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I will borrow some food for thought:

Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico because he had complaints about the 2020 agreement between America and those two countries—a treaty that he negotiated and championed in his first term. He promised European allies that he would levy sanctions on Russia if Vladimir Putin didn’t agree to a cease-fire in Ukraine—then concluded his summit with Putin in Alaska without any such agreement.

He slapped a 50 percent tariff on India months after he’d welcomed Narendra Modi to the Oval Office, toasted him as his “great friend,” and committed to doubling trade between the two nations by 2030. South Korea promised to ramp up investment in U.S. manufacturing, only for Trump to follow up a recent meeting with the country’s new president by arresting hundreds of Korean workers in an immigration raid at a Hyundai construction site in Georgia. Even countries that have not experienced Trump’s betrayal directly can read the signs, which aren’t subtle.

China and Russia have long sought to rewire the world for their own purposes and recruit others to their cause. They now have a target-rich environment. And they recognize that even when Trump is mad at them, the threatened consequences—new tariffs, export controls on chips, sanctions, or security guarantees to countries that are countering their ambitions—are either never imposed or quickly rolled back once Trump determines that they may cost him politically.
China has held firm in the face of Trump’s tariffs and been rewarded with the option to purchase U.S.-designed chips that are foundational to global leadership in artificial intelligence. Russia has pocketed the gain in stature from Trump’s diplomatic overtures and conceded nothing in return. Trump inverts the motto popularized by his onetime secretary of defense Jim Mattis: Instead of “no better friend, no worse enemy,” Trump’s America is a fickle friend that leaves the field to its opponents.

In the short term, Trump has scored some legitimate wins: NATO allies have promised to pay more for their own defense, Asian allies have offered more favorable terms of trade, and Ukraine has granted the U.S. expanded access to crucial minerals. But as his relentless pressure on allies becomes the new normal, those allies have every reason to adapt to protect themselves rather than accede to his demands.

And so a number of countries are seeking to “de-risk” from America—to diversify supply chains, reduce dependency on American technology, and strengthen partnerships with other countries—in the same way America once pushed them to “de-risk” from China. What was conspicuous at the summit last month was not only the links between Russia and China, who professed a “no limits” partnership several years ago, but also the eagerness of countries such as India, Egypt, Turkey, and Vietnam—all of which the U.S. has courted over the better part of several decades—to join this ascendant club.

America continues to have a stronger hand than any other single country in the world, but its power is not unlimited. The rest of the world produces more than two-thirds of all goods and services, and the U.S. lags behind China in both manufacturing capacity and leadership in several important technologies.

Trump may want to restore America’s industrial base, make the U.S. preeminent in the industries of the future, pay less for troop deployments, counter China and Iran, and curb the drug trade, but he cannot make these things happen by himself. And the more he tries, the more the flaws in his strategy are exposed. His promises to end wars—in the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in 24 hours—have gone nowhere. Rather than striking deals, he issues angry missives on Truth Social.