Welcome to Trump’s America, The i Paper’s World Insight series presenting the sharpest, deepest thinking on an era-defining shift in history and politics, investigating how Donald Trump and his administration have changed the US and the world – and where we go from here.
America’s allies would be making a grave mistake in believing that the status quo will be restored in a post-Trump world. In fact, a more inward-looking strand of politics now permeates both the Democratic and Republican parties.
While Donald Trump’s first term caused considerable consternation, including bellicose rhetoric towards Nato and a campaign call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”, he was viewed as an aberration.
America’s allies could not imagine that he would ever return for a second term, let alone shape the world in the way that he has. In hindsight, the first Trump years foreshadowed a shift by the US towards isolationism, coupled with a proclivity to favour coercion over diplomacy on issues spanning conflicts to trade.
Many Americans are tired of wars and of shouldering the responsibility of others as they struggle to maintain a decent standard of living. While most Americans support US global leadership in some form, they do not want to bear sole responsibility for the world’s problems. The real mistake then, would be to again treat the Trump years as an aberration rather than a warning about deeper shifts in American politics that the rest of the world can no longer afford to ignore.
