The US Is Leaving the World Behind Faster Than Feared
Barely 100 days into Trump’s second term, the US is veering from benevolence to negligence in international affairs. Malevolence is next.
Salvator mundi, not.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In coming to grips with the second term of President Donald Trump, many of us made the mistake of assuming — hoping? — that he was just “trash-talking” the world, like a boxer needling his opponents in the ring. That he didn’t really mean the outrageous things he said.
Of course Trump would never annex Canada or Greenland — would he? Surely he wouldn’t blame Ukraine for being invaded and take Russia’s side at the United Nations — would he? And while he might brandish tariffs rhetorically, he wouldn’t declare economic war on the world — would he? More generally, once out of campaign mode, he won’t really abdicate America’s postwar role as leader and stabilizer of the international system. He’d never turn the US from a benevolent into a negligent, much less a malevolent, actor in the world. Or would he?