Trump, tariff and America: The rise of a lonely superpower

By the time US President Donald Trump ends his second administration, the world would have witnessed the rise of a lonely superpower. This can be imagined from his risky foreign economic policies, diplomatic gambles, and ambiguous defence and security initiatives.

The Trump 2.0 administration has begun with an assumption that the United States has lost its status as a ‘great power’ and hence there is a need to systematically restore that status and “Make America Great Again”. Many American political leaders and strategic analysts would not agree with the proposition that the US is no longer a great power. The way American allies and adversaries have carefully responded to President Trump’s frequent provocations is actually a clear signal that the international community still thinks that the United States is a superpower and that it has the ability to inflict pains on other countries and assist in maintaining peace and stability.

President Trump is perhaps aware of it and that is why he gets away with insulting leaders of friendly countries, threatening smaller countries, such as Panama and Colombia in South America and Ukraine and Denmark in Europe and has tried to force them to toe his line. Yet, he seems to have his own concept of a great power that can be a global dictator and the rest of the world would have to say “yes” to the boss!

In order to make America a sole superpower, Trump has been making an argument that the rest of the world, especially America’s close allies like Mexico, Canada, the EU, Japan and South Korea, strategic partners like India, Indonesia and Vietnam, and rising rivals like China have taken undue advantage of the US for long by adopting unfair trade practices and reaping billions of dollars of trade surpluses. While making such allegations, President Trump and his advisors maintain silence over gargantuan advantages the US companies have garnered through massive export of services and gigantic American investments around the world.

What is disturbing is not just the raising of tariffs on goods imported into the United States, but using the threat of tariffs to extract concessions on other issues. The tariff threat was dangled to make Mexico and Canada do more to check inflow of illegal immigrants and Fentanyl. Both the countries actually took steps in that regard to avoid higher tariffs, not because they admitted guilt but because they did not want economic instability. He threatened Colombia with a raised tariff when the country’s president requested that a planeload of alleged “illegal migrants” from Colombia should not be handcuffed or the latter be allowed to bring them back home. Colombia succumbed to pressure and allowed the US planes carrying handcuffed migrants to land. More recently, he threatened countries buying oil from Russia and Venezuela, if the latter did not abide by his demands.

President Trump, moreover, prefers bilateral dealings with countries rather than multilateral cooperation and dialogues. He has expressed his dissatisfaction with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and wanted the member countries to pay more for their protection. He has disregarded the fact that NATO is a collective security organisation where decisions are taken through consensus and the US alone is not the security provider. Trump has even warned that NATO members, who do not spend enough on defence, should not expect the US to come to their rescue, if attacked.

While undermining the role and relevance of NATO, President Trump continues to play the role of a security provider bilaterally to alliance partners. His choice of bilateralism is mirrored in Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth’s visit to the Philippines and Japan. The Philippines-US security cooperation is long-standing and so is the US-Japan security alliance. President Trump’s full support of Israel and making Saudi Arabia the hub for diplomatic dialogues on the Ukraine issue and the first foreign destination of Trump also highlight his preference for bilateral security engagements rather than multilateral ones.

The same is true in the case of trade and investment issues for President Trump. His reciprocal tariff proposal is like ringing the death knell of the World Trade Organisation. His withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord and the UN Human Rights Council are other examples of Trump’s disdain for multilateralism.

More telling in his recent unprecedented policy changes is the Executive Order to shrink the global activities of the USAID that actually served the US interests more than benefitted the recipients of American aid. The US acquired its soft power incredibly cheap through foreign aid policy that Trump 2.0 appears hell-bent to wind up. The sole superpower would not like to appear buying support and compliance from other countries and would rather issue ultimatums to opponents of his policies. The sole superpower in Trump’s vision has no interest in the Global South affairs.

President Trump’s intention to keep the US a sole superpower without a challenger is reflected in his approach to end the Ukraine War. He wants to make peace with Russia that has suffered years of sanctions and that will take years to rebuild economically. That peace can make American business enter Ukraine with massive investment plans and control over critical materials.

President Trump is well cognizant of the fact that the only country that can rival America’s superpower status is the People’s Republic of China. It was during his first term that Trump had unleashed an economic Cold War against China. His successor, President Joe Biden, did not undo it and now in his second term in the White House, Trump appears to be carrying forward his strategy to disallow China to emerge as a powerful challenger. While creating a schism in America’s ties with the Trans-Atlantic partners, Trump 2.0 will be focused on the Indo-Pacific where China has been taking all measures to carve out a hegemonic sphere of influence. Secretary of State Marck Rubio’s first ever meeting with the QUAD foreign ministers and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s trip to the Philippines and Japan provide insights into Trump’s strategy to deal with China and prevent it from emerging as the second superpower in the world.

But then the sole superpower under the Trump Administration will be a lonely superpower without reliable friends, followers or admirers. It will have no soft power worth the salt and the US will cease to be a country that would attract talented individuals from around the world to come and follow the American dream. It would, however, have solid hard power to bully others, if needed. It will weaponise its economic wherewithal to enforce compliance to its diktats.

Will this lonely superpower survive for long? It is debatable. The nature of power equations suggests that other powerful countries will try to balance it. How that will happen is difficult to imagine now. But Europe may unite more on foreign and defence policies. Alternatively, the European Union might fragment and individual countries may strengthen their military capabilities. Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, Iran, North Korea and a few others may seek more strategic autonomy and power to prevent the US from bullying too much. Will there be newer alliances in the making? Possibly so, but it would depend upon the behaviour of the sole and lonely superpower.

The writer is Editor, ‘India Quarterly’, and Founder Chairperson, KIIPS. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.