5. Bonfire of the Agreements

Tristan Redman is joined by Edward Luce, associate editor and columnist at the Financial Times in Washington DC, and Nicole Hemmer, political historian and associate professor at Vanderbilt University, to examine the years in which the United States, the architect of the post-Cold War order, began to turn away from it.

They begin with Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo in December 2009, delivered less than a year into his presidency and defending the necessity of war even as it made the case for a rules-based world. They discuss the domestic fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, including the emergence of the Tea Party movement, and the disclosures made by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden about US conduct abroad.

They trace the longer roots of American populism, through Pat Buchanan's presidential campaigns of the 1990s and a changing political landscape, culminating in Britain's vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump's election as US president, both in 2016.

The episode concludes with the early months of Donald Trump’s first presidency, and the withdrawal of the United States from a series of international agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal.

A BBC News Long Form Audio production

Presenter: Tristan Redman
Producers: Keiligh Baker and Nik Sindle
Sound engineers: Neil Churchill, Gareth Jones and Mike Regaard
Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison
Editor: Matt Willis
Radio 4 commissioners: Daniel Clarke and Hugh Levinson