How the US will pay for Trump’s expansionism |
Donald Trump’s second term has stripped away the ideological veil that once softened America’s manoeuvres for global dominance. What earlier US administrations framed as the defence of democracy and a rules-based international order has now been recast in blunt, transactional terms.
This is not a stylistic shift. It’s a more profound transformation and has come at a moment when American hegemony is being challenged by the rise of China. Paradoxically, though, in trying to counter China’s rise through coercive diplomacy and aggressive expansionism, Trump’s strategy seems to be accelerating the erosion of American power and strengthening its principal rival.
In the Trump doctrine of US national security, China is no longer an ideological adversary but an economic competitor. Gone is the moral posturing of old, the language of democracy and human rights that once underpinned America’s claim to global leadership.
The narrowing of focus on economic protectionism and material advantage betrays a loss of confidence and/or interest in its universal appeal or acceptance. This shift appeared pragmatic to many — certainly to his ‘America First’ MAGA base — but the sacrifice of values has come at the cost of influence.
Trump’s naked ambition to annex new territories, his assertions to dominate the Western Hemisphere have further eroded America’s stature. The bid to reassert US primacy through........