WILL a Trump administration abide by and help advance international law and global institutions? Probably not. Though the president-elect understands and appreciates laws and regulations, he appears poised to turn his back on the 20th century American efforts to create a rule-governed international order.

As a republic, America’s engagement with the world began with law, not naked power. John Adams, second president of the United States, defined a republic as an “empire of laws and not of men”. Efforts to create international laws and institutions have long been at the core of the American project; at the height of its global power, the US played a crucial role in the creation of the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, pillars of that liberal order. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the liberal order surged, with a strengthening of the UN system of peacekeeping and efforts to create more robust judicial accountability mechanisms.

Domestic American politics, changing global economics and growing resistance from the periphery extinguished those flickers of legal liberalism. Americans turned inward, angry and suspicious of the world they felt did not appreciate them.

The American response to September 11 turned the US from a country that sought to create a rule-governed global order into one that sought only to protect itself from real and imagined threats. Even the election of a progressive lawyer in 2008 to the presidency did not result in a new focus on law and institutions. At home and abroad, the US continued to lash out, with secret drone strikes and increased electronic surveillance rather than full-scale military operations.

Mr Trump’s call to make America great again brings to fruition this inward turn. He cares little for making the world great in America’s image, something presidents from John F Kennedy to Ronald Reagan sought to do in their own way. Mr Trump’s proposals to cut free trade, build walls and keep out Muslims reveal a fortress mentality that leaves no space for an international institutional or legal order.

Some have suggested that, as head of a global real estate business, he understands the importance of international law and global institutions, as does Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon and nominee for Secretary of State. Global businesses rely on clearly defined rules to trade across different legal and regulatory regimes. More accurately Mr Trump and Mr Tillerson understand the importance of private international law, which differs in important ways from public international law.

The former structures global business and financial dealings while the latter governs formal state-to-state interactions. Both forms of law rely on states to make them work but the businesses usually write the private laws, rules and regulations that govern their interactions, creating the kind of conflict of interest bedevilling Mr Trump’s transition.

Others suggest that business leaders tend to be pragmatic and non-ideological, and so hope that he might tamp down some of the ideological rhetoric of his campaign and his followers as he begins to engage with the world. Pragmatists avoid strict rules and laws as such constraining devices prevent them from advancing policy agendas that seek to “solve problems”. International legal rules will be more of a hindrance than a benefit to a deal-making president.

Mr Trump also inherits a much stronger executive office than his predecessor. Barack Obama progressively ignored Congress and continued the trend of a legally unbounded presidential office. Of course, he did not abrogate the constitution; nor did he govern without the American legal order. But his approach to the office of president was classically pragmatic, seeking to solve problems by any means possible rather than be hindered by the checks and balances of the American constitutional order.

No one knows what Mr Trump will do as president. Neither his background nor recent history suggest that the US will return to the construction of a renewed international legal order. If America under Mr Trump feels the need to retreat behind its walls, perhaps it should. Let us hope that an increasing global awareness of human rights and the activism of global legal experts will give rise to a global republic of laws, one that protects everyone not just Americans.

Professor Lang has the chair in International Political Theory in the School of International Relations University of St Andrews.