The American circus is also exhausting, as decisions swing around on a daily, half-daily or even hourly basis. One minute there are massive tariffs on Canada and Mexico, then there aren’t; then it’s on some goods, then it’s on steel and aluminium, then there’s maybe a delay – God knows where all that currently sits. I’ve had friends tell me they’ve gone “no Trump” to preserve their own inner head space. “Wake me up when something actually sticks” is a common refrain.
And yet … we are certainly witnessing history being made in real time. If the 20th century was the American century, then what the hell is this?
The breadth of change is massive. Consider a short, non-exhaustive list. Upending the relationship with Europe. Questioning the national status of Canada and being openly antagonistic to it on flimsy grounds. Upending the whole integrated wider North American economy. Exchanging the world order of honouring the territorial integrity of all countries for a “might is right” philosophy where dictatorial world powers determine spheres of influence that smaller countries must bow to (as in Ukraine and possibly Taiwan).
There is the new belief in tariffs as a tool of economic policy, a problem canvassed in this column recently. The wholesale upending of the US government administration at home. The disturbing new trend of questioning the rule of law by threatening the impeachment of judges who disagree with the President’s edicts. And an as-yet unheralded and sketchy idea to weaponise international financial markets to favour the perceived economic interests of the United States, including such things as credit controls and a forced devaluation of the American dollar.
Running through all of this are a couple of threads. Isolationism definitely, and populism. But there is also a desire to upend the established order, regardless of its merits. It seems anything that previously enjoyed a broad consensus in favour must now be overturned, as if that very consensus is evidence of a conspiracy, a “deep state” controlling things.
This column is not a tirade against everything done in the Trump name. There is little doubt the US Government had become fat and flabby. Doge (the Department of Government Efficiency) may be unconventional, undiscriminating and likely to make a huge mess before it is done, but it will usefully reverse the trajectory of ever-larger government in the US.
Similarly, many countries, including those in Nato, took America’s security guarantee for granted for a long time. A positive side-effect of President Trump’s likely abandonment of Ukraine in favour of his friend Vladimir Putin could be the refashioning of wider Europe into a more durable defence alliance. But that is by no means guaranteed. America may still need to come back in and pick up the pieces, as it has twice before.
This is one of the most fascinating parts of this fascinating time. History, even recent history, seems to be forgotten in nearly all the big calls being made in Washington. It’s as though the current Administration has been living under a rock for the past 150 years.
All these previously reliable policy positions were put in place precisely because they suited the US. It remade the world order after World War II in its own image with a complex web of alliances and friends because it wanted to prosper economically and ensure a more stable globe that didn’t require it to fight more wars.
Critics may say that didn’t work in Eastern Europe, but is that really true? The mere existence of Nato has meant the latest expansionist Russian dictator seeking to justify himself to his people by means of conquest became bogged down in the Donbas rather than going on to threaten Poland, Romania and the Baltic states.
The US has prospered hugely through the world order it put in place. Through free trade, it has created the mightiest economy the world has seen. Its emphasis on the rule of law has enabled its companies to operate around the globe. Its tech companies run the world’s most innovative industries. Its massive defence industry has benefited from the web of alliances the country has anchored, and it has overseen a peace dividend that has largely kept its young people from fighting wars since the 1960s. It is the headquarters of world finance and it owns the world’s reserve currency, which gives it huge benefits. Yet, apparently, that is not enough.
Which brings us to the irony. All the things the Trump Administration is doing may or may not make sense in their own right, but collectively they do one thing. They make the US a much less reliable partner, whether it be in trade, finance, the rule of law or security.
And when your partner becomes unreliable, you have to start looking for others you can depend on to achieve what your country needs. America is, in effect, inviting countries to dismantle the very web of alliances and trade links that made it great. And they will – the world can’t stand still.
Some of it won’t be easy. New defence arrangements will be messy and take time to form. Defence industries will need to gear up. Trade alliances will have to be formed. But there is a new urgency to all of this, and it is starting to happen.
The world would surely rather not discount the US. It’s the wealthiest, most innovative country on the planet. In normal times, it’s always easier to work with the US. But these are not normal times.
The truth is that, in beggaring its friends in the interest of making itself even greater, America likely just ends up becoming weaker. It is even possible we are witnessing an unprecedented act of geopolitical self-harm that prematurely ends American exceptionalism and draws to a close the American century. That would surely not be what Trump intends. Like I say, just fascinating.
