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Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
The writer is an FT contributing editor, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, and fellow at IWM Vienna
“Without the cold war, what’s the point of being an American?” quips John Updike’s character Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, lampooning his country’s missionary zeal and sense of self-righteousness. “Rabbit,” a white middle‑American everyman whom Updike used to track shifts in US culture and politics, would probably have voted for Donald Trump in the last election.
Americans and non-Americans alike have become exhausted by decades of double standards and liberal hypocrisy issuing from Washington. That’s why Joe Biden’s attempt to resurrect the cold war struggle between democracies and autocracies in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine failed so spectacularly. Washington’s move to aggressively sanction Russia instead caused (democratic) India to initially radically increase its purchase of Russian oil, while (democratic) South Africa came close to siding with Moscow in what Putin billed an “anti-imperial” struggle.
The arrival of Donald Trump signalled an end to hypocrisy and moralising and the arrival of a new form of brutalism and candour in US foreign policy. No more window dressing; no more carefully-calibrated remarks.
In the absence of constraints, there would no longer be any need for decorative diplomacy. As the sportscaster Howard Cosell famously liked to say, it’s time to “tell it like it is”. Before Trump, when America would attack an oil-rich nation, Washington would claim it was about democracy or security though people would suspect it was about the black gold. Nowadays, the US president is the first to insist that he attacked Venezuela for oil; there’s no longer any pretext about democracy.
But this end of hypocrisy won’t necessarily make America more respected.
The recently published global opinion poll commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations (conducted before the US’s special operation in Venezuela and before the mass protests in Iran) shows that in the first year of Trump’s second term, a growing number of people believe that China’s already formidable influence will grow — and that this is positive news for their own country and for the world. In other words, Trump may have shaken the globe, but the world is falling for China.
Why this is so is hardly a mystery. Many of Beijing’s new fans are owners of a Chinese electric car, have installed Chinese solar panels on their roofs, use DeepSeek and watch their children play with toys made in China. Apart from threatening military exercises around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, China is also demonstrably pacifist, carrying out no offensive military operations beyond what it considers its borders.
Machiavelli famously observed that for any ruler, it is better to be feared than to be loved, if one cannot be both. If that’s the case, people should be becoming more sympathetic to Trump’s America. Why, then, is Trump’s constant demonstration of US power not paying dividends?
The reason could be that when you are powerful, people take note only when that power falters. The world was hardly impressed when Trump went on his tariff rampage; what struck people was when China successfully fought back. America demonstrated stunning military power in Venezuela but it was also expected; what people have noticed is Russia’s military failure in Ukraine.
People also notice who envies whom. And it is no secret that Trump envies China; and that to his chagrin the envy goes unrequited. The US president fantasises about the scope of China’s industrial power, so much that he now practices state capitalism Chinese-style. It is as if Trump has lost trust in his country’s political and economic system. As the saying goes, imitation is the highest form of flattery, and now it is Washington imitating Beijing.
Power breeds obedience and conformity — but not loyalty. The powerful should not expect solidarity when their power declines. Trump has convinced many US voters that America First means America alone. But if you are ready to defend only what you own, you should not be surprised that only 16 per cent of Europeans consider America an ally and 20 per cent now see it as a rival or adversary. The strength of ideological alliances is that they promise you support when you look weak. When the US president sees little substantive difference between democracy and autocracy, it’s hard to blame people who fail to fear China and side with America.
America prevailed in the cold war because it insisted on not simply being powerful but in being different. It made people imagine that the victory of the US was their own victory. Many members of the Venezuelan opposition probably maintained this illusion until the moment they understood that Trump’s interest in their country was primarily to secure the theft of Venezuelan oil. Many Iranian protesters probably still cling to the illusion.
As Updike’s “Rabbit” Angstrom might wonder, without America standing for freedom, or at least pretending to do so, what’s the point of being pro-American?