Flying high, for now.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Trump Is Making America Weaker. And Stronger
The president alternatively exploits and deplores the US-led global order — and it just might work.
Wars have a way of killing half-truths and lazy cliches. The present conflict in the Middle East is exploding the persistent myth that President Donald Trump’s America is withdrawing from the world. Fourteen months into Trump's second presidency, there's not much restraint, and certainly no isolationism, in this White House. Trump isn’t simply reacting randomly to events or using foreign policy to distract from domestic problems. Rather, he is pursuing a highly ambitious, sometimes-hyperactive superpower strategy, one that has the potential — and certainly the intent — to reshape the globe.
Trump is rewiring the world economy and transforming US alliances. His policies, and his wars, are remaking regions from Latin America to the Middle East. Trump's America is decapitating regimes it deems hostile; it is grabbing for key resources and real estate; it is picking winners in political processes around the world.