The Re-rise of "Nationalism" in International Relations: Trump's "America First" Foreign Policy

“Patriotism” should not be confused with “nationalism” as both concepts are used so vaguely that any definition could be challenged, however, since these are two different ideas, one must draw a distinction between them. Following the 9/11 attacks, there was a crossroad of patriotism and nationalism. While on the one hand, people's sympathy for the victims of the attacks was patriotism, on the other hand, increased violence, discrimination, and hate crimes on the dark skins of Americans (especially American Muslims) were all the products of nationalism. Since then, America´s world view has dramatically changed or perhaps evolved from “liberal internationalism” during Bush and Obama presidencies to “nationalism” and “America First” with president Trump taking office in January 2017. Trump´s America First policy has overwhelmingly paved the way for nationalism to re-rise within the United States as well as in other countries across the globe, populist leaders in Europe, Turkey, the Philippines, and other countries sought the opportunity to accumulate more power and resources through changing their democratic structures and by hijacking the global political leadership vacuum created by Trump´s “America First” policy. This paper, therefore focuses on the interplay and relations between Trump´s “America First” policy and the responses this policy gets from other countries on an international level. Existing literatures on international relations and particularly the debates on Trump´s foreign policy tend to either overlook the consequences of “America First” policy on international level, or emphasize the lack of cooperation between and among broader international community to tackle the rise of nationalism and authoritarian states. I instead argue that, Trump´s “America First” policy provokes other countries to embrace anti-American policies and to promote “nationalism” and “populism” in response to what Trump has been persuading to “Make America Great Again”