The United States is beginning to lose
We are at war. A global trade war. And a literal war in Ukraine and Gaza. The climate is rapidly worsening. These are wars that involve us all. War is odious because it generates hatred: instead of seeing people, it speaks of enemies. This is how the ultra-nationalist and ultra-rich Donald Trump sees the world: he feels threatened by the poor (his aporophobia against immigrants) and he feels threatened by the wealth of other nations. Once again, he is on the attack. His global leadership is not exercised from an advantageous paternalism halfway between responsibility and cynicism, pragmatic and self-interested, as his predecessors had done, but from a vengeful self-confidence, from an angry pride.
The 20th century was terrible, with two devastating world wars and bloody regional and national conflicts: decolonizations, the Middle East, Spain, Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Rwanda... The destructive power soared with nuclear weapons. In the second half of the century, an unstable world order with two opposing ideological blocs stabilized. The collapse of the USSR brought the mirage of Fukuyama's "end of history." Someone, naively, might even have thought we were on the path to Kant's "perpetual peace." Climate fear should have been an imperative for moving forward together. All of this has been shattered.
Humanity hasn't learned its lesson. Multilateral governance to resolve conflicts through agreements in international forums has gone bankrupt. We are once again on the path of a clash between powers. The country that champions freedom, both politically and economically, is betraying its principles. The collision is a foregone conclusion. Trump has the most powerful military in the world supporting his geoeconomic provocation. He has the cards in the balance, of course, but what he's doing is extremely dangerous: he has already begun to generate global instability with unpredictable consequences.
The man who promised to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza in four days is launching an unprecedented global trade war. Those affected by the attack have virtually no choice but to enter this brutal game: if you want a trade war, you'll get a trade war. Either that or submission. But when the clash of tariffs not only fails to resolve the clash, but also further impoverishes and confronts us all, including Americans, then what?
The 21st century has lost its way. We've seamlessly gone from trying to save the planet to fighting over the same old things, to see who can profit the most. Suddenly, Trump has made us forget the climate crisis. If there was a war we should have fought, it was against ourselves, against the depredation of natural resources with new shared laws and technological solutions. Now the US president's magic solution is to curb global trade and promote more domestic industry using fossil fuels.
Trump is leading us into a suicidal confrontation between himself and everyone else, with contempt for democracy, cooperation, the climate, science, education—the things that truly matter. He is the antithesis of the good ruler's balance. He wants to provoke, he wants to frighten, he wants to show the authority of force. He is, by faith, succeeding. He doesn't want to convince, with the classic imbalance of incentives and threats, with dialogue and seduction from a position of superiority. No, he directly threatens, humiliates, and scorns enemies and friends. This is how the most powerful man in the world acts. Him against the world. He says he's not afraid, but he's very scary. We're heading toward a dead end, at the end of which stands, haughty, an unreliable sheriff with a gun in his hand, pointing it at us and smiling Mephistopheleanly.
We're in a trade war and preparing for more explicit war: the world is rearming. The dynamic seems unstoppable. Now perhaps we are heading toward the end of history, not because of the triumph of liberal democracy and global economic freedom, but because of its collapse due to an own goal inflicted by the leader of the system. It doesn't look good for anyone, not even for the United States, which, by renouncing its political and economic identity, is beginning to lose.