As the administration of President Donald Trump has set off on its pursuit of an “America First” agenda, the majority of its moves so far have confused, and outright angered, many in the international community. Scarily, the majority of these aggravated parties are, or at least were, incredibly important U.S. allies.
So far, this bullying has only proven successful against relatively weak countries, who rely heavily on continued cooperation with the U.S. and have few other countries to fall back on. A state visit by new Secretary of State Marco Rubio has nixed China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Panama and opened the door for renewed U.S. investment. In addition, threatened tariffs on Columbia led to the nation accepting deportation flights of Columbians conducted partially by military aircraft — initially a humanitarian concern of Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
Yet, these aggressive negotiation tactics have led to far less laudable results with many of the United States’ closest and most crucial allies. Threatened tariffs against Mexico and Canada have extracted garish concessions — namely the deployment of army personnel and equipment by both nations to their respective borders to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking — though such agreements likely could have been arranged without shooting threats off at friendly nations. For both countries, tariff threats have only been pushed back by a month, so a renewed skirmish between the United States and its neighbors may arise within a few weeks.
The on-paper results of these actions may seem like victories to Republicans who prioritize the battle against fentanyl trafficking from either border or who hope tariffs will bring a stop to supply chains back to the United States. While the prior goal is at least somewhat pertinent, the latter has already proven itself to be quite a hopeful dream. The threat of tariffs has set off alarms in many industries across the nation which rely on globalized supply chains.
One of the more disastrous moves so far has been the administration’s Ukraine-Russia policy, which has up to this point sought to further strip Ukraine’s sovereignty and give Russia’s President Vladimir Putin a win he definitely does not deserve. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has, shrewdly, attempted to bend over backwards for the new president, as to ensure continued U.S. support to his cause. It may sound like I am attacking his conciliatory behavior, yet I understand and completely agree with Zelensky’s stratagem of concession to retain support. Sadly, even a pending agreement to transfer a large amount of rare-earth minerals to the United States may not be enough to swoon Trump into helping save the Ukrainian people from a harsh defeat.
Recent events have further stoked the flames of these concerns. In a speech given by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in Brussels, Hegseth conceitedly announced that Ukraine will have to endure losing territory which Russia has already taken, simultaneously emphasizing the nation’s continued disallowance from joining NATO. Though a direct phone call between Trump and Putin marked the start of a new wave of negotiations concerning the Russia-Ukraine war, the call notably did not involve Zelensky. Even though Trump proclaimed that he did call Zelensky after this meeting, the fashion in which the negotiations have begun has left a foul taste in the mouths of many Europeans, none more upset than Zelensky himself. With many of the United States’ closest European allies voicing constant displeasure about the actions of the current administration, a seismic shift in Euro-American relations has seemingly occurred.
Trump’s bully policy has also resulted in downright laughable and useless policy like renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” constantly calling Canada the 51st state and never-ending threats to purchase or otherwise control Greenland. While these moves may seem comedic, their implications for the geopolitical climate which the United States will now have to navigate are quite damning. Such actions should be taken as a serious threat; the normalization of such nationalist overreach may lead to further, and far more dramatic, chaos as time goes on. Who is to say that in a few years, when the Gulf of America name change is more widely accepted amongst American citizens, the goalposts won’t be shifted to then proclaim the United States’ right to control the entire Gulf?
Thus the significant impacts of the new administration’s foreign policy will most likely befall the United States as a result of the pompous, schoolyard bully policy which has been at the helm of Trump’s “America First” agenda. We may be witnessing one of the first real death knells of U.S. hegemony. If a swift reversal in policy is not undertaken, then we risk falling out of any meaningful competition with our present, or future, rivals. Even if a completely revamped administration takes office in 2029, the United States’ reputation will be permanently scarred. Nations will now fear a repeat of similar actions, knowing full-well that the American populace is willing and capable of voting in such a ruler. This uncertainty might be exactly what the Trump administration is shooting for, yet so far it has proven disastrous to decades of established foreign relations precedent, and perhaps to the very future of our nation on the world stage.
