Filenews 13 February 2025 - by Andreas Kluth
"America First," as implemented by President Donald Trump in his second term, is heading — probably rapidly — toward "Isolated America" or even "Hated America." How such an outcome would make America Great Again I can't fathom, but it should give Trumpists a reason to take a "break" for reflection before it's too late.
On foreign policy, Trump campaigned on a promise to be a peacemaker through "force" to solve wars like Russia's against Ukraine within 24 hours and prevent new conflicts from erupting. But since his re-election, and especially since his inauguration, Trump has adopted a new tone. The one he is used to using in internal affairs: that of the bully.
Trump has already threatened: Denmark, because he wants Greenland – Panama, because he wants his canal – Canada, because he wants to integrate it as the 51st state – Colombia, because he briefly hesitated to accept planes with his immigrants – and South Africa, because he is convinced that its government is racist, that is, anti-white.
It has also indirectly threatened two other American partners, Egypt and Jordan, because it wants to "take ownership" of the Gaza Strip, which would require the forced resettlement of its 2 million inhabitants to other countries in the region. At the same time, he has threatened trade tariffs on America's trading partners, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union. (Curiously, he has not, so far, spoken as harshly to America's adversaries, notably Russia and China.)
How are these countries likely to react – and others, as the whole world watches – ? In the 1980s, Stephen Walt, a scholar of the realist school in international relations, developed a theory to answer this question.
Walt updated the traditional notion that countries or empires generally seek a "balance of power" by forming alliances against the one who is the strongest. That can't be true, Walt argued, because many countries should have allied themselves against the United States after World War II, when America became the stronger of the two superpowers. After the Cold War, when the world briefly became unipolar and the US had no rival, even more countries should have formed alliances against it. However, the opposite has happened. The U.S. has continued to attract more friends over time, now numbering about 70 allies and many more trading partners.
Why: America represented a beneficial, not hostile, hegemony. It restrained and voluntarily used its power to ensure an open trading system and the rules of international law, in what became known as the Pax Americana or rules-based international order. Other countries, especially small ones, felt safer under U.S. leadership and wanted to be part of these U.S.-led networks.
Countries form new alliances against a country like the United States, Walt argued, only when that power becomes both powerful and threatening (like Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany in the late 19th century). The best designation to explain international relations, he suggested, is not the balance of power but the balance of threats.
America, in this new era of Trump, seems to have gone from a beneficial to a threatening force. Trump despises Pax Americana (he considers it exploitation) and seems to have no problem with imperialism, as long as it is part of the game, even if it means letting the world return to anarchy.
And as Walt's theory predicts, countries appear to be accelerating their efforts to find alternative trade and security arrangements that exclude the US. The European Union is talking to countries in Latin America and Asia – more countries are joining the BRICS, a group that sees itself as an alternative to the US-led Group of Seven – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is linked to the Middle East Gulf Cooperation Council – and so on.
The changes are especially striking if you know where to look. Last weekend, outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held talks with his rival, Friedrich Merz, ahead of federal elections in February. Since World War II, West Germany and then the reunified nation have seen the U.S. as a kind of "father figure"—as an occupier-turned-saviour and also a mentor to democracy. Merz was president of Atlantik-Brücke ("Atlantic Bridge"), an organization that promotes German-American friendship.
And yet, these two, while exchanging fire on almost every other issue, seemed to agree that America has gone from friend to threat. Merz even referred to concerns shared privately with him by the Danish prime minister. Both agreed that on trade and everything else, Europe, including Britain (which left the EU), must remain united, not with the US but against it.
Trump as a person and MAGA as a movement are making a catastrophic mistake in confusing childish and arbitrary displays of power — the power to hurt weaker friends — with the enduring glory that comes from using force to make the world a safer and better place, bringing friends closer together and keeping enemies at bay. America under Trump has become a threat. Let no one be surprised when the world seeks balance again, and America ends up on its own.
Performance – Editing: Lydia Roumpopoulou
