Eli Lake, Columnist

Welcome to the Post-American Jungle

Trump isn’t the first president to strain against the liberal world order, but he may be the first to abandon it.

October 3, 2018 at 10:30 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

American exceptionalism.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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Critics of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy seem to think his contempt for the liberal world order is something alien to modern American politics. It’s not. And until Trump’s critics understand the popular appeal and deep roots of this contempt, it will be hard to restore an unraveling international system.

The theory is that since 1945, U.S. political leaders more or less supported America as the anchor of a global order that promoted free trade, deterred military aggression and encouraged open societies. Then Trump won the 2016 election and everything changed.