Trump sets stage for a 'post-America world': NYT reporter

When Joe Biden was elected president, he frequently asserted that “America was back” and collaborating with allies again. But the fact that the United States would elect Donald Trump once was enough to make the world skeptical of that claim, and as the New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada writes, not only was that mistrust “vindicated with Trump’s return to the White House, but his second term has marked the emergence of a “post-America world” from which there may be no recovery.

As evidence of this, Lozada cites the recent words of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who warned, “The old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”

According to Lozada, the “Pax Americana, that U.S.-led system of alliances and institutions that promoted American interests and values and helped avoid major conflicts in the decades after World War II, is gone, and irretrievably so.” Trump’s presidency has shredded those alliances and diminished those institutions to the point where “it is clear by now that the United States has ceased to be the leader of the free world.”

Lozada uses the example of Trump’s war on Iran, which Trump launched after a year of steadily alienating allies before asking those very allies for help. When they refused, Trump responded with characteristic bluster, saying, “We don’t need anybody. We’re the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don’t need them.”

Says Lozada, “Launching a war with only one ally and then expecting everyone else to fall in line is a perfect example of the tensions inherent in America’s new approach. The United States wants the benefits of hegemony, but without accepting the responsibilities — ensuring collective security, promoting economic openness, nurturing vital alliances — that come with it.”

Domestically, writes Lozada, there are further signs of American decline. He points to the gap between assertions from journalist Fareed Zakaria’s book “The Post-American World” and the approach Lozada sees today.

In Zakaria’s book, he foresees a U.S. that loses its superpower status to take on a more global administrative role, but that still enjoys a high level of success and recognition because it benefits from the “best” higher education, which has helped the country remain “at the forefront of the next revolutions in science, technology and industry.” He refers to immigration as America’s “secret weapon,” because it provides an influx of ideas, people, and economic growth.

But as Lozada points out, “immigration, scientific research and higher education have all come under assault in Trump’s second term.” Trump’s actions in these realms and others have diminished the country internally while destroying its reputation abroad.

As a result, writes Lozada, “We may be entering a post-America world, one in which the meaning of America, the principles and values the country has long stood for — sometimes in reality, sometimes in aspiration — are fading.” At the same time, as the U.S. retreats in on itself and breaks ties with allies, its ability to lead on the world stage is vanishing.

“This is a historical aberration,” asserts Lozada. “A superpower that freely abdicates its leadership role, because it has concluded that leadership is for suckers.”

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