Is this the change people voted for?
From the ashes of World War II, President Harry Truman presided over the creation of global institutions that have defined the international order for the past 80 years.
“It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure,” Truman said as he spelled out his doctrine in a 1947 speech to Congress.
In a few short years, the U.S. helped establish and lead the United Nations, NATO, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The U.S. helped rebuild Europe with assistance funneled through the Marshall Plan, and it also funded the reconstruction of Japan.
Democratic and Republican presidents supported these institutions for generations. They sometimes grumbled at the cost, yet they believed the institutions ultimately strengthened the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower.
But 100 days into his second term, President Trump is moving aggressively to scale back the United States’ role in the world, based on his “America First” agenda. Trump sees this web of alliances, treaties and soft power as expensive, outdated relics that restrain America’s ability to act decisively on its own.
I’ve been warning about this since the morning after Trump was elected in 2016. It’s always what he had in mind. It’s not that he wants to withdraw from the world, far from it. He wants to dominate the world through economic and military force.
I always issue the disclaimer that says there’s no need to continue that post-war order forever but Trump’s vision is nothing but ignorant WWE style posturing and idiotic policies that have alienated all of our allies, spooked the world economy and given our adversaries everything they ever dreamed of. It’s a nightmare. He is not the answer to anything.
We are about to see how his “doctrine” (if you want to call it that) works economically. His tariffs are his first serious attempt to put that to work and it’s not going well, to say the least. We had better hope that the real estate dope Trump has put in charge of foreign policy, Steve Witkoff, can do some kind of a deal with Iran and that China doesn’t make a mistake or that Putin doesn’t get ahead of himself because I am quite sure he’s anxious to swing his tiny appendages around just to prove he can.
America First has always meant America Uber Alles. Don’t kid yourself.