The geopolitical suicide of the United States

Many analysts are rightly pointing out these days that the illegal war launched against Iran has the potential to become a major financial blow for Washington. But, however serious, it is only the latest episode in a series of systematic and self-destructive actions. For 14 months, Trump has been launching devastating attacks from the White House in a thousand directions: almost all of them are destined to backfire and destroy the attacker.

The first fundamental aspect of the self-inflicted blow to U.S. primacy is the destruction of the formidable network of alliances that Washington built, with bipartisan consensus, across the globe over eight decades. No ally trusts the White House anymore. Many are putting on a brave face for fear of suddenly being left without support—but all are organizing themselves to never again be so dependent on the U.S. In public, many leaders are opting for restraint, but in private, this writer has heard significant remarks that attest to an extraordinary level of distrust toward Washington from nominally pro-American sectors. The underlying logic is that the risks of dependence on Washington must be reduced, just as they must be with China, in a striking political equation.

The relentless pressure on allies regarding security might be interpreted as a reduction in costs borne by the White House and a strengthening of NATO. But this is a superficial interpretation: the underlying strategic reality is that many want to build an independence that weakens the U.S., and the acrimony has reached a point where the White House is considering relinquishing NATO bases in European countries—another glimpse of suicidal tendencies. The reality is that today the U.S. is fracturing a transatlantic alliance that is also in its own interest; the reality is that it can insult and harass allies, and now several are bowing their heads and perhaps making concessions, but later it will not be so, because those allies will have prepared themselves, and many will lose their willingness to align themselves and help.

The second crucial aspect is the devastation of the globalized economic system that has underpinned U.S. hegemony. It is true that, in recent decades, this foundation has allowed China to achieve astonishing growth by exploiting weaknesses in the system. But Washington’s furious assault shows no sign of correcting this situation. Instead, it produces damaging side effects for Washington, fostering distrust and disaffection that extend across the entire spectrum of the economic sphere. While some have caved in with unfavorable agreements and promises of investment, the reality is that everyone is now distrustful. And this is bad news. Because while Trump is obsessed with the manufacturing deficit, the U.S. was able to consolidate an impressive dominance in the services sector within that system.

Once again, the potential benefits of the current maneuvers appear to be a fragile mirage compared to the structural risks. The U.S. levied considerable tariffs with the Trump administration’s measures, which were deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, but there is no certainty that these measures would have actually triggered a manufacturing revival in the country. Instead, the action has unleashed a fierce reaction from Beijing, which has demonstrated its control over strategic raw materials, undeniably exposing a serious weakness in the U.S., forcing it to backtrack. Not only has an existential weakness been exposed, but the distrust and resentment of other economies toward the U.S. have also been fueled: several have already begun to improve their relationship with China—such as Canada—or to forge alternative paths between themselves, such as the EU and Mercosur.

The third aspect of this self-inflicted damage is the abandonment of an international order that the U.S. helped build more than any other nation. It is no coincidence that Republican and Democratic administrations, despite their differing sensibilities, agreed on the construction and maintenance of this project. It wasn’t due to a lack of vision, nor to the misguided concept of benign hegemony; it was because it benefited the U.S. Kennedy and Nixon, Reagan and Obama understood this. There must have been a reason. Now, its withdrawal from the system is causing a dangerous atrophy of many institutions. Some are becoming completely irrelevant. But the U.S. retreat also opens the door for others to build other things, for others to influence the development of initiatives while the White House is on its way out. China is seizing every opportunity to position itself as the responsible actor in contrast to the infantilized giant.

The fourth key aspect is the democratic backsliding—which may well lead to something even worse than a mere decline. The prestigious V-Dem Institute published its annual report last week, stating that it no longer considers the U.S. a full democracy—for the first time since 1965—and that the speed at which it is being dismantled by Trumpism is unprecedented.

It would be naive to argue that being an authoritarian regime in itself poses a problem for a country’s geopolitical projection. China demonstrates the contrary. But that is a sophisticated and pragmatic authoritarian system, while the deterioration embodied by Trump reveals spectacularly dangerous traits of nepotism, ineptitude, and superficiality. It is a collapse into chaos. People of dubious qualifications like Hegseth, Kushner, or Witkoff are managing the most powerful war machine in the world and the most explosive negotiations. Wherever there are qualified people—like Powell at the Fed—attempts are made to undermine their independence and judgment. The dollar’s share as a reserve currency has fallen from 70% at the beginning of the century to less than 60%. A Fed manipulated by Trump or the tendency toward angry attacks against enemies and allies certainly does not increase confidence in a fundamental instrument of geopolitical projection such as the monetary and financial sphere.

Of course, the U.S. has committed enormous abuses and errors throughout its period of dominance. This is not the first instance of strategic and moral derailment. The illegal war in Iraq was a horrific event that caused profound strain and a severe erosion of relations with Europe, which Washington also criticized harshly at the time. But it is in no way comparable to what is happening now. This time, we have reached the point of threats to annex a territory, Greenland, belonging to a European state, and the inclusion in the national security strategy of cultivating resistance against the European Union. The proof of the enormous difference is that back then, no one in Europe truly moved to build European autonomy from the U.S. Today, that willingness has reached such a point that the Germans have broken a taboo by engaging in nuclear talks with the French.

There is another factor that could cause today’s self-inflicted wounds to become not just harm, as in recent decades, but suicide: today the U.S. has a rival—China—more formidable than the USSR ever was. And instead of strengthening ties with its partners to contain it, as Biden attempted to do, it is acting in a way that, at the very least, makes it more difficult for its allies and friends to follow suit, and in some cases directly promotes closer relations between them and Beijing. Besides Canada, a particularly egregious case for Washington is that of India, which took note after a trade offensive by the White House and subsequently took steps toward thawing relations with China.

Another eroding factor for the U.S. is the erosion of what is known as soft power, an important tool of influence in the world. The abuses of Trumpism, combined with the grotesque and crude nature of his leadership, produce widespread dismay in the rest of the world. Bush Jr.—or even Silvio Berlusconi, a figure who in some ways foreshadowed him—seem like considerable statesmen in comparison. Multiple opinion polls indicate that esteem for and trust in the U.S. are plummeting to rock bottom in other countries.

This does not mean that everything Trump does has no geopolitical sense, nor that everything he does is poorly handled.

It is true that U.S. allies have been milking the system in security matters, without properly doing their part for decades.

It is clear that, for example in America, Trumpism is helping its partners gain power.

And on a strategic level, there may be an unstated strategy behind these actions. Jack Watling, a respected expert at RUSI, a British defense and security think tank, has pointed out that in strategic and intelligence circles in Washington there is considerable fear that China will take action against Taiwan in 2027, and that they therefore believe it is time to weaken potential alternative centers of resistance—Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia (through appeasement that makes it less dependent on China)—in case an armed conflict erupts between the superpowers.

But, specifically, nothing guarantees that the actions taken will have any effect in the medium term.

In the long term, the desired effects may not be achieved, and conversely, the harmful effects are terrible. Iran is the perfect example. This is a war with the potential to cause serious strain on the U.S. arsenal, which, despite having the largest arms industry in the world, cannot be replenished quickly in some critical areas, such as certain sophisticated missiles. The action in Iran will add valuable combat experience, but it will deplete stockpiles, wear down equipment, exhaust personnel, strain public opinion, and anger half the world. Yes, in the short term, the strain will be less, but at the cost of defeat—because in a clash between a superpower and a medium-sized country, anything short of a total victory is a defeat—; if it lasts a long time, the strain will be enormous.

Speculating about the future is a high-risk sport best avoided. The United States remains a formidable country, and anyone who underestimates it does so at their own peril. It is not impossible that it might subdue Iran, that Venezuela could adopt a more conciliatory policy, and that Castroism could be ousted in Cuba. But even if this were to happen tomorrow, the erosion of U.S. hegemony caused by Trump’s actions—the distrust, the contempt, the resentment, the reconsideration of relations with China, and the demand for independence from Washington—is so profound that today his presidency, rather than making America great again, seems to be inflicting wounds that could be fatal to its primacy.

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