America pictures itself as the greatest military power in the world, which is inarguably true. We believe we have the strongest economy, which, by most measures, is true as well. What we get wrong is the belief that other countries look to America for moral leadership and as an example to emulate. Nations put up with America because they have to. Those who once considered America their friend have found out differently. At a recent National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dinner, Trump managed to disrespect Congress and the rest of the world in one paragraph.
Because I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are, they are dying to make a deal. Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir. And then I’ll see some rebel Republican, you know, some guy that wants to grandstand, say, I think the Congress should take over negotiations. Let me tell you, you don’t negotiate like I negotiate. Congress takes over negotiating. Sell America fast because you’re going to go busted. You don’t. — Donald Trump
Another misconception is that America is well-liked. During good times, America is tolerable to the rest of the world. However, America’s friendship has always come with a cost, and it has caused irreparable harm to other nations without a thought. One of the largest exporters of pineapple used to be the Bahamas, but this ended when America decided to subsidize pineapple exports from Cuba and Hawaii. America joined Europe in suppressing Haiti after its revolution, making Haiti the poor nation it is today.
America has always been transactional with the rest of the world, but never as outwardly as with the Trump second term. Trump is blackmailing the world with his tariffs, nations large, small, and uninhabited. Notwithstanding that, Trump doesn’t understand that his tariffs are a tax on the American people and that he is hurting American businesses. Trump is causing real pain to the rest of the world, no longer mitigated by US foreign aid, which has been drastically cut. The bully Trump is confident the world has no recourse but to “kiss his ass.” That’s true in some cases but don’t think they like it.
Under normal circumstances, enough of the world would stand with America to make a coordinated response impossible. Still, Trump has managed to be disliked by our best friends and neighbors, like Canada. It isn’t even a question of how the world could strike back. They saw what to do when market forces caused Trump to abruptly change course and issue a 90-day pause to most of his tariffs. The question is, could they muster the collective will to do so?
The first reaction to the Trump tariffs was dramatically dropping stock markets worldwide. America alone lost several trillion dollars in the first few days, but Trump and his billionaire advisers (except Elon Musk) weren’t concerned. When the stock market proves risky, investors usually put their money into the bond market, which has lower yields but is safer. It has always been thus, until one day it wasn’t, causing the Trump team to freak out and reduce the tariffs collectively. They recognized that if the bond market collapsed, there would be chaos. There isn’t even a threshold for what happens during a bond market collapse, but it would be bad.
The world could destroy American financial markets, not without risk to themselves, but telling your global partners you are forcing them to kiss your ass is just the thing to cause the world to join forces and issue a collective kiss my ass to Trump and America, with a bit of planning, they could create a soft landing by finding another haven for their investments, like cryptocurrency. There was already talk of returning to the gold standard, which nobody likes but is more stable than what Trump offers.
The world has options besides having to suck up to Trump and being told what to do. How long can world leaders be expected to eat Trump’s shit? It may not be as long as he believes.