Today, the eyes of the world are certainly on America, but many foreign observers describe a once-bright city that seems to be sinking into darkness. They see President Donald Trump transforming America’s foreign policy and its image in the world. Instead of a soft but globally admired internationalism, Trump promotes the narrow, transactional values of a real estate businessman.
The idea of America as an extraordinary nation is often conveyed through the phrase “a shining city upon a hill.” But people forget how John Winthrop first used this description in 1630, as he addressed his group of Pilgrims heading for the New World: “We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all men upon us.”
Today, the eyes of the world are certainly on America, but many foreign observers describe a once-bright city that seems to be sinking into darkness. They see President Donald Trump transforming America’s foreign policy and its image in the world. Instead of a soft but globally admired internationalism, Trump promotes the narrow, transactional values of a real estate businessman. He acts as if generosity is for fools. In his world, powerful nations necessarily dominate the weak, and power determines what is right.
The question is: As Trump tears down the old version of American foreign policy, what does he intend to build in its place? His career gives us little evidence of strategic thinking. He has been more of a disrupter and negotiator than a builder. His first term was marked by constant changes in personnel and policy, with few lasting achievements. The best assessment of Trump’s strategic “vision” that I have seen comes from Alex Younger, the former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence service. In a February 21 interview with BBC Newsnight, he said that “we are in a new era where, by and large, international relations will not be defined by multilateral rules and institutions. They will be defined by powerful people and agreements.”
Younger compared Trump’s tough diplomacy to the 1945 Yalta Conference, where the dominant wartime leaders — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill — divided Europe without regard to the wishes of smaller nations. “This is the worldview we’re moving towards for a number of reasons, and I don’t think we’re going back to the one we had before,” Younger argued.
The clearest example of this neo-Yalta mentality is the way Trump has conducted the preliminary phase of peace negotiations in Ukraine. He has pressured the weak Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky (“You don’t have the cards”), to accommodate what he sees as the interests of the big players: the United States and Russia. Following this peace deal, he declares that “China can help too.” Trump seems to envision a new balance of power with three main pillars: the United States, plus Russia and China, whose leaders he sees as similar. The rest of the world, including America’s oldest allies, must fend for itself.
French Senator Claude Malhuret’s angry response in a speech last week has been quoted around the world: “Trump’s message is that being his ally is of no use because he doesn’t protect you, imposes more tariffs on you than on his enemies, and threatens to take your territories while supporting dictators to invade you.”
The world doesn’t have a vote on American policy, but it does have strong opinions. A European survey released this month showed that positive perceptions of the United States have fallen sharply in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden — down 20 points or more in some of those countries. In Canada, only 1 in 3 people have a positive opinion of Trump’s America. A December poll found that 63 percent of Japanese are concerned about a second Trump term. What has surprised the world is how quickly Trump has reversed longstanding U.S. commitments. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boasted on Monday that he had cut 83 percent of USAID programs. Trump cut military and intelligence aid to Ukraine to pressure it for concessions. He dismantled the US opposition to Vladimir Putin’s Russia so quickly that a Kremlin spokesman declared: “The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This is broadly consistent with our vision.”
Trump may be making a big mistake with his disdain for Europe – which seems to be finding its voice after decades of passively following Washington.
European leaders say they are so worried about an expansionist Russia that they are willing to take a strong stance in Ukraine, committing troops to deter further aggression after a ceasefire. The Russians are angry, but if Europe stands firm, will Trump really side with Putin against America’s closest allies? I doubt it.
Trump’s global economic strategy is clearer than his foreign policy goals, but no less destabilizing. He proposes to restore the tariff barriers set in place in the late 19th century, when the United States was struggling to develop its manufacturing industries in the face of European competition. In theory, erecting similar tariff walls would raise the prices of imports so much that investors would be encouraged to build new factories and usher in Trump’s “Golden Age of America.” But this process—the “transition period,” as Trump called it this week—is likely to take many years. In reality, this tariff-based strategy was not even compatible with the globalizing economy of the Gilded Age, let alone 1901st-century America. Even President William McKinley, a champion of high tariffs, later realized that “excessive trade barriers would stunt development and limit the country’s growth potential,” as his biographer, Robert W. Merry, writes. By the end of his presidency in XNUMX, McKinley “clearly saw a new era in which America would play a major role in global trade.”
Many economists see Trump’s vision as unsustainable. But let’s imagine that Trump’s tariff walls succeed in pulling the United States out of the existing international trading system. How would the rest of the world react? Initially, other countries would impose their own tariffs, as Canada, Mexico, and China have already begun to do. But over time, these countries would likely form trading coalitions—with Europe and the Global South making deals with an increasingly dominant China, avoiding “Fortress America.”
Lawrence H. Summers, a Harvard professor and one of the world’s most influential economists, argued this week that Trump’s tariff-based economic strategy is “completely counterproductive.” Noting the sharp decline in financial markets, he wrote in X: “We are experiencing the worst of both worlds—inflation concerns and an economic slowdown, and more uncertainty about the future, and that slows everything down.” Here’s what Trump doesn’t seem to understand: American history is not just about “unwavering courage,” as Stephen Ambrose titled his book about the great explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. It is also about moral values like generosity, tolerance, and hope. These are the qualities that have inspired the world to follow American leadership.
“The eyes of all men are upon us,” Winthrop said. As his ship sailed from England toward the great outdoors and freedom of America, he warned his companions that if they worshipped “the false god of pleasure and gain,” then “we shall surely perish from this good land.”
