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Reviving America’s strategic position in the world in the wake of President Donald Trump will require a foreign policy that both firmly embraces democratic values and systematically pushes back against authoritarian competitors such as Russia and China. The Trump presidency has already severely undercut the United States’ global standing, causing immense harm to the nation’s strategic position, credibility, and moral authority. Allies are losing faith in American leadership while illiberal regimes are growing in number, stature, and audacity. Trump’s rise reflects a pre-existing deterioration in the vitality of democratic systems, a global phenomenon which his presidency has now turned into a crisis. The damage cannot be reversed simply by electing a different president or reverting to previous foreign policy approaches. Instead, the United States must adopt bold new policies to regain the advantage in great power competition and help vulnerable democracies, including its own, resist authoritarian influence and strengthen a growing global democratic community. This report explains why a democratic values-based foreign policy is the right choice for the United States on both a strategic and moral level. It also offers specific policy recommendations as a roadmap for how the next administration could pursue a democratic values-based foreign policy.

Today, democracy is under strain in America and threatened across the globe. The spread of democratic governance, which for decades seemed all but inevitable, has stalled and now faces serious setbacks. Across the democratic world, ordinary people have lost trust in their institutions of government and delivered stunning rebukes to their political establishments. These setbacks have also emboldened authoritarian regimes. Russia, China, and other illiberal states have sought to exploit the openness of democratic societies for their geopolitical advantage and have put forward an alternative autocratic model for politics and economic development that undermines liberal democratic values.

America’s enduring security, prosperity, and strength depend on the survival and success of democracy—both at home and abroad—as well as on the resilience of institutions, rules, and norms that protect the liberal democratic values on which the United States’ global standing is built. Yet at the very moment when liberal democracy faces its greatest ideological challenge since the Cold War, President Trump has chosen to reject America’s historic role as leader of the world’s democracies. He has treated democratic allies as ideological foes and murderous dictators as respected friends and equals while stoking nativist and isolationist impulses among the American people. President Trump has also systematically denigrated democratic values and norms at home through unprecedented attacks on the press, the independent judiciary, and law enforcement, as well as political purges of civil servants.¹ While U.S. democratic institutions have shown resilience in the face of his challenges, it is already clear that some of the damage Trump does will outlast his presidency. The critical question today is whether the United States after Trump will summon the resolve to lead, protect, and expand the world’s democracies or stand by and suffer the consequences as autocracy and illiberalism crack the foundations of the American-led global system.

Advancing a values-based foreign policy after Trump will inevitably invite a vigorous debate over how—or even whether—values should factor into U.S. foreign policy. Critics will likely point to America’s prior foreign policy errors and shortcomings, for example, the use of democracy promotion aims to justify misguided foreign policies such as the invasion of Iraq; the broader U.S. failure to promote democracy in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring; and Cold War-era support for dictators who sided against the Soviet Union. Critics may also point to the urgency of domestic challenges relative to foreign policy ones or fear of U.S. overextension abroad to argue that a values-based foreign policy is unwise or simply not possible. This report takes these critiques seriously. However, in reflecting on the stakes for U.S. leadership, present and future, it arrives at the conclusion that an American foreign policy shorn of American values would ultimately deliver less security and prosperity at home, while making U.S. leadership in the world less sustainable and impactful.

This report asserts that an approach that embraces America’s core democratic values will allow the United States to compete more effectively with authoritarian powers such as China and Russia and will deliver better results for the country in the long haul. To address setbacks abroad, the United States will need to pursue a new foreign policy that systematically puts liberal democratic values at the center of its engagement with the world. This will require more than just lip service. It will entail a meaningful, sustained shift in how the United States conducts its foreign relations, launched with quick and decisive action and sustained with persistence and strategic vision.

A democratic values-based foreign policy strategy is rooted in faith in democratic self-government, not just as being better than all the alternatives but also as a value in and of itself. Such a foreign policy will also advance U.S. national interests. America’s presence as a prosperous, multi-ethnic, free democratic society poses a challenge to autocrats through the model it sets. Instead of taking this power for granted, it is time for America to cultivate it.

At the heart of such an effort should be a realignment of American foreign policy to meet the challenge posed by resurgent illiberalism. This can be done by forging stronger cooperation among democratic states, including in the defense of democracies under assault and the expansion of the global democratic space. In both the short- and long-term, the United States will need to take the following steps:

• Restore democratic values and norms at home.
• Work with democratic allies to design and implement a counter-authoritarian playbook to push back against the encroachment on and abuse of the open systems of democratic states.
• Build stronger international networks of democracies to create a global democratic bulwark.
• Privilege U.S. relationships with democracies, and reflect this in U.S. policy decisions and spending.
• Strengthen international support mechanisms for populations nonviolently mobilizing for democracy around the world, while more systematically pressuring countries to uphold human rights and adhere to international law.

Reorienting U.S. foreign policy toward a values-based approach will require policymakers to take the long view, recognize the intrinsic strength of democratic governance, and acknowledge that the best way to advance democracy worldwide is through the example set by successful democracies. Critically, it will also require U.S. leaders to heed the lessons of history by recognizing that the most effective way to promote and sustain democracy is supporting and encouraging democratic institutions and movements, rather than employing coercive measures. The United States has numerous tools to vigorously defend its values and advance democracy without seeking to impose it using force.

Some may fear that a values-based foreign policy would come at the expense of traditional U.S. interests. But that critique misdiagnoses and underestimates the geopolitical challenge to U.S. interests that a rising illiberal tide presents. American interests will be far more difficult to secure if liberal democracy is supplanted as the pre-eminent and most sought-after political system. There will inevitably be times when U.S. interests will necessitate partnering with nondemocratic regimes. Still, a principled but pragmatic approach can do both: cooperate selectively with such regimes on matters of vital national interest while also recognizing that the greatest strategic gains to U.S. security and prosperity will rest on the success of other democracies and that America’s staying power and strategic resilience will depend on investing in them.

For most of the past 50 years, the world has witnessed the dramatic spread of democratic governance throughout the globe. Between 1970 and 2010, the number of democratic states nearly tripled, with transitions to democracy stretching from the southern cone of South America to West Africa, Southeast Asia, and the former Soviet bloc.² By 2000, more than half the world’s population lived under a democratic government for the first time in recorded history.³ This democratic wave brought a host of political and social rights to hundreds of millions of people and coincided with a historic decline in the incidence of interstate wars.⁴

The ascendance of democracy globally and the emergence of an increasingly robust set of international rules and institutions fostered a prevailing assumption that a more democratic world was here to stay: Democratic states would prosper and more autocratic states would transition to democracy. But this optimism about democracy has waned due to a number of varying and reinforcing trends.

First, democracies have experienced setbacks. Many countries once held up as examples of democratic progress—such as Poland, Turkey, and Venezuela—have experienced a deterioration in rule of law and electoral competitiveness.⁵ In other countries, such as Thailand and Egypt, democratically elected governments were overthrown by force. Meanwhile, across the Middle East, the democratic promise of the Arab Spring faltered in the face of violent repression. During this same period, illiberal and insular populist movements became resurgent in many established democracies, weakening international cooperation among democratic states and imperiling many of the achievements of the postwar era. These movements occurred most notably in the European Union, where a Center for American Progress and American Enterprise Institute study found that “in the past decade, such parties have moved from the margins of Europe’s political landscape to its core.”⁶

A key feature of this illiberal resurgence has been elected leaders’ use of strongman tactics to undermine democratic institutions and norms. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has gained increasing control over the political, economic, and military aspects of the Turkish state.⁷ In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used xenophobic rhetoric and crony capitalism to erode political checks and balances and consolidate power.⁸ Poland’s current leaders and others have followed Orbán’s playbook, attacking the independence of the country’s media and judiciary and campaigning on an exclusionary vison of Polish society.⁹ President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, meanwhile, has flaunted his disdain for the rule of law and human rights as he pursues a campaign of mass violence against drug users and dealers, which has included state sponsorship of extrajudicial killings.¹⁰ In all of these cases, attacks on democratic institutions and norms have been carried out by democratically elected leaders themselves.¹¹

Even in the United States, President Donald Trump is showing signs of authoritarian envy, regularly criticizing the media, the judiciary, and law enforcement, while openly admiring some of the world’s most brutal dictators. As Trump said of Kim Jong Un, who rules over a totalitarian dictatorship where people are thrown into labor camps for criticizing the government: “He’s the head of the country, and I mean he’s the strong head. … Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”¹²

These trends do not mean in any way that democracy is a lost cause or that the global tilt toward illiberalism is irreversible. Demand for democratic change and greater civil and political rights remains a potent force that transcends culture and geography, as recent events in countries as diverse as Burkina Faso, Armenia, and Malaysia illustrate.¹³ But these positive developments do not negate the democratic backsliding that has occurred elsewhere. Across the world, democracy faces an uncertain future.

Second, confidence in democratic politics has waned, even in states with long traditions of representative government. In the past two decades, democracies have struggled to deliver economic results for their people. Even democracies that have experienced rapid growth have too often seen it disproportionally benefit small elites or specific regions, while causing significant disruption elsewhere in society.¹⁴ The Great Recession of 2008 and years of painfully slow recovery helped fuel a sharp decline in trust in government institutions across the democratic world.¹⁵ Stagnation and deepening inequality, coupled with demographic change and political dysfunction, have created fertile ground for distrust, division, and demagoguery that illiberal populist parties have exploited. These groups draw on xenophobic and racist messaging but also resentment at economic stagnation and elite capture of supposedly democratic institutions. In some cases, they have also made both subtle and overt appeals to authoritarian modes of governance.¹⁶

The United States has not been immune to this democratic malaise. Americans today distrust their government in greater numbers than at any point in modern U.S. history, including the height of the Vietnam War and during the Watergate scandal.¹⁷ Two of the most significant drivers of distrust have been the rise of unfettered special interest spending to distort U.S. politics and the political paralysis that has arisen from the growth of counter-majoritarian practices such as gerrymandering and abuse of the legislative filibuster.¹⁸ These problems have fed a widespread perception that the U.S. political system no longer represents the interests of ordinary Americans nor does it address grave challenges such as inequality, racial injustice, and opioid addiction. Such failures, compounded by foreign policy failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, have contributed to a profound loss of faith in American institutions that Donald Trump effectively channeled in his bid for the presidency.

Third, illiberal and authoritarian regimes have sought to encourage and exploit the crisis of confidence in democratic states in order to weaken them from within, assert the superiority of their own models, and attack the foundations of the post-Cold War geopolitical order. Of these revisionist states, Russia has been the most overt and aggressive in its challenge to liberal democracy. Despite a stagnating economy and shrinking population, Moscow has launched ambitious measures to reestablish a sphere of influence in nearby countries, fueled right- and left-wing populist movements across Europe and North America, and sowed confusion and discord among the democratic citizenries of EU states and NATO members, including America.¹⁹ The tools it has deployed in this campaign include disinformation operations using both traditional and social media; targeted use of corruption to cultivate political proxies; cyberespionage aimed at influencing electoral outcomes; covert funding of insurgent political movements; and exploitation of neighbors’ energy insecurity.²⁰ Together, Russian tactics constitute a new authoritarian playbook to which the United States and other democratic powers have yet to develop an effective response.²¹

If Russia has been the boldest challenger, the most serious long-term external threat to democratic governance comes from China. Beijing has been—and will almost certainly remain—an essential partner of the United States in solving major global challenges, from climate change to nonproliferation. But as China amasses power, too often it has put its newfound capabilities and immense resources behind a model of political and economic development and interstate cooperation that neither requires nor encourages liberal democratic values.²² In fact, China’s full-throated assertion of narrow national interests in areas such as internet governance, free speech, trade, and human rights often actively undermines democratic values.²³ China has also sought to use economic coercion to undermine U.S. security alliances and partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region and erode cohesion among EU member states.²⁴ Meanwhile, Beijing has used its economic and growing military might to immunize itself from the consequences of flouting long-standing international principles such as freedom of navigation.²⁵ Tragically, these developments coincide with President Trump’s abandonment of America’s commitments to global leadership, including the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Fourth, the institutions, rules, and norms that underpin the liberal international order have not lived up to expectations, providing space for illiberal and undemocratic states to seize the advantage. The global and regional organizations established since World War II were built to protect and encourage liberal values, including universal human rights and rules-based international conduct. But these institutions largely reflect the world of 1945 and have not been adequately updated to recognize the massive shifts in global economic and political power. Today, many of these institutions are losing the capacity to perform their basic missions because of inherent structural flaws, outdated mechanisms, and deliberate efforts by world powers to undermine or circumvent them. The U.N. Security Council is rarely able to meaningfully respond to gross abuses of human rights or even outright aggression.²⁶ The United States and other democracies face growing challenges in upholding international rules or solving big problems such as chemical weapons use in Syria, ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, China’s violations of international law in the South China Sea, and Russia’s use of gray-zone tactics in Ukraine. The World Trade Organization has likewise struggled to address abuses of its trade rules by states such as China.²⁷ Without more effective and coordinated efforts to push back against these abuses and transgressions, authoritarian governments will continue to probe the boundaries of international rules and norms in ways contrary to both U.S. values and interests.

Fifth, economic globalization has exposed autocratic systems to democratic values, but it has also exposed democratic systems to autocratic influence. As the globalization of the world economy accelerated in the 1990s, experts assumed that integration would result in a more liberal future.²⁸ Authoritarian states, once closed, would be opened up and exposed to the practices and values of liberal democratic states. Gradually, these autocratic states would begin to take on more liberal characteristics, accelerating the trend toward greater democratization. But globalization has proved to be a two-way street. Liberal states have also been exposed to the influence of authoritarian states. Foreign investment from autocratic regimes has served as a vehicle to influence their recipients, most notably in the form of Russian cultivation of political actors across Eastern Europe.²⁹ The corrupt and uncompetitive inducements of autocrats have at times proved a more attractive path than more transparent business and investment practices favored by democracies.³⁰ The immense wealth concentration in autocratic states—and liberal ones as well—has spawned a complex transnational network of illicit finance that has distorted both developed and developing economies.³¹

Lastly, the Trump administration is now undermining the democratic values and international rules the United States has traditionally sought to uphold. Although the challenges facing global democracy have been building for many years, they have accelerated since 2016 in part because of the policies and rhetoric of the current occupant of the Oval Office. In a remarkably short period of time, President Trump has taken dramatic steps to abandon America’s long-standing moral leadership in the world. President Trump’s first secretary of state publicly declared that the United States would not prioritize human rights.³² The Trump administration has vigorously attacked America’s democratic allies while showing an affinity for autocrats and dictators.³³ On an almost daily basis, the president makes clear his disregard for many long-standing norms of American government, such as separation of personal and public interests and respect for the autonomy of the judiciary and law enforcement. While in the past American foreign policy has been prone to charges of hypocrisy—such as claiming to uphold democracy while backing autocrats—the Trump administration has abandoned any pretense of concern for democratic values. This sharp shift in America’s approach to the world under President Trump has been immensely destabilizing in ways that are only beginning to become clear.³⁴

Donald Trump is hardly the only skeptic of a democratic values-based foreign policy. A range of policymakers and scholars of foreign policy, including some progressives, have argued that the United States should de-prioritize the promotion of democratic values in its foreign policy. Some make the argument that the United States needs to take a more hardheaded and transactional approach to advance its security and economic interests. However, this report argues that not only are these false choices but that the United States should see democratic values as a U.S. comparative advantage—and not a weakness—in global competition. America’s liberal democratic values have been key to building, enhancing, and sustaining America’s geopolitical power. With the global backsliding of democracy and the rise of alternative authoritarian models, it is ever more urgent to rediscover the power of core American values to secure U.S. interests in the long term.

A democratic values-based foreign policy is worth pursuing for three key reasons.

First, it will advance long-term U.S. economic and security interests abroad and create a safer and more prosperous world. Compared with authoritarian regimes, democracies are less likely to go to war against each other, less likely to ally against the United States, less likely to sponsor terrorism, less likely to experience famine or produce refugees, and more likely to adopt market economies and form economic partnerships with other democracies.³⁵ Since liberal democracies tend to share values rooted in rule of law, fair competition, and transparency, they are natural partners in promoting the stable, prosperous, open, and peaceful international environment that the United States ought to cultivate through its foreign policy.

It is true that the process of democratization can be long and uneven and can sometimes produce destabilizing and aggressive state behavior. However, mature and established democracies are more stable, peaceful, and prosperous, and more full-fledged democracies mean more economic and security benefits for the United States.³⁶ Furthermore, the global system of democratic alliances, institutions, and norms the United States helped create and lead after World War II has improved material conditions and brought peace and prosperity to hundreds of millions of people across the world. Bolstering that democratic system and the democratic values that underpin it will ensure that future generations can also enjoy the fruits of democracy and a liberal world.

Second, this kind of foreign policy will help secure an American advantage in great power competition by advancing a compelling alternative and strengthening the global democratic bulwark. Although the challenge posed by illiberal regimes today has evolved since the Cold War, there are still lessons to be drawn from that era. One of the most significant factors in the collapse of the Soviet Union was the powerful example and contrast set by flourishing democratic societies in the United States and Europe. Today, one of America’s greatest strategic assets is its global network of democratic allies and partners. The power of that democratic network, even underutilized as it is today, stands in stark contrast to what today’s illiberal and authoritarian regimes can offer: namely, political order purchased at the cost of extreme corruption, xenophobia, oligarchy, and arbitrary use of st