Trump Is Making America a Declining Power
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In his first 100 days back in the White House, Donald Trump has asserted executive power as brazenly as any president in American history. Yet America's power in the world has sharply declined—not in some odd paradox but rather as the direct result of its imperial thundering.
He has ravaged vast swaths of the federal bureaucracy, redefining what the US government should and should not do. But his ease in doing so—the submissiveness of so many institutions here at home—swayed him into thinking the world would fall in line with similar pliance. In fact, the opposite has happened: The more that other countries see him failing to get his way, the more they're standing up to his pressures, a trend that is beginning to embolden his domestic opponents as well.
A little more than 100 years ago, the sociologist Max Weber defined power as the ability to “carry out one's will, despite resistance.” By that measure, on the world stage, Trump has displayed very little power—or very little talent for using what power he has. And the more that people see this powerlessness (his inability to carry out his will), the more they will challenge, resist, and ultimately ignore him—and us.
In the months leading up to his inauguration, Trump said 53 times that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on or before his first day in office. His peace plan, which he figured Russia would embrace out of friendship and Ukraine would accept due to weakness, was swiftly dismissed by both. Even his latest version , which gives the Kremlin's chief nearly everything he wants, doesn't go far enough.
Trump also said he would swiftly end the Israel-Hamas war. It too rages on. In the final days of the Biden administration, Trump's emissary, Steve Witkoff , did help nail down a ceasefire, mainly by pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who wanted to please the incoming president. But the agreement didn't last beyond its 30-day expiration date, and the killing continued there as well.
Trump promised that bevies of trade deals and tariffs would revitalize American industry and punish the countries that have been “screwing us” for decades. But they either have yet to be negotiated or have fallen apart, mainly because Trump's opening positions have been seen as bluffs—sometimes because he's admitted they're bluffs.
Canada and Mexico brushed off Trump's first threat of tariffs by announcing modest steps, mainly related to border security, that they had already taken. (Lesson learned: You can get away with a lot if you deal with a leader who either lacks or ignores staff.) A second stab at tariffing our closest neighbors (for reasons that remain vague) was postponed after the largest US automakers—who do a lot of co-production with Canada and Mexico—told Trump it would hurt their business. (It would have helped if Trump had heard this argument before declaring a tariffs policy.)
China is just a head-scratcher. One could at least make a case for some tariffs to counter Beijing's unfair trade policies. Trump announced a 145 percent tariff on all Chinese goods, then noted that this was just a bargaining position , and that he would come down well below 145 percent in the end. (One might think that Trump, author of a book called The Art of the Deal, would know that you don't make good deals by telling your opponent you're bluffing.) Trump says his emissaries are negotiating with China; the Chinese say no such talks are going on . It's unusual for Chinese denials to appear more credible than any American president's claim, but that seems to be the case here. In any case, Trump has offered no evidence to bolster his side of the argument. Nor are any talks—or claims of talks—going on with Japan.
Bluster can be a useful ingredient in foreign policy, but only if means and ends are well integrated. The United States is blessed not only by two great oceans, which we control with our navies, but also by long borders with two big countries, neither of which has designs on our territory. So why is Trump going out of his way to make them enemies?
His rhetoric against our neighbor to the north has been simply berserk. Canadians are almost a stereotype of nice, yet Trump denounced them as “ nasty .” His constant nudges that they should give up their independence—calling Canada the “ 51st state” and addressing its prime minister as “ Governor ”—backfired so thoroughly that the party he supported lost in the country's elections. (The Conservative Party, which had led by large margins in polls until recently, lost to the Liberals; not only that, the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, who had been preparing to be prime minister, lost his seat in Parliament .)
This is the very definition of a declining power: when smaller or weaker countries act against the power's interests for the sake of acting against its interests.
By most objective measures, the United States is still a powerful country. Its dollar is the world's reserve currency, its military is the most lethal fighting force, it controls most of the esteemed international institutions. As a result, through the decades, most countries, even those that aren't formal allies, have wanted to stay on Washington's good side—out of fear, respect, or mutual interest.
This is still the case to a large extent—it's why many leaders, even those who view him as a threat or a joke, push Trump's buttons and kiss his ring—but it's becoming less and less so. The European members of NATO still rely on the US for their defenses, but their leaders—not just France's Emmanuel Macron, who has long had a Gaullist streak, but Germany's Friedrich Merz , an once reliable Christian Democrat—are now saying out loud that they need to break away from the US and form an independent EU military. In part this is because Trump has said he's not so keen on coming to Europe's rescue in the event of a Russian invasion; in part it's because Trump and some of his entourage, including Vice President JD Vance and DOGE chief Elon Musk , have spoken out against Western European values.
What Trump wants from this is unclear. Experts in Berlin have told me that it will take 10 years for the European Union to form an effective and truly independent defense force; in the meantime, without the US at NATO's assured helm, the continent's security will weaken. Trump's rhetorical pressure, whatever its ultimate purpose, is also self-defeating. He says he will pile on tariffs against the EU, which would spur inflation—while also insisting that its members spend more on their defense. It's hard enough to put up with one or the other; it's politically and fiscally almost impossible to put up with both.
The same is true all over. Denmark is a very friendly NATO ally; its protectorate, Greenland, hosts an enormous US military base , sparking no popular or political protest whatever. Yet Trump, out of the blue, has said many times the US needs to annex Greenland and will, at some point, “get” it “one way or another.” (The local population opposes the notion as fervently as Canadians reject the idea of US statehood.)
Panama has one of South America's most pro-US governments; that didn't stop Trump from threatening to retake the Panama Canal, by military force if necessary, on the ( false ) grounds that its ports are controlled by China.
Trump has saved his kindest words, or least punitive threats, for an odd mix of countries—Russia, Hungary, Israel, and Saudi Arabia—but he has said or done little to exploit opportunities for diplomacy in any of those regions. (One interesting exception: He stopped Israel from launching an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities , saying he wanted to try negotiating a treaty to dismantle the program—ignoring that in his first term, he scuttled an agreement, signed by President Obama and five other leaders, that was having the same effect.)
Meanwhile, Trump's wrecking ball against the federal government has hugely damaged, or wiped out, US programs abroad—notably those involving food and medical aid, disaster relief, economic development, cultural exchanges, and the promotion of democracy. He may have gotten away with this because polls show many Americans think we spend a quarter of our budget on these humanitarian ventures, but in fact, the total amounts to less than 1 percent . And while Trump thinks we're “suckers” for spending anything at all, these programs greatly improve America's image in the world. To the degree that people regard the United States as something a little bit better than your standard arms-heavy empire keen on conquering the world, it's because of the food, medicine, rescue workers, construction vehicles, and so forth, all emblazoned with the American flag.
The remarkable thing is that Trump is fine with eliminating all this finery. He wants the world to regard America as a mean, self-promoting empire (and himself as its king). He thinks the starkness will earn him respect and fear. Even if he's right (and the history of the past 80 years or so suggests he isn't), a leader needs to know how to use those resources. Trump does not. He doesn't recognize that in a world where power has dispersed and the once fixed power blocs have dissolved, the United States—or any other country that wants to wield influence or just protect itself—needs allies, who in turn view the United States as a reliable ally, not as a bully, much less a puzzling bully..fput
One upshot of all this is that China —a country that Trump views, to some degree properly, as both partner and adversary—is carving inroads that it could not have made before. Beijing had alienated many, especially in the developing world, with the inept technology and corrupt demands of its foreign aid programs; now its emissaries can present it as a better alternative to Trump. Beijing's aggressiveness against Taiwan had frightened many Asian countries to form alliances of containment; now, with Washington's protection in doubt, some of those countries are seeking accommodation instead. And if Ukraine falls, owing to Trump's disfavor toward Volodymyr Zelensky and appeasement of Vladimir Putin's demand for territory, some European leaders—at least until they build up their own defenses—will be seeking self-protection deals as well.
Trump may think he's an all-powerful power broker, but in fact, as Paul Krugman noted in his recent Substack column, he's “the Godfather in reverse, making offers that other countries can't accept.”
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