Michael Schuman
Wed, February 19, 2025 at 7:52 PM GMT+36 min read
American global leadership is ending. Not because of “American decline,” or the emergence of a multipolar world, or the actions of U.S. adversaries. It’s ending because President Donald Trump wants to end it.
[6] We have heard of the pride of Moab; he is very proud: even of his haughtiness, and his pride, and his wrath: but his lies shall not be so. [7] Therefore shall Moab howl for Moab, every one shall howl: for the foundations of Kirhareseth shall ye mourn; surely they are stricken.
Isaiah 16 : 6-7
What is the foundation of America’s Power?
Just about all of Trump’s policies, both at home and abroad, are rapidly destroying the foundation of American power. The main beneficiary will be the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has been planning for the moment when Washington stumbles and allows China to replace the United States as the world’s superpower. That Trump is willing to hand the world over to Xi—or doesn’t even realize that’s what he’s doing—shows that his myopic worldview, admiration for autocrats, and self-obsession are combining to threaten international security and, with it, America’s future.
The Bible was held as the foundation of faith, the source of wisdom, and the charter of liberty. Its principles were diligently taught in the home, in the school, and in the church, and its fruits were manifest in thrift, intelligence, purity, and temperance. One might be for years a dweller in the Puritan settlement, “and not see a drunkard, or hear an oath, or meet a beggar.”—Bancroft, pt. 1, ch. 19, par. 25. It was demonstrated that the principles of the Bible are the surest safeguards of national greatness. The feeble and isolated colonies grew to a confederation of powerful states, and the world marked with wonder the peace and prosperity of “a church without a pope, and a state without a king.” GC 296.3
Trump is choosing to retreat even though the U.S. has its adversaries on the back foot. President Joe Biden’s foreign policy was working. By supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion, Biden weakened Moscow so severely that President Vladimir Putin had to turn to North Korea for help. His backing of Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza undercut Iran’s influence in the Middle East. And Biden’s strengthening of the U.S. global-alliance system pressured and unnerved China as the world’s advanced democracies banded together against Xi and his plans to upset the world order.
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Fogel’s family thanked Trump and others who worked to secure his release.
“We are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home,” the family said in a statement.
[5] And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof. [6] Thus saith the LORD of hosts; If it be marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, should it also be marvellous in mine eyes? saith the LORD of hosts. [7] Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country;
Zechariah 8 : 5-7
[David Frum: How Trump lost his trade war]
willingness to sacrifice Ukraine to Russia before formal negotiations even start.
Now Trump is voluntarily throwing away this hard-won leverage. The supposed master negotiator is signaling his willingness to sacrifice Ukraine to Russia before formal negotiations even start. Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called a restoration of Ukraine to its borders before Russia snatched Crimea in 2014 an “unrealistic objective,” indicating that the administration would accept a peace deal that allows Putin to keep part of the independent nation he invaded. Hegseth also rejected NATO membership for Ukraine—the possibility of which was Putin’s pretext for invading in the first place. That wouldn’t be a bad outcome for Putin after starting a brutal war and effectively losing it.
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But the big winner from such a settlement will be China. Because China is Russia’s most important partner, any gains that Putin can salvage from his disastrous war forwards the two dictators’ global agenda. That’s why Xi is egging Trump on. Beijing has reportedly proposed holding a summit between Trump and Putin to resolve the Ukraine war. Then Chinese construction companies would try to swoop in and earn a fortune rebuilding a shattered Ukraine, which Xi helped Putin destroy by supporting Russia’s sanctions-plagued economy.
More than that, Xi certainly realizes that Trump’s pandering to Putin offers Xi a chance to break up the Atlantic alliance and entrench Chinese influence in Europe. Vice President J. D. Vance blasted European allies at last week’s Munich Security Conference for marginalizing extremist right-wing political parties, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi took the opportunity to present Xi as the anti-Trump. “China will surely be a factor of certainty in this multipolar system and strive to be a steadfast constructive force in a changing world,” he told the attendees.
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European leaders are not likely to have forgotten that Xi enabled Putin’s war in Ukraine. But if Trump won’t guarantee European security, Xi may well seize the opportunity to expand Chinese power by offering to step into the breach. Xi could make the case that he is able to rein in Putin, protect Ukraine, and preserve stability in Europe. That promise could well be an empty one; Xi may not be willing or even able to restrain an emboldened Putin. Still, abandoned by Washington, European leaders may hold their collective noses and look to Xi to keep the peace.
China “would start replacing the U.S. in the role of keeping Russia out of the Eastern Flank,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, the former Lithuanian foreign minister, recently posted on X. European Union members “in the East would be dependent on China’s protection and the racketeering would spread West.”
Trump is handing Xi other opportunities, too. By withdrawing from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Human Rights Council, the U.S. is clearing the field for China to make the UN system an instrument of its global power. Dismantling USAID makes China all the more indispensable to the developing world. Trump’s bizarre plan to deport Palestinians from Gaza will be a boon to Xi in the Middle East, a region China considers vital to its interests. Even the U.S. suspension of federal financial support for electric vehicles helps Xi by hampering American automakers in a sector Beijing seeks to dominate. China may see American retrenchment as an invitation to take more aggressive actions in pursuit of its interests—in Taiwan, but also toward other U.S. allies in Asia, including Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.
Trump apparently assumes that he can keep Xi in check with tariffs. He imposed new duties on Chinese imports earlier this month. But Xi doesn’t seem particularly bothered. Beijing retaliated, but with little more than a face-saving gesture. The reciprocal tariffs covered a mere tenth of U.S. imports. Why fuss about a few shipments of stuffed toys when you can take over the world?
In the proud parade of nations,-princes, potentates, and powers,-which, since the gray dawn of the nineteenth century, have with serried ranks, in tramping column and marching file, maneuvered and deployed upon the grand plateau of human history, one, one only, and one alone,-the United States, has broken out her banners to the breezes, and nobly declared her right to a place in the galaxy of great world-powers because she stood for a priceless principle, eternal as the heavens. All others have stood upon might; this one, and this one alone, upon irresistible, impregnable right.
On the folds of the flag of Columbia have been woven in glittering strands, “By the laws of nature and of nature’s God, to establish justice.” Her silver stars have shone forth like ambassadors of better things from the blue dome of the goodly land beyond. In the breasts of her freemen has burned the sacred flame of “liberty for all mankind.” This flame has partaken, of the nature of the cloven tongues of fire which once rested upon the apostles of our Lord. It has gone forth and attracted tens of thousands of the oppressed, yet still the best and blest of every nation, kindred, tongue, and tribe. The Perils of the Republic of The United States of America by Percy Maga Tilson, 1898
The damage to American global standing could be irreparable. The hope now is that the major democracies of Europe and Asia—France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom—will stop up the power vacuum Trump is creating and keep China out of it. European leaders do not have to abide by whatever deal Trump cooks up with Putin for Ukraine. They could hold firm, continue the war, and wait for a new administration in Washington to reaffirm U.S. security commitments. But the course is risky, because erstwhile U.S. allies can’t assume that Washington will ever reestablish global leadership, or that if it does, the promises of future presidents will endure. That uncertainty may compel the allied democracies to make accommodations with China as best they can.
[Quico Toro: Trump’s Colombia spat is a gift to China]
Trump’s administration may be seeking to settle matters with Putin in order then to concentrate limited U.S. resources on confronting China. But this course may succeed only in making China more difficult to contend with, because America will be forced to do so without its traditional allies by its side.
Trust, once lost, is difficult to restore. Trump’s premise seems to be that what happens in Europe and Asia is of little consequence to the United States. Vance invoked Catholic theology (erroneously, according to Pope Francis) to justify a hierarchy of concern that places caring for U.S. citizens ahead of the rest of the world. But what, exactly, is best for Americans?
Trump may be right that other powers should do more to take care of their own affairs. But Americans know as well as anyone that what happens in the far-flung corners of the world—whether in Europe in the 1930s and ’40s or in Afghanistan at the turn of the 21st century—can and often does affect them, even dragging them into conflicts they do not want to fight. That doesn’t mean Washington must police every dispute. But by ceding global leadership to authoritarian China, Trump is creating a world that will almost certainly be hostile to the United States, its prosperity, and its people.
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