How Trump turned America into a 'rogue state': Harvard scholar

Since the beginning of the second Trump Administration, the United States has attacked partners with tariffs, shredded its ties to NATO, threatened to invade unhostile nations like Canada and Greenland, and launched a war against Iran without the support or approval of allies. For these and other reasons, says Harvard professor of international relations Stephen M. Walt, the U.S. has become a “rogue state" and now “every country in the world is having to figure out how to deal” with it.

“The second Trump administration has been far more disruptive, damaging and dangerous” than just about anyone predicted, writes Walt in Foreign Policy. He says there are three primary factors driving this.

First, the U.S. is simply “very powerful,” and it can and has been leveraging that power to harm other nations whether “intentionally or inadvertently.” Under Trump, the U.S. may be pursuing many policies that will weaken it over time — from doubling down on fossil fuels to destroying its scientific institutions to attacking immigrants — but for now, the country still wields inordinate economic, military, and political might.

Second, Walt argues that the U.S. has gone from a political hegemon to a predatory hegemon, “exploiting positions of leverage built up over decades to exploit allies and adversaries alike.” This has involved the assumption of a hostile stance toward nearly everyone, including the country’s closest partners, treating foreign leaders “with ill-disguised contempt while expecting demeaning acts of submission and fealty from most of them.” And as the situation in Iran spirals into global consequences, it has become clear that “the administration either didn’t understand how its actions would affect other states or simply didn’t care.”

Finally, a key factor driving all of this is the fact that “U.S. foreign policy is now in the hands of a remarkably incompetent set of officials, from the president on down.” Immense power has been placed in the hands of people who clearly don’t know what they’re doing, and who consequently cause catastrophes with their every move.

Worse still, “some of these features are not going to be easy to correct after Trump leaves office.” Not only have the country’s institutional capacities been “hollowed out,” but the U.S. has already proven its tendency to go back and forth between extremes. Even if the next president doesn’t share Trump’s positions, who’s to say that voters wouldn’t swing back toward a similar candidate in the next election?

The world, says Walt, is going to have to take major action to manage an America gone rogue. That means balancing power by building alliances to offset U.S. influence, while avoiding the urge to jump on the country’s predatory bandwagon. It means working to manipulate U.S. foreign policy away from its most dangerous impulses, and diversifying trade partners. It means learning to say no to American demands — as most leaders have in response to Trump’s pleas for help with his war on Iran — and allowing the U.S. to look bad when its poorly considered ventures blow up in its face.

“As the United States’ image shifts from that of a well-intentioned if sometimes mistaken global power to one that is uncaring, cruel, reflexively dishonest, and out only for itself,” Walt concludes, the rest of the world is going to have to stand against it.

“A far-sighted great power will use its power with restraint, adhere to widely held norms whenever possible, recognize that even close allies will have their own agendas, and work to fashion arrangements with others from which all parties benefit,” writes Walt. “The United States did this tolerably well for most of the past 75 years and benefited greatly, but its present leaders are rapidly tossing that wisdom overboard.”

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