Critical Analysis of Donald Trump's Political Strategies

Trumps withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could be explained through the content of decision -maker beliefs and the operational codes of leaders. The beliefs systems of the decision makers have an impact how they perceive the world and it also affects what choices they take (Beach, 2012: 105). Operational codes research is useful essence to study how leaders matter, and the idea is that who leads can matter in certain circumstances (Beach, 2012:105).Moreover, the operational codes research tries to codify the world views of leaders affect ,how they perceive and react towards the world building upon the view that individuals do not respond to the same stimuli in an similar way. Beliefs systems are also most important where there is an individual person who is acting as the main leader of the state in a particular issue and specially when the issue is critical (Beach,2012:106).

The belief systems also results in the decision maker becoming less responsive to the information that he or she get that is not compatible with the world’s view which the leader even can manipulate things to fit into their images or even to ignore as the basis for decision making (Beach,2012:106). The importance of the beliefs systems also varies according to the type of decision maker involved and the strength of the external constraints under which a leader is operating (Beach,2012:107). Therefore, belief systems vary across different types of actors, the more coherent a belief system a decision maker possess, the stronger impacts it has upon how they perceive the world and the choices they make (Beach,2012:108). Another useful intervening variable between external constraints and the effect of belief systems is the degree to which a leader values external constraint or not. The degree that a leader respects external constraint could be investigated by analysing how sensitive a leader is to contextual information. If the leader is goal-driven and does not respect constraints the belief system will be more important in understanding how the leader understands the choice situation and what actions will be chosen (Beach, 2012:109).

Using the operational code theory, the case of Trump is well understood to uncover what ideal type of belief system reflects from him as a leader, how the leader perceived the nature of political environment and other elements in his operational codes. In the decision of USA withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is a sole decision carried out by the President Trump. Claiming climate issues as “bull shit” and as a “hoax” reflects his negativity effect towards the agreement and climate change issues (Chao et al,2017:214). Even though the effects of climate change are evident in the reality, for him the concerns are on the economic interests over common concerns, like climate (Pavlone, 2018: 34). However, President Trump’s declaration voids of any sort of rational, coherent explanation concerning the environmental issues (Pavlone, 2018: 34). It is only a personal decision-making rule that has guided his actions on a variety of issues, foreign and domestic. Therefore, it proves that with the beliefs systems of the decision makers it does have an impact how they perceive the world and it also affects what choices they take.

Trump’s attitude towards climate change is already made quite clear that it is not a priority of the US foreign policy (Pillar,2017). Trump views that the domestic environmental policy should also not cause a burden the US economy and also considers the environmental regulations adopted by the former administration as being excessive and being the main cause of the job losses in the coal mining and oil & gas industries (Pavlone, 2018:35).Therefore , as Pillar argues the main operational code that Trump uses is to destroy, any significant accomplishments of the previous administration or to dismantle Obama’s climate legacy since the Obama administration was actively engaged in the climate negotiation process (Pavlone, 2018:35, Pillar,2017). Therefore, this is the operational code that explains, better than any other explanation, the pattern of Trump’s decisions on major issues (Pillar,2017).

Moreover, as Derek argues with the idea that who leads can matter in certain circumstances is well seen in this context as how the two leaders in two parties posit different belief systems and how it matters (2018: 105). It is argued that the US policy on climate change is characterized by a historical divide between Democrats and Republicans, while Democrats are traditionally more sensitive towards environmental issues whereas the Republicans believe that the economic interests of US companies shall prevail over the collective interest to the protection of the environment (Pavlone, 2018: 39). Trumps being a republican has the beliefs on the economy of US versus Obamas being a democrat emphasizes on the possibilities for multilateral negotiating policies and is sensitive towards environmental issues. Therefore, Trump being a Republican and Obama a democrat holds two belief systems and the efforts made by the legacy of the Obama administration, have been undermined by the Trump Administration towards the multilateral climate regime to dismantle Obama’s climate legacy by his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement (Pavlone, 2018: 37).

The campaign promises made by Trump is another useful variable to announce the withdrawal from the Paris agreement. The President campaign was against the climate agreement when he was a candidate vowing to cancel the accord. Therefore, his followers insisting him to keep his promise urged his to make choice to withdraw from the agreement (CNN, 2017). Therefore, his decision is rooted in the short-term benefits for the US economy. I agree with the argument that Pavlone brings that over the longer term, the absence of the US would severely affect the beneficial impact of the Paris Agreement (Pavlone, 2018: 46). Therefore, as a result of his decision-making rule the US will not be able to insulate itself from the effects of global climate change, it would also face an array of environmental and environment-related threats (Pavlone, 2018: 46).

Rational Actor Model (RAM)

The Rational Actor Model is not applicable in when analysing this issue. RAM focuses on the utility of maximization in which actors make rational decisions through calculating all the choices with the available information they have with the lowest level of risk (Beach,2012:14). RAM is also an individual based theory used to analyse that a rational actor will choose the foreign policy that maximizes gain with the minimum cost ((Beach, 2012:100)

RAM predicts that the decision makers identify the problem, identify and ranks its goals , collect all relevant information and identify all its possible outcomes .The second phase focuses on how each alternative is assessed based on utilities and probabilities and their possible outcomes (expected utility), and the best possible decision is made in choosing among possible courses of action (utility maximization) (Beach, 2012:98).

The reasoning of Trump for the withdrawal stating that the agreement causes damage to the economy and loss of jobs and the issue of fairness cannot be found as rational at all. Scholars argue whether USA is eligible to talk about its fairness when they are responsible for high emission of CO2 and is responsible for 20% of its global emissions compared to the developing countries and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement would it help US in creating jobs (Chao et al,2017:214). Argued by Pavone as President Trump’s declaration voids of any sort of rational, coherent explanation concerning the environmental issues (2018: 34). The personal decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement taken by Trump is not a rational decision as it is not the best possible decision made in choosing among possible courses of action as argued in Derek Beach (Beach, 2012:98).

Thus, the decisions taken by the President is not guided by the consequences or made by utility maximizing. Trump not implementing the Paris Agreement, no longer following the rules of the game is argued to as violate international law (Pavlone, 2018: 40). His short sightedness rooted in the short-term benefits in the economy is not beneficial for the US as it would also face an array of environmental and environment-related threats in the future (Pavlone, 2018: 40). Also, United States would have continued to be considered as a trustworthy State which respects its international duties but with this it will no longer be (Pavlone, 2018: 40). US will be a free rider from withdrawing from the agreement but it has neglected its duties to the whole mankind which without the cooperation of every states the mitigation efforts will be very difficult. On the other hand, Trumps decisions in destroying the former policies under Obama administration also does not seem rational at all. Even if a new government comes into power the good things must be carried out instead of having their personal decisions.

Therefore, to conclude through the decision-making process of Trump it proves that belief systems of decision makers can impact upon how they perceive the world thereby affecting the choices they make. Moreover, it shows how leaders matter and who leads matters in certain circumstances specially if the person is the predominant leader of the state (Beach, 2018: 105-108). Trump irrational decision making does not make him a rational person as his focus is only based on the economy over the climate issues which has become a major problem today. US being a high contributor to the global warming the decision making of the leader should be more rational and beneficial to everyone.