US Is Turning Its Back on the World With or Without Trump
If America can’t pass a Ukraine aid package even with a friendly president in office, why would any other nation trust it in a crisis?
Stuck in neutral.
Photographer: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
It’s one of the classic lines in America cinema. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Paul Newman and Robert Redford are cornered by a posse of lawmen, and the only escape is to leap from a cliff into the river below. When Sundance says he won’t jump, because he can’t swim, Butch reassures him: “The fall will probably kill you.”
It’s a sad metaphor for US foreign policy. As Donald Trump marches toward the Republican presidential nomination, it’s only natural to wonder what will happen if the US is once again led by an erratic, impulsive and frequently destructive president. But speculating about Trump’s impact is like wondering what happens after a precipitous plunge.