Trump’s threats against countries trading with Iran expose the limits of US economic power, as allies resist Washington’s demands and the global economy moves towards a less American-dominated order.

In what US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has heralded as an Economic D-Day, the United States is threatening to tighten the noose around Iran with sanctions on countries that continue to trade with it. But far from compelling others to join its efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic, the Trump administration’s mounting blunders are hastening the transition to a post-American world order.

It’s understandable why US “allies” are reluctant to join President Donald Trump’s costly, misbegotten war of choice. They weren’t consulted beforehand, and they obviously do not want to get involved now that the US has failed to topple the Iranian regime or devise a Plan B. Why, for that matter, would anyone come to help an administration that constantly berates its friends and partners, threatens to seize their territory (Greenland and Canada), and hits them with punitive tariffs?

There are two ways to convince others to go along with you: persuasion and bullying. But in Trump’s case, neither is working. Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is right to conclude that........

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