the only ones who think that it's more automation than two jobs, but it's not a huge majority either. So, there is a misperception there. Well, how do you take that, Michael? Well, I want to make the case for figure 13. That's the one Dina says, too much attention has been paid to. And, you know, first of all, immigration is a different sort of issue. It's not exactly a foreign policy issue. It's what a blonde tall at the Pacific council used to call and intermeshed stick issue. You know, it's sort of in the gray area between foreign policy and domestic policy. But was Dina pointed out this was an issue up until about 2002 on which there was a lot of consensuses. And what you're seeing today is the erosion that consensus and my friends who study American domestic politics, the big development for them is polarization and especially party polarization across the board in terms of domestic politics. And I think what you're starting to see is that bleeding over into the foreign policy realm. And that I think is a, is a pretty big deal. And one that, you know, I mean, I think ego Evo can take some comfort, good at land assist. That he is that there is residual support for the post World War 2 system. A lot of the responses. But on the other hand, I've got this nagging feeling that underneath that where we're sorta missing the tectonic changes that are changing the bases as support for these policies, for the mode of engagement of how we'll deal with the rest of the world. And indeed, for the fundamental premises of our political system. People are no longer fighting for the median voter and coming together in politics too to win and the sender. Politics has become much more deeply divided. And I think you're seeing it across the board. I don't think so. I think there's a lot of truth to that. There's no doubt that polarization is now moving from domestic into intermeshed stick into international policy almost across the board. And in our polls that we've done in the last few years, we, this has been a major, a major finding. And indeed, the immigration one is striking climate change as the other one. It is truly striking where democrats see this large threat. Believe that climate change is a huge critical threat. What does it's about 70 percent or so? And only 20 percent of Republicans think it is critical threats are huge, huge differences. One of the things we did in this report though, is, is to see who the drivers are, particularly within the Republican Party, that are part of helping the polarization. So, we actually split out on a number of the questions. Core Trump's supporters, from non-core Trump's supporters within the Republican Party. And the big finding there is that non-Trump Republicans are more like the overall mean of Americans. They are closer to where Independents and Democrats are or the average American than they are to Trump Republicans. And that, and that's, I think the real finding. Yes, there is polarization between Democrats and Republicans in a whole series of issues. But what's really happening? This, there's a core of American, It's a big core. It's a, it's a minority, but it's a big core, somewhere between 20 and 30 percent. Frankly, if you look at overall approval ratings of the President, the United States, it's a 36 percent. And that core actually has a view about alliances, about the international order that is very different from where the other part of the United States is. And if that grows, in fact, it grew sufficiently to elect the president of the United States. We'll have major impact on foreign policy. And the other. Just to add onto both these points is that a lot of American to feel positive about our alliances, they might not know that much about it. And it's kind of a passive support where those people who are really wound up around this America first idea, I really passionate about that and more active. So, I think that also possibly relates to your point about these underlying shifts that yes, there's people who are actually going to act on the part of those shifts tend to do so in a negative manner. I was going back, and we looked at the Walter Russell Mead article on Jacksonian ESM last night. And he said, Most Jacksonian or net foreign policy experts and do not ever expect to become experts for them, leadership is unnecessary, a matter of trust. And if they believe a leader or political movement is good, they are prepared to accept the policies that seemed counterintuitive and difficult. So, anything like climate change or maybe immigration is to blame for everything that's in that really true, but it's being made to seem true. Were theirs. If you grow the Jacksonian nut and the Jacksonian that might be growing. I was reading a statistic. 44% of Americans believe that the media law trump. That would be more than the 20 or 30 we think is is not coordinate of supporters. I think also you have to be careful because not to get too fixated on the Trump moment, because some of these trends are really longstanding and they'll live past, will endure, pass Donald Trump. For example. Americans always say that protecting us jobs is the top US foreign policy goal. It's not even really a foreign policy, but they say that it is. And then when we interview foreign policy experts, that's lower on their list. And so, there's this big gap and on immigration to this concern about an immigration anxiety about immigration among Republicans in particular has been there since we started asking. Not line has hardly shifted. And so again, that has been there for some time. That's why we had Occupy Wall Street. That's why there's like a Tea Party movement. That's why there's always, this isn't so new having an anti-establishment feeling. So yeah, I just, I just wanted to point out that this isn't all just trump. Yeah, and that's, that's a very important point. But what we're, you know, we're seeing globally as a resurgence in populist movements. And populism tends not to be an intellectual movement, it tends to be an emotional movement. And a lot of the politics of populism is about emotional resonance. So, it's not so much that people are going to get wonky and get into the details of TPP or nafta or things like that. It's just that they understand that things are changing in a way they can't control in their lives. And there were some plausible explanations for why that's happening, that in fact blame other people or other forces. And they have somebody who's saying, I feel your pain, I hear you and I'm going to do something about it. And that's not the way in the rarefied precincts of the Prudential building that we talk about foreign policy issues. But in a lot of places in the local saloon and Bridgeport, that's the way people think about these issues. And I think it's important to understand that in a democratic political system, you have a lot of people coming at these issues with very different agendas and very different levels of Intellectual and emotional engagement in them. And that's what seems to me to be the interesting thing about this moment, the, the lead chart, I think it's like Figure 1, which is the signature Chicago Council question about America's engagement in the world. If you look at the period from 2014 through 2017, it looks like a spaghetti bowl. I mean, it's up and down and up and down. Independence way down, Republicans up, just going back and forth. We're sort of all over the map. And that I think is an accurate reflection of sorted the turmoil and uncertainty in the country on that issue and a lot of other issues as well. Actually, we don't read it because we think it's fairly consistent any it looks like a spaghetti bowl because there's there at close in scale, it's all between six and 10 and 7 and 10. Well, I think the 2014 looked very different than 2017. I will come back to 2017 for the folks on the radio, they better log on to www. Chicago sounds. So, I mean, I think that there was a time period we saw after 9, 11, you see a massive increase about American's wanting to have an active role in the United States. And that gradually starts to decline again. And then sometime in 2014 or so it really goes low when there's, there's just the beginning of this idea that the United States public wants to, wants to walk away from the world. There's retrenchment. There's a general, this is in our field, this as political scientists and foreign policy analyst, a worry that the United States was retrenching, wanted to get out of the world. And that started sort of with Barack Obama's election and, and sort of continued after this. What's interesting is we're back to sort of the mean. 66 percent or so of Americans think that the United States should have an active role in the world affairs. There's some differences between Democrats and Republicans. It goes up and down. My theory has always been that when the Democrat in the White House, democrats are more engaged and, and Republicans less so. And the other way around, independence is generally less. And gate one, want to engage, lesson the world and then either Democrats or Republicans. But it's a pretty strong number compared to where analysts thought we were two or three years ago, which was go home America was all of a sudden becoming a, not only a favorite phrase, didn't Burt very well for George McGovern, 1972, by the way, at least when it comes to elections. So that depends what's going on in the world. We had just gotten out of Iraq and withdrawn from Afghanistan. Then we had the economic crisis. So that was weighing on people too in 2014. So, the, the question, it seems to me is maybe with the original framing because you're right. There was a lot of discussion between 2012 and 2014 in other polls as well, especially piu, about whether the public was becoming more isolationist. And I’m, I'm wondering if that is the wrong way to frame because I don't think that America first. And that's why I gravitate towards the Jacksonian view. It is about isolationism, the way we were thinking about, about the issue at that time. I think it's about a different form of international engagement. I go back to your chart about the big jump in support for using force to, in response to a hypothetical North Korean invasion and the South, who's the most itching for a fight with the North Koreans? It's the Trump core voters. Well, that's the same as, well. They were a little bit higher in that. But, but these, if Trump, if the court of Trump is isolationism, then you would not see them leading the charge rightness. But rather what you're seeing I think, is a, a different approach response to a threat and also probably motivated in part by a view that previous administrations had been to supine and now Uncle Sam was going to fix this problem. I'm talking with Michael Dell. She's Professor and Director of International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame. And Dina smell says here a senior fellow, and she is one of the people responsible for the Chicago Council survey on foreign policy and Evo dollar, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs is here as well. And I wanted to directly address the Republicans and. Split in the republic. That was sussed out in some of the material here. Obviously, we see Republicans speaking out against President Bush in some, some strata about co-workers that John McCain, former President Bush, spoke out against him recently. What did this, what was a survey saying about these Republicans and how, what was going on with them. As I mentioned that a little, a little before. If you split out the core Trump supporters, those who have a very favorable view of Trump from, among Republicans, from the Republicans who don't have a very favorable view. They may have a favor war, somewhat favorable or no or not a favorable view. That core group of Republicans actually on, on the whole series of questions that we looked at when the security and the trade and immigration area tend to be quote, more mainstream. If I can use that more where the average American is, then where to core Trump supporters. So, when it comes to alliances, they're more like Bob Corker and John McCain and George W Bush. Republicans. And the speech you mentioned, George W Bush talked about the dangers of protectionism, the importance of free trade, the dangers of isolationism. Importance of making sure that crisis abroad don't explode and have threats here. And it's those kinds of which, which has really been an American bipartisan view about how we need to engage the world we do with strong alliances, good and fair, fair and above all, free trade agreements and a series of international negotiations and agreements that we sign. There is a basic tooth, two-thirds 1 third division in the country on those essential pieces. Core Republicans who are not Trump supporters tend to be where the average Democrat, the average independent, the average American is. And that gets to the point that might point out, this is not a Trump constituency. This is an American constituency. It's been there for quite a long time. It's likely to be thereafter. Trump motion the scene, but he was able to mobilize it in a way that led to electoral victory. And that has huge implications for policy. It has huge implications for, for how you are going to be able to govern on the foreign policy front, even if it isn't a majority of Americans, it’s a very sizable chunk of Americans who are empowering and where have been empowered by Donald Trump and this election. So the Republicans who were never Trump and are criticizing Trump, they are part of the elite that we're imposing their will on this rump, of course, supporters of Donald Trump. They, they look at them the same way as they do. I'm a Democrat. It's all the same. Well, it's interesting because there was a memo leaked to the New York Times about the more versus strange campaign. And it said that now that President Obama is gone from this scene, the electorate has now moved from demonizing Obama to demonizing the congressional Republicans, the mainstream republicans. So that was a really interesting take on the mood of the voters. And yet like Eva said, that it's on alliances, on traditional foreign policy, we do see big differences in the report on a couple of pages, 1623 in 2009, but also on nafta us. If for example, 20 percent of Trump Republicans say nafta is a good thing versus 49% of other Republicans. That's quite a big chunk of other Republicans. And on the climate deal, the Paris climate deal, only 23 percent of Trump Republicans think the United States should participate versus 53 percent of non-Trump Republicans, that's a majority. So yeah, there are some striking differences in there. Yeah. I just wanted to. Second another point that evil made that even if the core Trump's supporters are numerically a minority, they've demonstrated a particular potency in the last election, and they're likely to be a factor for some time to come. So, I remember think it was Henry Cabot Lodge who famously said his mother-in-law couldn't understand how Franklin Delano Roosevelt never got elected because no, when she knew voted for him. I think the problem we have is no one we knew voted for Trump, or at least they're not fess up to it. But A lot of people did vote for Trump. And enough, you know, important places that it tips the balance and could tip the balance once again. So, I guess this is a plea to not get caught up in the 2017 numbers, although we're here celebrating the 2017 report. So, I'm not saying people shouldn't read it, but look at the general trends and ask yourself, what are what, what are the underlying shifts that are also going on along with the continuity. So, while I agree with you because you're agreeing with me on this, but let me let me, however, make one other point, which is important. The report and the numbers not only show that there's a core Trump's supporters that can be mobilized and have been effectively mobilize. It also shows that there's actually a majority of Americans who could be effectively mobilized for a more traditional foreign policy. And so that the idea that you can't base your foreign policy preferences and try to mobilize an American public in favor of stronger lines is better trade agreements. And international engagement is, is, will be belied by these fats. Now, I'm not saying that anybody has effectively mobilize it. It is that it's an enabling feature. It's not, it does not a determinative feature of the public sphere, but it does suggest that you don't have to run for president on an anti-trade platform. Which by the way, both candidates in the last election did, at least when it came to TPP and to some extent, and after you can actually run-on a pro trade platform, as long as you do it and mobilized assist. That's what the numbers suggest. Which is an important, doesn't mean that that's where the outcome is. Trade is in fact determinative of people's votes. You only get the vote once you only get to vote for one candidate. So, there are many things that go into, into white people vote the way they do. But there is a way to mobilize. There is, there is an enabling aspect to American opinion that can be mobilized if it is done so effectively. Well, but that's the question is, can you mobilize people on these issues? If I'm not mistaken, most polling shows that a pretty robust majority of Americans with support more aggressive gun control regulations than we currently have. And yet, and control is one of those issues that hardly anybody on either side of the political while wants to run out. And I think trade in a way could be a similar sort of issue. There are a lot of people to probably understand in principle, that the world is more well off in a free-trade environment than it is in a protectionist environment. But for a lot, for the majority, that's an intellectual commitment that doesn't directly affect them. But for a minority of people who believe that dramatic changes in their life have come about as a result of free trade. That's a pretty potent issue. In our survey showed that it's really the trade job link is when people get negative on trade, they see that their prices are cheaper. They are now it's better for the economy. So, I'm talking with Dina smells, smells. She is a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Evo dollar, the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. This here as well. With Michael Deutsch is a Professor and Director of International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame. We want to take some questions and we want to do it at this microphone if you can if you can work up the bravery to come up to the microphone and say a few things. We're going to take a few questions. Sir. You jumped right up. Yes. Thanks. Thank you for the report. There were two numbers. It struck me. One was the drop from 57 percent to 37 percent support for the Paris Climate Accord among Republicans. Can you explain why there would be a 20 percent drop? The other number that jumped out at me was You asked a list of countries whether you thought they were responsible actors. For Russia, it's about 2728% overall. But among core Trump's supporters, its 44 percent, which I found kind of astonishing. And I wonder if you could explain either of those. I think on the, on the climate numbers. It is, it is a rallying effect following the leader is the President walked away from the, from the Paris Agreement and you would expect more of his supporters to then. If even if they were on the other side of the issue to start moving in his direction so that I think is worth 20 gap between last year support when that wasn't an issue of day, when we were any agreement that the President had signed the agreement to this year when the president walked out of it. And I think the same is true on the, on the other issue you mentioned Russia. Russia question. If there, is one defining characteristic of this president, it is that he has yet to say anything negative about the Russian leadership? He didn't do it in the campaign. He hasn't done it since he was president. And so, it's not surprising that his core supporters are going to follow again the leader and being more supportive of Russia as a responsible actor in the world. And a change in the numbers on climate change run for the Republicans. It's not an important issue. It's easy to change on. There. They're under 20 percent on it being an important issue. It's easier to flip-flop on that one. Horse. A critical threat? Yes, ma'am. Yes. So, I'm still really confused about this America first idea. In three years when the Trump pays is lifted, and we are now buying cheap Chinese solar panels and electric VW's. Are these Trump supporters going to think, yes, we want, this is what we wanted? Mike. I mean, there are a lot of assumptions or premises to that question that I still trying to work through in my own mind. I mean, the problem with climate change is that it's a long-term problem and its effects are likely to be quite diffuse. And so, the combination of those things, I mean, explains, in my view why this issue hasn't the salience that one would think just based on the facts of the long-term trajectory in the changes in the environment and the evidence that it's due to man-made intervention. But it's not something that is going to affect a lot of people directly in their lifetime. And those sorts of issues are classic issues that are very hard to have effective collective action over. I think the bigger issue is, I think not so much what's going to happen in three years because I think the core Trump base is still going to be there. And I hope I'm at a count Chicago Council on Foreign Relations event like this where we talk about the 2020 election and sort of see who wins. That. I think the bigger issue really is a generational issue because the core Trump's supporters are unique in a lot of other respects besides their affection for Donald Trump, they tend to be geographically concentrated. They tend to be associated with parts of the country and industries that are on the way down. And they tend to be a part of a socioeconomic group that has all sorts of really dramatic pathologies. The famous Angus Deaton and case study about the extraordinary spike in morbidity for white high school educated Americans of the age group 45 to 55. Those people, just because of the actuarial tables will within 20 or 30 years passed from the scene. And the question will be, what will be the demographics of the United States at that point? Not only racial demographics, but also socioeconomic demographics. I mean, the happy story would be to say that this is a short-term problem. That there is this lost generation of people who came in thinking they were going to get a union job at the bend X Corporation and ended up addicted to opioids. But that their children will be able to get sufficient training to find a place in the new economy. In which case, this group, which was such an important part of the core, Trump's supporters may no longer be a factor, but you can tell less optimistic versions of that story as well. But it's, it's a longer-term story than just three years, I guess. Some of the questions that have come in on the Twitter feed. Here's one, How, how is the American first campaign rhetoric change? Now that Trump is in office? Have the priorities shifted? Does anybody think the responsibilities of the office have changed? President Trump's attitude on a specific foreign policy issue. Now, I don't have anyone. He didn't run on. We're going to win in Afghanistan. So and so that's a different issue. I mean, I think he said that he had changed his mind on this, although I think the policies implementing shows he hasn't. I think is basic fundamental view of the world and how America's role in it ought to be pursued hasn't changed. What has changed is that as president of the United States, you're not the only one making decisions. You are certainly not the only one to implementing them. And he has found that he has surrounded himself not only with the bureaucracy, but a lead, a set of leaders in the bureaucracy who on the fundamental issues don't agree with them. And whether that is on the issue of alliances, whether it's the a and the issue of Afghanistan, whether Madison's and the McMaster's and the, and the Kelly's and the tiller sons have a basic worldview that is consistent with the bipartisan worldview that existed before and, and pretty inconsistent with the worldview of the president. And they have an, and in some instances been able to, to tweak the message. Afghanistan is probably the best example where through a process of attrition, really meeting after meeting, after meeting, they beat the president down. Who was asking what I think was the right question? Why do you think your strategy is likely to succeed? Because the strategy hasn't worked for 16 years and doubling down on the same strategy might not lead to success. So, I actually give the president a lot of credit for asking the question. But they beat them down. And at some point, they had to make an announcement and he announced that we're going to do the same thing. I'm just going to do better. And this time we're going to win. But on issues like trade, I'm, I'm, I'm not confident that he won't walk away from nafta in the way that he did on TPP, which would be fully consistent with his campaign rhetoric on issues of alliances. Doesn't. He says NATO is no longer obsolete, but none of the allies believed that he's necessarily going to be there. And when the when the chips come down. And I think the same is true in, in, in, in Asia. And they may be reassured by Vice-President tensor secondary defense matters since they tell us and going out and saying we still love you. But they're all going to ask, well, what about your boss? Does each dilemma? Because that's ultimately when the rubber hits the road. So, I don't think the policies have changed all that much. Even though there's been an extraordinary bureaucratic congressional public opinion, public media campaign to try to move them in the direction of where the norm used to line. And still, he seems to be pretty stuck where you vary was, I agree with Evo and let's take the hard case, which is China or angina, as he says, China, angina. And the, the, the, the candidate Trump's rhetoric vis-a-vis China was pretty, pretty forceful during the campaign. And President, and the First congratulatory phone call he took was from the President of the Republic of China, which is not the People's Republic of China. But now President Trump and President Xi, especially after a weekend that Mara logo seem to have developed a little bit of chemistry. But I don't think that's as a result of President Trump coming to the establishment Republican view that China could be integrated into the liberal world order. I think it's that the president, I decided that China could be helpful in some big problems that he wanted to try to fix. A big problem, of course, was North Korea. And so, the, the, the chefs are more tacking with the wind rather than sailing in a different direction. That the President's view of the joint comprehensive plan of action, the Iran nuclear deal, I think is a clear illustration of EvoS base point, which is the president sent from the get-go that this was a bad deal. And they, Madison, McMaster, and tillers, and I had to twist his arm to recertify the first Iranian compliance the first few times. And finally, at this point he just said to **** with it, I'm not going to do it. So yeah, kicked at the Congress which was probably a twofer for him. He was able to repudiate an Obama bad deal and also force the, his colleagues in on Capitol Hill that deal with this thorny issue. One of the other questions goes back to the Republicans. Why now do Republicans differ on key issues? What's the main driver of this polarization? It's interesting to think about the Tea Party is something that every David Donald Trump and was driving Republican polarization. Well, it's not the, not the same group, like the Tea Party has some Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party joined into. The point is that there had been these grievances and they've been fermenting for a while. And they're some of the differences. I have always been there between conservatives and moderates within the Republican Party. Most Republicans are conservatives. But so, I don't know that many of these, we haven't gone back in time to look at all those differences yet, but some of these will just be a conservative view. And then if you have a culturally conservative view versus an economically concert review, you know, you're going to be different on different issues and usually on domestic issues. So, this might be the first time it's leaked in foreign policy, it’s a good place for us to dig into the data and surveys. Although Republicans of long been fractious on these issues. I mean, I remember the 76 Republican primary and Reagan's challenge too, Gerald Ford, but behind forward, of course, we're Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. And likewise, as somebody who worked with the first former President Bush, there were, there was daylight between the second Bush administration and key figures in the first Bush administration. In fact, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft actually sort of pulled the curtain back on that in the fall of 2009. So, in terms of the debate about the eminent a rack or so Republicans, you know what? I think that the debate within the Republican Party on foreign policy and among Democrats as well is sort of a constant. It's the unique moments when you get somebody like Reagan and 980 who seemed to be able to bridge those differences. That's more the exception than the rule, I think. And in contrast, Democrats on foreign policy, I really kind of a coherent bunch. We looked at the trump, sorry, we looked at the Clinton supporters versus the Sanders supporters and there was very little difference even on things like climate change. We thought, well that's a young person’s rallying cry, but there weren't even very many differences on there. Did you have a favorite result in at one thing that just really said, oh gosh, this is that this is the one thing that is going to blow people's mind. Will personally he FBI personnel point was when I opened up the data that we are really nerdy, we get really excited when new data come in. And we kind of, my whole team gathers around and starts flipping through. But actually, it was that 62% that really jumped out at me, that the fact that 62 percent of Americans would send US troops to South Korea if North Korea attack, that made me feel, wow, people are really nervous about South Korea. They're even willing to put soldiers on. That's like that's the ultimate level of supporting an ally. So that was, I think the one that really struck me the most. If you have any favorites, emo course, the NATO numbers, your ambassador and eight and all of a sudden, suddenly present a Americans think it's an essential tool for Merck and security can be better, better than he did. Your job is a little bit of a lag effect. Now it's been going up since, I don't know. Thanks to emo Donald, you're president of the Chicago Council and for Global Affairs. Michael Deutsch, Professor and director of the International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame and Dina smell, smells, Senior Fellow and public policy and foreign policy person here at the Chicago Council. Thanks for joining us and talking about the Chicago Council survey on foreign policy. Thanks for the invitation. I give me. Took off here.

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