President Donald Trump's bruising return to the White House has sent many longtime foreign allies scrambling to get their distance.

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.

  • wjrii@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    21 days 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.

      • wjrii@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        21 days ago

        Very possible, and you’re right that nothing will be the same, but America will be a rich and powerful country for a good while yet, and I imagine that after a (very hypothetical) generation of good behavior, many countries would be happy to revisit some of the arrangements that worked for 60+ years post WW2, or at the very least stop specifically planning around how to do without the US like they are forced to do now.