As the world reels from the first three weeks of Donald Trump’s shakedown diplomacy, it is divided between those who marvel at this display of raw American economic hegemony, and those who fear that the US’s president, fatally misreading how the globe has changed since his first term, is storing up trouble that will diminish the US as an economic and moral force in four years’ time.
At one level Trump’s antics are wearily familiar. After all, the last rites of the 70-year-old liberal world order were also read when Trump came to power in 2017, before that order was briefly disinterred under Joe Biden. The diplomatic pearls were collectively clutched when Trump 1.0 threatened to pull out of Nato, launched a trade war with China, introduced a travel ban on mainly Muslim countries, and withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation trade agreement championed by Barack Obama. In 2019, Trump dropped the threat of a 5% tariff in return for Mexico sending 6,000 militarised police to the southern border. Grievances, and bargains, have always animated Trump’s thinking.
