Donald Trump’s bruising return to the White House has sent many longtime foreign allies scrambling to get their distance, and according to a new piece from The Atlantic, that distance will last long after Trump is gone.
Trump’s second term as president has been marked by notable and widespread disrespect toward nations once seen as close U.S. allies. Between his attempts to level massive tariffs against nearly every nation in the world and his frequent breaches of diplomatic norms, Trump has created a hostile global environment in which allies no longer feel safe trusting in the stability of the U.S.
In a new piece for The Atlantic on Tuesday, staff writer Vivian Salama argued that this new dynamic, in which the nations of the world are working to establish a safe distance from the U.S., is bound to become the new normal for years to come, even after Trump leaves office and is potentially replaced by a more traditional, dependable administration.
Nothing is permanent if the timespan is long enough, but given most governments don’t look much past next election it might as well be.
This is permanent in the sense that Trump has revealed the US constitution is a paper tiger and the US is run at the whim of the President. He has shown how weak the US governmental and legal system is, with one lunatic able to cause global chaos relatively unrestrained. Even when decisions are eventually undone by the courts, the damage has already been done and the President can just try a different route to the same goal.
That can’t be undone by time; it needs serious reform in the US. Going forward, even if there is a reasonable president, all the US allies will now hedge their bets and will no longer want to be over reliant on the US. The US will always be regarded as unreliable now as it is effectively always just one election away from another potential Trump.