"America first" is the most widely known slogan of the current US government. Based on this slogan, the US government has taken a series of actions: withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the Paris Agreement to deal with global climate change; Began to renegotiate and threatened to withdraw from NAFTA; Questioning the roles of the United Nations and NATO has repeatedly indicated or implied that other countries must make more contributions. In addition, the US government also prevents the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization from appointing new members, which will seriously undermine the effectiveness of the WTO dispute settlement method.
All these behaviors seem to show the overconfidence of the United States in international relations, but from the analysis of the classic example of game theory "Prisoner's Dilemma", we can find many problems behind its behavior. Prisoner's Dilemma constructs a game model by analyzing the situation that suspects choose to confess their crimes. Nowadays, it is usually used to analyze various choices and interactions: to what extent the country adopts protectionist trade policies and what pricing strategies producers will adopt. ...
The core premise of this game is that the only goal of relevant subjects is to maximize their own interests, such as maximizing profits and significantly enhancing national security. However, in each case, the success of a subject depends to some extent on the performance of other subjects. In reality, whether a country can successfully safeguard its own interests in trade often depends on what other countries do. If competitors don't follow suit, the effect will be greatly reduced.
In this game, any result depends on whether the participants cooperate or not. If all parties refuse to cooperate, they will eventually share the losses and form a "Nash equilibrium" with both sides losing. Better results are not without, but need to be achieved through cooperation. In other words, only through cooperation can we solve the dilemma that collective interests are damaged by blind pursuit of personal interests. At the national level, if all countries work together to reduce trade barriers, both sides will benefit.
Although it will be difficult and time-consuming to maintain a cooperation agreement, it is usually worthwhile to reach a cooperation agreement because it helps to ensure a more beneficial result for all.
The U.S. government's international behavior in the past year can be interpreted as a deviation from the balance of cooperation, which may slide into a "prisoner's dilemma" in which all parties lose. Although many supporters of the "American priority" policy believe that the United States should not bear too many external responsibilities and hope that the United States will go its own way, this is the same as taking unilateral actions in favor of itself in the "prisoner's dilemma", which ultimately harms the overall interests. If other countries stop cooperating with the United States, the international system may begin to collapse, common interests will gradually disappear, and "American priority" will become "the last for all."
Of course, this will only happen after everyone is completely disappointed with the international system. However, there is another situation that Americans do not want to see. The withdrawal of the United States will lead other countries to reach reasonable, temporary and alternative agreements. After the United States withdrew from the TPP, Japan led the relevant negotiations as an example. Even if the United States withdraws from the WTO, other countries that are aware of the importance of the WTO will remain in the framework, and similar situations can be seen in the process of implementing the Paris Agreement.
Although the importance of international agreements will be affected without the participation of the world's largest economy, most countries will still choose to stick to it because it can convey the important information of cooperation and avoid falling into the "prisoner's dilemma".