It has gone almost entirely under the radar, but Donald Trump is pretty clearly trying to change the “world order” that has existed since WWII in a way that favors America. Ironically, given the lack of attention it’s gotten, it could end up being the most important thing he does in his second term over the long haul.
However, to fully explain what Trump is doing, we need to do a very brief history lesson.
After WWII, Europe had been devastated by the war; Britain was no longer considered the world’s most powerful nation; the Soviet Union was a looming threat; and everyone was concerned about preventing another war.
On the other hand, because the US mainland had never been attacked and we had ramped up our industrial capability during the war, the United States was the strongest, richest, most militarily powerful nation left in the world. Many nations would have sought to assert dominance over the world in that situation, but the US took a different path.
We worked with Europe to create the United Nations and NATO, and the dollar became the world’s reserve currency. The United States forgave the equivalent of 800-900 billion dollars in today’s money that we had loaned to European nations during the war, helped rebuild Europe with the Marshall Plan, and moved from a tariff-heavy, protectionist country to one that embraced free trade. That was largely because we wanted to help Europe buy and sell in America more easily so they could recover faster from WWII.
Certainly, the United States looked after its own interests to a degree, but the level of selflessness we demonstrated after WWII is unique in world history for a nation in our position.
In retrospect, you’d have to give this post-WWII “world order” high marks if you’re American. It wasn’t flawless, but it helped us win the Cold War against the Soviet Union and cemented our country’s status as the world’s only superpower.
Unfortunately, as successful as this “world order” has been, it has become irrelevant and/or has broken down in quite a few ways.
* The United Nations is deeply corrupt, extremely incompetent, and has literally become part of the problem in many places around the world. It hasn’t quite devolved into a completely useless grift for bureaucrats yet, but reasonable people should question whether it can even be reformed at this point.
* The initial purpose of NATO was…
Today?
The Soviet Union has collapsed, and as we’ve seen from Russia’s inability even to swallow Ukraine, Russia is no real threat militarily to Europe. We also don’t need to worry about keeping the Germans down anymore, and does Europe even want the “Americans in?”
It’s also worth noting that European nations have become increasingly weak, timid, and generally poor allies in a war. Some of these countries won’t even let us fly over their airspace when we fight, and it has been more than 20 years since any NATO ally has been with us on the front lines at the start of a fight, the way Israel was when we recently bombed Iran.
* Additionally, Europe is declining fast. Their crazy immigration practices, massive government spending, and overwhelming levels of bureaucracy make you question how many of these countries will be able to help themselves in 20 years, much less anyone else. How much stock can we put in allies like that?
On top of all that, it’s worth noting WWII was a long time ago. These are not devastated nations, and their economic problems are mostly self-inflicted these days. How much sense does it make for us to let them put draconian tariffs on our goods while we let them sell freely in the most important market in the world?
So, Trump is starting to respond to the world AS IT IS, not as it was right after WWII.
Many people don’t realize this, but we already had SOME tariffs on other nations before Trump’s second term. Trump decided to raise them significantly:
In the short term, this increases tax revenue, massively increases the incentive to build factories in the US (Which means more American jobs), and gives us bargaining chips to trade for lower tariffs on American exports.
Trump has also gone out of his way to signal that we expect American allies not to be allies in name only, but to step up when it matters if they want us to continue to do the same for them:
The message Trump is sending to our “allies” is extremely healthy and long overdue. What started as an “alliance” turned into the United States being asked to play sheriff of the world while our own “allies” either give limited help, no help, or worse yet, give us attitude about the job we’re doing.
Well, having the strongest nation on the planet helping you secure your nation is extraordinarily valuable. Trump’s message is, “Either start treating it that way or maybe we won’t continue to be allies.”
Trump is also trying to reform the UN, and he’s doing so by withdrawing from numerous UN bodies and refusing to pay our dues, which amount to around 22% of the UN’s budget. How have they been doing without that money? Not so well:
Since then, Trump has sent them SOME of the dues we owe them in return for the reforms he wants. However, the free ride is OVER, and the United Nations either needs to reform or else. I’d prefer the “or else” because I don’t think the UN can truly be reformed, but this seems like a great way to lay the groundwork for that, too. One way or the other, things need to change.
Speaking of changes, the Soviet Union was the threat in the post-WWII world. Today? Not so much.
Trump put the Mexican cartels are on notice. We’ve blown up a number of their drug boats, and Trump has explicitly told them that if they keep screwing around in America, there are no guarantees that their homes aren’t next:
Cuba has been a thorn in our side for almost 70 years, and Trump is attempting to take down the regime by blockading it. Iran, which calls America the “Great Satan,” was potentially within weeks of having nukes before Trump hit them the first time. Now, Trump is testing whether a long-held assumption is really true: Do you actually have to put troops on the ground to win a war? Trump seems to think that you don’t, and it’s highly likely that he’s going to turn out to be right, although Iran probably won’t give in until after the midterms.
Then, there’s the other big dog on the block. China. Trump has been making a lot of moves on that front as well:
Trump always comes across as a free-wheeling, shoot-from-the-hip kind of guy, but these are smart, sophisticated, far-reaching foreign policy moves that will shape the “world order” in the long term, in a way that heavily benefits America. The good news is that Trump is on pace to have the biggest impact on that front since Ronald Reagan, who, come to think of it, was also highly underestimated by his enemies and had a knack for churning out memorable quotes:
John - You have hit on the primary thing that Republican idiots are failing to recognize.
The post Bretton Woods Global Order was absolutely primarily a fantastic move by US policy makers after WWII... that should have been stopped about 35 years ago.
Every system suffers the eventual rot of leaches, looters, moochers and charlatans. Either the system needs to be managed as a constant improvement project, or it needs a periodic complete reengineering overhaul every 10 years or so. The US-funded Global Order got a few tweaks during its 80-year run, but its value proposition ended after about 40 or so years, and then it headed downhill.
The biggest rot was the allowance of communist China into the fold. Previously the 44 member nations of the Bretton Woods alliance had to commit to adopting US-style democratic capitalism. Admitting communist China was a stupid globalist utopian fantasy backed by the greed of corporations and Wall Street.
The rest of the rot was what we should label the soft bigotry of low expectations. We trained Europe and other countries that they can spend lavishly on their social programs while becoming dependent on US-funded military defense. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Eurotard elites decided that they could also blame the US for its military actions establishing some mythology that the world would be more peaceful without it... ignoring that it was these same Eurotard elites that almost destroyed the world in two world wars.
The US is $40 trillion in debt, suffering a $1.4 trillion dollar trade deficit, has developed massive national security risk from our lack of production and lack of supply chain control, has millions of homeless, has crumbling infrastructure and terrible growing affordability problems (note that the big selling point for globalism is that it results in cheaper prices for consumers).
People need to stop with their TDS and listed to Bessent, Ludnick, Warsh and Vance to understand what the primary Trump agenda is and always has been. It is to pull back from the Global Order before the US self-destructs. The reason that so many other countries have developed a negative opinion of the US is because we are taking away the US-funded care they had been benefitting from. We are telling them they need to grow up and take care of themselves. Just like when I expelled my divorced brother from our home to go get a job and pay for his own apartment, he decided he needed to hate me. That was until he got his act together (I paid for his technical certification) and built a new life for himself.
Giving people what they need instead of what they want is a thankless job, and only leaders that don't require all the thanks can get it done.