Donald Trump has taken a blowtorch to the accepted world order.
Imagine being an unrealized basketball star. Sure, you were told you were really good, but you spent most of your time running or lifting weights. One day, you decide to go down to the local park and see how good you really are. Over hours, you crush all comers in 1-on-1 competitions. Former NBA players and recent college stars are left in the dust. The potential was always there; you just never used it.
Donald Trump, as only he can, has unleashed America’s power over other countries in the world. One may laugh at Colombia’s president doing an about-face over the repatriation of illegal aliens ejected from the US. But to do so is to miss the bigger point. The US and China are the only two countries in the world that effectively cannot be ignored. The other 200-odd countries in the world are learning how to organize themselves around the two biggest economic and military players on the planet.
There was a story told once about Babe Ruth. The Yankees were traveling by train, and one car had members of the press. Out of nowhere, Ruth came running through the press car with a woman holding a knife right behind him. He stopped to say, “Nobody saw anything,” and then kept running. And sure enough, no one published a word of the story, which was unknown until decades later. As someone noted, at that time, players and writers made about the same amount of money, and they could be neighbors. Today, players can make over $20 million in a year, while the guys covering them might have to take the train to the ballpark.
The same may be said of countries. Until World War 2, the US was certainly not considered a power like England, whose holdings spanned the globe. Other European countries also held parts of Africa and/or the Far East. The US was just one cog in a league of nations. But after the war, with US military and economic power enlarged exponentially and Europe destroyed and soon to be without its distant outposts, the US became a superpower. Sure, the USSR was called the same, but it did not have the economic engine the US had, and its military made up for technical inferiority with large copy numbers. In Desert Storm, American Abrams tanks wiped out a huge number of Iraqi Russian tanks. The Americans could shoot farther, see at night, and swing their turrets around faster.
The problem with the US was that under Presidents Obama and Biden, the people of the US were not the first priority. The priorities ran more or less as follows:
The president and his family
The Democratic Party and its donors
The constituencies that supported Democrats
The result was that the US did not throw its economic and military weight around. We could leave the Taliban billions in weapons as we ran away from Afghanistan. NATO members could shirk their obligations with a wink and a smile. China could take over disputed islands and make itself at home along the Panama Canal. The US had the power to counter or to demand better terms but chose to be the silent giant. Not any longer. President Donald Trump has put the world on notice that the US will use all levers to advance the interests of the American people. The American people did not make much of an impression on Biden or Obama; they were an afterthought. Illegal immigrants destroying your city? Suck it up. Lost to a trans guy with a beard? Don’t be a bigot. The Colombian president may be a commie, but he is not a complete idiot. He made his 180 when he realized Donald Trump could shut down his country’s economy. Where do I pick up my countrymen to bring them home?
The one thing that many of Trump’s critics don’t understand is that it’s okay to lose a battle here or there, but the crime is in not engaging in the first place. Let’s look at some of the president’s recent world moves:
*Demand that Panama reduce China’s position in the canal area.
*Engage Norway over Greenland due to its strategic location.
*Jawbone Egypt and Jordan to take in huge numbers of Gazans.
*Slap tariffs on goods from China, Canada, and Mexico due to unfair trade practices.
*Demand that countries take back their illegal aliens.
*Push Israel into accepting a ceasefire agreement almost identical to one offered and rejected 8 months ago.
*Warned BRICS countries to manufacture in the US and keep the dollar as the world standard.
*Put NATO members on notice that he wants them to pay their dues
*Make it known to both Russia and Ukraine that he wants to work to end the war.
Donald Trump can shoot so many arrows early in his second administration because he a) knows the power of the US and b) is always thinking about how he can benefit the regular American. Most countries in the world have very little power beyond their borders. The UK has nuclear missiles on four Vanguard-class submarines. Is there any serious war that the UK could undertake without being joined by America? They had a rough go of it 40 years ago in the Falkland scrap. Nations of the world are finding out under Donald Trump that the US has most of the cards and can upend local politics and economics more than they would like to admit. The giant has awoken and is throwing his weight around. World leaders have not seen anything like it in years. Even during the first Trump administration, the president and his advisers seemed more collegial. Not anymore.
Will Donald Trump score victories on all of the points listed above? That is not the point. The goal is to push all of the buttons. Trump and the US will win on some of the issues, find a decent compromise on others, and may come up empty-handed on a few. But one must try. The president, for example, seems quite set on getting Gazans to be moved to Egypt and Jordan. Those two countries are even more dependent than Colombia on the US. Egypt is the only country that produces Abrams tanks outside of the US. If the US closes economic and military spigots for those two countries, they will be in short order toast. Will they risk it? Will they run to China, whose interests are purely economic and may not see any reason to aid countries with no oil or coal? Similar arguments can be made in all of the cases above: do you risk alienating the US, or do you find some accommodation so as to keep the country’s lights on?
The biggest fear world leaders may have is not another pandemic or some local unrest. It may well be a ringing phone with TRUMP appearing on the screen. The US had gone back to playing superpower, which was considered unseemly for years. Two-bit countries could blackmail the US or make crazy terms that previous administrations agreed to. Whether it was ransom from Iran or economically destructive terms of the Paris Climate Agreement, the US would just nod yes and accept the worst. No longer. Just as Donald Trump is cleaning up out-of-control immigration from decades past, he is recalibrating the world order. And this time, it’s for the benefit of American citizens.
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