The Trump administration insists that its foreign policy dispenses with sentimental, impractical, distracting and dangerous indulgences like values and focuses on the national interest. Its National Security Strategy (NSS), released in November, practically fetishizes the word “interest,” using it 36 times in its 33 pages. By contrast, “values” does not appear.

Administration officials urge other governments to join them in this unblinking assessment of global affairs. That’s a big ask, especially for allies and partners that have worked with the U.S. since the end of World War II to create and sustain a world that was anchored by a normative element — a multilateral structure that constrained precisely the unbridled pursuit of national interest by great powers.

I know it sounds heretical, and I’m not convinced myself, but this may not be the best pitch for this administration. Is there a possibility that when the sums are done and the balance is toted up, China might prove to be the better bet than the U.S.?

© The Japan Times