In his Tuesday speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump did something that is incredibly rare: he spoke before an audience that wasn’t hand-selected as Trump supporters. And in doing so, he discovered that there were still people out there unwilling to pretend the emperor’s clothes were anything less than a joke. As the New York Times reports, what Trump said in front of the assembled crowd was to him “little more than a minor boast.” It was a “well-worn line” about Trump’s vast accomplishment that is regularly trotted out for attendees of his frequent rallies. It certainly wasn’t intended as a punch line, but that’s the reaction it received.
On the planet’s biggest stage, with more than 100 world leaders gathered with their ministers, ambassadors and dignitaries of every stripe, while news cameras from as many countries broadcast the speech in as many languages, they laughed.
As Dana Milbank states at the Washington Post, Donald Trump frequently insisted during his campaign that “the world is laughing at us.” It wasn’t true then. But it is now.
And that’s an issue. It’s not just an issue for the fact that being the laughingstock of the world is never a good look for any country. It’s the sort of position that leads to groups of erstwhile allies creating new alliances that pointedly excise the butt of the joke—as America’s allies did on the very same day in creating a treaty to route around the ill-considered withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. It’s an issue because the laughter is overshadowing the remainder of the speech. Trump wanted to the world to listen to the rest of that speech. They really, really should. So should America.
If his rambling address, the words that Trump delivered at the UN weren’t just un-American, that is, lacking in support for those things America has long supported and believed it. They were deliberately and provocatively anti-American, as in directly counter to the principles of the nation, to studied positions achieved after only much trial, and to the continued health of the United States and the world. Hiding behind the snickers was a thunderclap—the sound of a door closing firmly on the “American century.”
It would be both inaccurate and more than a little silly to suggest that the tide of neo-fascist nationalism, racism, and xenophobia that’s pressing liberal democracy across the world state began with Trump. But Trump’s victory showed that what had been taking as a passing cloud was in fact a gathering storm, one that could hit anywhere. And it revealed that the face America wanted to present to the world—of a “good” nation that supports justice, fights for the oppressed, speaks out against dictators, and seeks fairness in its dealings—is the self-delusion that our worst enemies have always claimed.
In his speech, Trump confirmed and embraced every accusation that America is a selfish bully, using its military power to leverage advantage in international dealings, with less than no concern for the human toll its actions take around the world. If Trump’s declaration of his accomplishments was a laugher, his announcement that the United States would only give to those who reciprocate with return gifts should have brought tears.
For decades, the United States has understood that there is more to giving foreign aid that getting a thank you note or a pledge of fealty. Assisting any nation, even in some cases those neutral or overtly hostile toward the United States, three times in the last century, America has provided massive aid to the Russia or the USSR. Yes, that includes the Lend-Lease Act, under which American taxpayers funded the modern equivalent of over $140 billion in military supplies for Russia at a time when they were allies in the fight against Germany (In the process the United States all but created the Soviet air force, sending them 3,700 bombers and 11,500 fighters that would sweep the skies then and for years afterward). But that military assistance was just one instance of American outreach to Russia. In the 1920s, Congress created the American Relief Administration for the express purpose of bringing food and supplies to millions who were starving in Lenin’s Russia. They did so even though the famine in Russia was largely the result of actions of Lenin’s government—some of them quite intentional. And in the 1990s, America reached out again, providing food and material to Russia under the USAID program. That program continues, in a much reduced form, right up until today.
America has reached out to Russia, and to other nations, with the understanding that there is more to diplomacy than getting someone to “say nice things” about the current executive, or creating photo-ops for supporters. There may well have been no Russia to fight against Germany in the east, had not America stepped in twenty years earlier to support a nation that was already, just as other enemies do today, promising to destroy America.
The idea that aid is based on need, not worth, isn’t a wishy-washy bit of internationalist socialism do-goodery. It’s the hard-won knowledge that actions in support of human rights both lay the groundwork for the future and build up a reservoir of goodwill that can be called on in the darkest hours. Aid in the cause of human rights and human dignity benefits both the receiver and the giver. it’s good for the soul, good for the body, and a damn good long-term investment for global stability and mutual support.
The same thing applies to military action. Alliances aren’t just important when the nation on the receiving end is capable of materially contributing to a mutual defense. They’re more important when that partner is not capable. That’s not blind altruism. It’s an insurance policy.
What Trump said on Tuesday repudiated lessons whose cost is measured in millions dead and billions spent. In turning America’s foreign policy intro a transactional agreement, he’s turning his back on the world in the worst possible way. He’s opening a void that will draw a response. That won’t necessarily be in the form of China or Russia directly stepping in to confront US hegemony. But whatever that response is, it won’t be good for America. It very well might not be good for the world.
Trump is simultaneously building the size of America’s military and withdrawing military support for America’s allies. He’s limiting aid to nations in trouble, and accelerating overwhelming levels of military aid to select nations that pledge loyalty. He’s building a great war machine, picking winners and losers, and in every way elevating the circumstances that lead to war. In fact, he’s promoting the same circumstances that lead to the last great global conflict. No one should be laughing about that.
As far back as the mythology of King Arthur, rulers learned that there was a benefit in using might for right rather than might as right. Since then, a lot of people have ignored that lesson. Those people are also known as the “scrapheap of history.” Unfortunately, that scrapheap is festooned with the hundreds of millions who went down with them.
America has never been what it pretends to be. It’s not the shining city on a hill. It’s not Superman waving a flag for truth, justice, and free apple pie. America has done some genuinely despicable things. And it’s paid for them. Witness Iran.
But Donald Trump has expressly repudiated the good in America’s foreign policy and embraced the exact things that generated those mistakes. Behind the laughter, that’s something that will be remembered. It will have repercussions long after Trump has been laughed, or booed, off the stage.
As laughable as Pax Americana may seem considering Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Vietnam, and the hundreds of other conflicts that have broiled over the last seventy years with or without America’s direct involvement, you only have to look at the beach at Normandy—or the submarines arrayed at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky—to realize that yes, this is Pax. Just like America, it’s not perfect. But by God, it could be worse.
It’s going to get worse.