Why Does Trump Administration Withdraw From International Institutions

Since Donald J.Trump is in power,he has frequently withdrawn or threatened to withdraw from international institutions.The reasons include four perspectives: power,cost-benefit,institutional balancing,and domestic politics.This paper focuses on the domestic factors that influence the decision of the Trump administration and explains the reasons for the “withdrawal” of the Trump administration from the perspective of audience cost.The audience cost can be divided into the original cost and the constructed cost.The original cost refers to the audience cost caused by the shortcomings of the international institution,while the constructed cost is the artificial cost created by the Trump administration through media propaganda.Studies found that audience cost influenced the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the international institution.Leaders create audience cost,which in turn,audience cost influence their decisions.The Trump administration's manipulation of audience cost and withdrawal is a tool to answer to the external and internal pressure,aiming to ensure its governing position.This paper believes that the Trump administration's withdrawal is due to the pressures from the domestic audiences,who are mainly his supporters,including ordinary people and interest groups.There are domestic audience cost and international audience cost,but under the pressure of ruling legitimacy,domestic cost is the primary consideration.This paper assumes that the different strategies of withdrawal and threatening to withdraw are related to the cost of domestic audiences,which can be divided into maintenance cost and withdrawal cost.When maintenance cost is high and withdrawal cost is low,Trump will choose withdrawal;When both maintenance cost and withdrawal cost are high,the result is threatening to withdraw;When maintenance cost is low and withdrawal cost is high,the result is not to withdraw;When both the maintenance cost and the exit cost are low,that is,the audience cost is weak,whether to withdraw depends on other factors.The withdrawal from international institutions related to Israel can win the support of evangelicals;Threatening to withdraw from North America Free Trade Agreement is part of the Trump administration's economic unilateralism,with the aim of gaining domestic support by increasing employment.The above typical cases further verify the hypothesis of this paper.Audience cost not only affects whether Trump maintains or withdraws from the international institution,but also is an important factor affecting other domestic and foreign policies.