The American Decline
Trump and Musk's illegal, idiotic actions are cratering American power
We should beware of the demagogs who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends -- weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world -- all while cynically waving the American flag.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are, illegally, destroying our country.
Whether through threats to our allies or wanton hacks to our institutions, it seems every action being undertaken by the Executive branch and its acolytes has the express purpose of crippling American ability and influence.
It would have been more run of the mill and reasonable for the jingoistic, “China flu” Trump, upon assuming office, to take aim at the world’s other candidate for unipolar power. Trump has often threatened China and even undertook a Sino-trade war in his first term.
It wouldn’t have been outlandish to take aim at our old rival and global representative of alternate-capitalism. Russia is also still invading a US ally who we have supplied munitions and aid, too, which only bolsters the case for taking a tough stance against the Soviet inheritor.
But Trump didn’t do this. Instead, he has prioritized attacking Canada and Mexico as his first goal of foreign policy. Threatening massive trade wars has caused immense volatility with the only benefit being our neighbors comitting to actions they were already planning. For instance, in Canada’s case, we have a 30-day pause on potential tariffs, and Canada has promised to spend $1.3 billion on its border with the US (which sees abysmally low drug traficking already). Unfortunately, the border funding was already in place before Trump came into office. The threat of trade war with our closest ally produced nothing.
Trump took the time to spend much of his first few weeks in office getting into a pointless staring contest with our closest ally and then he went and blinked.
Not only does Canada’s ““““““““concession”””””””” not actually exist, but we have needlessly hurt our relationship and told Canada that it cannot expect reliability from its largest trading partner.
I don’t even know if this would count as destroying our own soft power. It might just be straight up power that we are sacrificing to Trump’s idiocy.
Soft power would be the thing being lost by Musk’s Trump-sanctioned, but illegal, raids on US agencies like USAID. A common refrain in the line of thinking that prompted attacking a US aid agency is “why are we helping people around the world instead of taking care of our own citizens?”
First, Trump and Musk are not going to do any “taking care of our own citizens.” They are going to do their damnest to cut and destroy vital services that protect and serve Americans (like they already have with the short-lived, and again, illegal, funding freeze that stilted American-supporting services like Meals on Wheels). Second, the United States government is the minter of American currency, so it can afford to do both (as long as its not printing too much so as to produce bad economic impacts, and at less than 1% of the federal budget, foreign aid is not going to be the cause of dollar devaluation).1 Last, providing aid to other countries in need helps not only those countries but also the world and Americans. USD goes very far in most if not all of the countries that receive aid and this means the US is able to get a strong return on investment, so to say. A relatively small amount is able to generate significant humanitarian help. Creating more stable countries helps world stability, and helping others is how one builds allies.
The US already has military might handled. If we want to use force, we don’t need to worry about the defense of virtually any other country (except China). But the much more often used form of diplomacy nowadays is political discussion and trade. Trade loves stability and good relationships. Free trade is the cornerstone of our economic world order, and it has been largely responsible for bringing billions of people out of crushing poverty.
Helping other countries in the way the US currently does costs us a miniscule fraction of the money we have to spend and helps ensure a US-guided world of free trade, prosperity, and dwindling numbers killed by preventable diseases.2
From aid to trade, this used to be well-understood in America and our (conservative) politics:
Today protectionism is being used by some American politicians as a cheap form of nationalism, a fig leaf for those unwilling to maintain America's military strength and who lack the resolve to stand up to real enemies -- countries that would use violence against us or our allies.3 Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies; they are our allies. We should beware of the demagogs who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends -- weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world -- all while cynically waving the American flag. The expansion of the international economy is not a foreign invasion; it is an American triumph, one we worked hard to achieve, and something central to our vision of a peaceful and prosperous world of freedom.
The previous section started with Musk but quickly veered back into Trump/foreign policy. To get back to the startlingly illegal actions of the non-office holding president, Musk and an apparent team of yes-men software engineers are visiting any US department or agency they think is bad to take over its systems and begin purging at the least and shutting down at the worst. This is self-evidently illegal as the Executive cannot destroy departments made by Congress, and the legality of accessing let alone acting on secured information in these departments and agencies by a non-governmental employee is impossible.
Oh wait, Trump just made Musk a “special government employee.” So, now he definitely is allowed to go into NOAA and access its IT systems with the express purpose of having the agency “broken up and downsized” because it is “harmful to US prosperity” for its role in climate science.4
It doesn’t matter. Trump has already shown he will pardon those who commit illegal actions in his name, like the treasonous Jan 6 rioters. Agency heads/staffers who have refused DOGE/Musk have been sacked. What is illegality when the president has already said he will pardon the law-breakers and make anyone who stands in his way a target for his militarized fanbase?
So, climate change? Nah, that isn’t real. You hurt the US by talking about it. Shut up lib, we’re destroying your agency. Oh, that vital data you supplied to meteroligists, the FAA, fisheries, habitat monitors, etc.? Yeah, we’re eliminating most of that, privatizing the rest. If you stand in the way, you get the boot. All of this is illegal? Pardon. Done!
This is so clearly the hacking to bits of American foreign, domestic, and insitutional power. If that sounds like a good thing, you don’t realize how much of the country and the world depend on these built up systems. This will leave us poorer and less free.
America’s wonder is in what it can build, not what it can destroy. And now, we’re, actually no, not we. Trump, Musk, and the Republicans who support them are destroying America.
This is my weakest point. If I am completely wrong on how this works, let me know in the comments.
This is jingoistic imo, and I don’t even desire a US-led world. Having the US be the one in charge has led us to commit atrocities and in many cases escape any culpability. However, in the current world order, if the US kneecaps itself as it is now doing, I fear the planet will simply be led by worse actors. A better situation would be a multi-polar world of relatively good, free actors who then can actually hold each other accountable. But, for now, the US should not sacrifice its standing for literally no reason. That will be bad.
Is Trump standing up to Putin on Ukraine? What about China on Taiwan? Tariffing Taiwan seems to be about the most opposite action possible to “standing up” to the country threatening to invade them.
I would laugh if this wasn’t so dreadful
Brilliantly written and argued throughout. In the international scene, we are all watching these developments with serious concern and profound anxiety. The stability of the American institution isn't just an American concern - it's a global one. Your analysis is a testimony of the gravity of the situation.