United States: Foreign Policy

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord McNally]

Oh, I do apologise.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, in an interview with the New York Times, the then presidential candidate Donald Trump—not spontaneously but prompted by his interviewer—said that his foreign policy boiled down to two words: America first. Later, he explained that this meant that his Administration would prevent other nations from taking advantage of the United States and at the start of his presidency he promised to radically reform America’s trade policy, to demand more of allies and to do less in the world. One year on and his promises, among other things, have resulted in calls to renegotiate NAFTA, to withdraw from the TPP, to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to leave the Paris climate accord.

This is all at a time when the liberal international order is under great pressure from revisionist states, there is turmoil in the Middle East, as well as North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and the aftershocks of the global financial crisis. It is a time when, in addition to an erratic US President, Europe faces major foreign policy challenges: a revanchist Russian President; a western Balkans rejecting the settlement reached at the end of the Yugoslav wars; a Turkish President lashing out at Greece, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria; and a destroyed Iraq and Libya and a half-destroyed Syria, all exporting refugees, including jihadists, to destabilise already fearful European communities. It is a time when every European foreign ministry has had to divert resources to produce dossiers to feed the European Commission’s Brexit negotiating process and when Brexit is dominating the UK’s political and policy agenda, already putting huge strains on the country’s Civil Service. As a result, the UK’s foreign policy capacity and attention span is and will be constrained, and its priorities will be shaped by the Brexit agenda. I fear that any UK contribution to European foreign policy after Brexit is going to be even weaker and more limited than in recent years.

I am grateful for the opportunity of this debate, coming less than a week after President Trump gave us and other European allies a 120-day ultimatum to come up with a new deal addressing his Iran concerns or the US will pull out of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement. His plan overtly involves bullying us and other allies into fundamentally changing the terms of a deal that we and the US know is working and which we have publicly stated we have no intention to amend. Further, we believe that keeping the JCPOA in place is the only way to make future negotiations on other Iranian activities possible at all and that a US withdrawal would undermine the transatlantic relationship and our alliances, which are mutually vital across a broad range of policies from trade to terrorism. The final words of the President’s statement showcase the challenge we face, and are worth reading and rereading:

“I hereby call on key European countries to join with the United States in fixing significant flaws in the deal … If other nations fail to act during this time, I will terminate our deal with Iran”.


And listen to this:

“Those who, for whatever reason, choose not to work with us will be siding with the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions, and against the people of Iran and the peaceful nations of the world”.


I recognise that last Thursday at a meeting in Brussels, the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Ministers of France and Germany and the EU High Representative, Federica Mogherini, the European signatories to the deal, insisted, having met Mr Zarif, that Iran was respecting the agreement and that it is essential for international security. At the same time, Sir Adam Thomson, director of the European Leadership Network, led a delegation of very senior non-governmental Europeans to Washington DC to engage the US Senate on the Iran nuclear deal. In his draft report, which I have seen and which will be published, he states that the delegation was,

“received and heard with courtesy and attention. They believe their weight, seriousness and arguments resonated privately with US interlocutors. Interlocutors on Capitol Hill asked the ELN to continue to feed in European arguments and material”.

Entirely coincidentally, at the invitation of the Centre for a New American Security, I, along with Ambassador Lose, the Danish ambassador to the US, spent part of last week in Salt Lake City, Utah, engaging in discussions and debates with residents of the city on various aspects of the transatlantic relationship. CNAS launched this initiative because of mounting evidence of a divergence between Washington and the rest of the US on issues of foreign policy and trade, and because survey data show that Americans and Europeans are losing sight of the value of the transatlantic relationship and what each side gains by committing itself to it.

To my astonishment, I found in Utah—a “red state” which could hardly be further from DC—an informed and interested range of audiences of all ages, receptive to the message of the value of transatlantic co-operation. There was no “America first” for these people. To me, the lesson of this snapshot, which is all I have time for in five minutes, is one of leadership and engagement. The US is correct to encourage Europe to take more responsibility for its security and destiny. My observations and experience of the last week confirm my prejudice that when we do, in solidarity, we are at our most effective. But I fear that we just do not do so enough.