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.

  • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    It’s like this. No shade to Americans, but you guys can do this shit in any four year period. You elected him TWICE.

    No hard feelings, but you’re on your own.

  • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Trump is the symptom not the cause.

    If anything Trump is doing the world a favour by dropping the pretence that the US is a good global citizen that just happens to have hundreds of military bases worldwide, an infinite money hack and nukes.

    The US is a brutal imperialist power that genocides or destroys anyone who gets in its way. People with sense have known this since before Vietnam but the narrative pushers are finally high and dry.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.ml
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    32 minutes ago

    Trump has laid bare our (rest of the world) complete risk exposure. Financial houses and strategists are making it clear. Politicians very much aware that their voters do not want a “special relationship” with America. Only the extreme right here support him.

    • Jhex@lemmy.world
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      46 minutes ago

      Unfortunately, yes there are.

      I talked to an idiot the other day who said Carney only rejected a trade deal with the USA to “stay in power”… they apparently are not aware Carney already has a majority, is very popular ATM and does not have to face an election for some 3 years.

      Some people are just too dumb to realize when they are wrong and will die on their chosen dumbass hill

      • TheJesusaurus@piefed.ca
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        52 minutes ago

        I do have to wonder about their logic. If rejecting a trump deal kept him in power, one would conclude that a majority of Canadians agree that we should not make that deal, or a majority of his base.

        So even in their own dumbass world their explanation still makes no sense

        • Jhex@lemmy.world
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          47 minutes ago

          well let me explain, you start assuming they have any logic… you just went down the rabbit hole from there

  • Kyrias@lemmy.ca
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    3 hours ago

    No Trump. Americans.

    The first term was forgivable as long as they learned from it. Instead they celebrated it and cried out for more.

    • CalemitousVariantK@lemmy.world
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      39 minutes ago

      It’s happening in Germany. It’s happening in France. It’s happening in Australia and Canada and Italy and Japan and pretty much everywhere. Somehow, in spite of a proven record of failure and catastrophic consequences, right wing ideology continues to grow like a cancer across the globe.

      The US got to this point with help from foreign billionaires, as well as domestic ones. Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Sundar Pichai… The grift is global and putting your vitriol toward those who might take your side will leave you friendless when it happens to you where you live.

      People gave up instead of showing up and that was a costly mistake.

      Many people mean well, even if they live in bad places. Have the grace to encourage them to keep resisting, even if that resistance is as small as protest or even voting, for your own sake.

    • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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      2 hours ago

      Almost twice as many Americans voted against Trump as people live in your entire country (assuming Canadian from the instance). That’s a ridiculously ignorant blanket statement to make. I loathe our government and the assholes who support it as well, but I don’t hate entire countries for having evil shitty leaders.

      • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        The point, you are missing it.

        It’s not that “not all Americans”, it’s that you inflicted him on the rest of us. If you are butthurt at the rest of the world for rejecting the US you might have a rethink.

        • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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          1 hour ago

          I didn’t inflict him on anyone - I voted against him 3 times. Rejecting the US government is the absolute correct response, as it can’t be trusted. But a country’s government is not all of its people.

          • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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            55 minutes ago

            Once again, personal responsibility doesn’t mean shit. The Americans inflicted him upon us. That you personally didn’t has no actual bearing on reality. You may not like it, you probably hate it, but you share collective responsibility for Trump as a nation.

            So, if the rest of the world reroutes around you as a damaged and dangerous state, that should be an expected outcome. Save your pouting, and collectively deal with it.

            Saying that, I do appreciate your helpless frustration. But we all have our own political problems in our own countries. If your country is a absolute fucking trainwreak and set to destroy all normal and reasonable order, we owe all of you nothing. And if you open your eyes real wide you can see the globe rapidly sidestepinng away from you in real time. This situation won’t change an inch if you elect a jolly, sane Obama next time. Because elemental MAGA runs deep in your DNA. The only question is when will it surface next?

            • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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              25 minutes ago

              The rest of the world rerouting around us a damaged and dangerous state is fine, the correct course of action even. But hating an entire nation of people for their leader is an ignorant response. In meatspace people have to do what the can to protect themselves from malicious governments like ours. Online, I’m an individual, and so are you. What our governments do means fuck all here.

              I probably hate our government more than you - it almost certainly affects me more. But bigotry is not okay.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        hate entire countries for having evil shitty leaders.

        This is a popular thing to do on lemmy and it’s honestly 50/50 if you get downvoted to hell for saying it’s bad.

        • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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          2 hours ago

          Yup, one of the nice things about Lemmy is that downvotes mean even less here than they did on reddit!

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            Yeah I wish I could just turn them off for me globally. My mobile app doesn’t allow that unfortunately.

      • Talcosis@lemmy.zip
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        1 hour ago

        I assume you’ve been online in the last four years, and seen that all Russians are at fault for the invasion of Ukraine?

        Why would you assume that Americans wouldn’t be seen similarly?

    • Gordon Calhoun@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Need to caveat this that not all Americans. The country is incredibly polarized and pissed off at itself from within. It’s a hot cesspool mess inside and there are many who sympathize with the rest of the world and abhor the cancer within.

      • froh42@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        It’s totally irrelevant if it’s all USians or just a few of them. The US is a inherently unstable country, winner takes it all. When people elect a less idiotic president, it will just take a few years until the next Trump-Level guy wins again.

        Also the republican presidents I experienced in my life got more unhinged every cycle, Regan, old Bush, young Bush, Trump. Who will be next one? One day there will be another Republican president.

        The only way out would be a fundamental refactoring to not be a failing democracy.

        Pigs will fly through a freezing hell before that happens. So the only rational thing is to understand the empire fell, the King has no clothes and keep a wide berth around the US in all future dealings.

        • Cricket@lemmy.zip@lemmy.zip
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          2 hours ago

          Who will be next one? One day there will be another Republican president.

          Yes. Just look at two prominent, potential Republican presidential candidates for the next few decades: dark lord and antichrist lecturer Peter Thiel’s boy JD Vance and unhinged, rabid anti-communist Marco Rubio. There are probably others of a similar caliber, but I try to forget.

      • Kyrias@lemmy.ca
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        3 hours ago

        Everyone ignoring that he still has a 40% approval rating. That’s 137m people who like what’s going on.

        Let’s just lock the door and wait for the dumpster fire to burn itself out.

        • xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
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          2 hours ago

          Recent polls have his approval down to 29%. Which is still way too high, but when people can’t heat their homes this winter, I expect those numbers to drop even further.

        • Gordon Calhoun@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          Yeah, a lot of people are still in love with him. They’re brainwashed lead-poisoned idiots and fascism lovers. Makes me wish it were easier to emigrate out of the dumpster fire.

        • Gordon Calhoun@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          A clear majority is not necessarily everyone. 51% constitutes a clear majority.

          Everyone under 18 was ineligible to vote and their opinions were immaterial. Convicted felons can also have their voting right privilege revoked.

          So, just realize a lot of people are pissed and suffering from within, too.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        As your historical enemy how many presidents do I have to go back before it becomes all Americans?

        The good ones fled after the revolutionary war.

        • Gordon Calhoun@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          If only there were some way to choose where to be born. Wasn’t given much of an opportunity to flee after the revolutionary war.

          • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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            58 minutes ago

            I apologize for your parents being terrible people. At what point are you able to renounce your citizenship?

    • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@feddit.uk
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      3 hours ago

      Try to take hybrid warfare into account. Not for nothing was Putin paying buildings full of trolls to poison internet culture for years and years. They couldn’t automate it with an LLM back then.

  • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    I don’t believe all of it is permanent. Some of it can come back if we bargain in good faith. Politicians in other countries are just as opportunistic as American politicians.

      • cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works
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        21 minutes ago

        Europe bought Russian gas up until the point Russia invaded Ukraine. . .twice. They will absolutely continue to trade with the US. Cooperation may not be as close, but the trade will be there until we actually physically attack Europe. Possibly more than once.

    • BananaTrifleViolin@piefed.world
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      1 hour ago

      This is permanent. Trump has shown that the idea the US is stable and orderly is a lie. Instead, he got away with an attempted coup (albeit the coup itself didn’t succeed), and has upended US foreign policy and relations without any restraint by congress and minimal restraint by the clearly partisan supreme court. He has shown that the US governmental system and constitution is far weaker than anyone could have believed.

      Trump will be gone in a couple of years, but he has revealed that the US is always just one vote away from another capricious lunatic as president who can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. There is also no guarantee that there won’t be another attempted coup in 2 years time without legal consequence should the republicans not like losing the White House. Countries can’t rely on the word of the US now. Even if the next president is reasonable and tries to restore the old order, the damage is done and countries are going to be hedging their bets, always thinking “but what happens when the next Trump comes along?”.

      The big loser is the US - countries deferred to US wishes in many things and allowed US businesses access to their markets, in no small part because it was seen as an exchange for the peace and security the US hegemony provided.

      The only fix to restore confidence would be serious reform in the US and it is very clear that is not going to happen. Congress is permanently divided between 2 parties that hold up the status quo in the US. There is no realistic prospect of constitutional reform, with no party likely to get a 2/3rds majority, and even if they did get a majority it is clear there is no real political understanding in the US about the actual problems it is facing.

        • WWV@lemmy.zip
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          3 hours ago

          Ha, all the shit that has been done in less than 2 years and not one fucking peep. Americans have proven far too lazy to expect anything other what they have done so far. This is only the beginning of the new Amerikkka.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            What’s it like, blindly hating 350 million people you’ll never meet? It must be exhausting.

            • WWV@lemmy.zip
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              7 minutes ago

              Ok patriot. Little less yankee doodle dandy, and a bit more humility would serve you and your countrymen well. Be well.

              • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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                6 minutes ago

                The two states of being: bigot or patriot. Got it. Thanks for clearing that up. Continue with your hatred

          • froh42@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            Nah, going where the US is, that has definitely not happened in the last two years. I don’t remember the US before Reagan, but Republican governments have been walking into the MAGA direction ever since. It’s just Trump who’s the current symptom. All this is a trend that was followed for about half of a century.

            • WWV@lemmy.zip
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              2 hours ago

              I’m afraid you, like Amerikkkans, are fooling yourselves. The toothpaste isn’t going back in that tube and the world will never trust the US again. Everyone with a sense of reality outside of the US can see the country is collapsing financially and morally. 25 - 50 years tops. It’s about to start to get really ugly.

    • Junkers_Klunker@feddit.dk
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      4 hours ago

      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.

      • BananaTrifleViolin@piefed.world
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        1 hour ago

        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.

  • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Nothing is ever permanent in geopolitics. Who ever is telling you that there is someone who’s lying to you.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Not permanent, but it’s gonna be a while this time. US foreign policy regarding its allies used to be predictable enough that they could make long term plans and expect things that were patently useful to both sides would not be indiscriminately torpedoed. Now, you can mostly hope that the Democrats are on board with that as a broad philosophy, though they’re navigating populist waters that could get rocky with isolationism, but right now the other party in a closely matched two-party system can’t even be trusted not to tweet the economic system into existential peril or threaten literal invasions of allies, to say nothing of their simply being quite bad at efficient governance or diplomatic messaging.

      America’s allies will welcome any Democratic administration, and anything that can get better for the duration of one probably will (e.g. Visas, retaliatory tariffs, etc.), but diversifying from the dollar as a reserve currency, building trade networks that can minimize exposure to American political volatility, and even exploring security arrangements that imagine post-NATO scenarios, all that is going to continue unless we see a good two decades or more of non-insane foreign policy from both US parties. Not even humane or optimal, just not batshit crazy.