Trump has drawn the limits of US (and his own) power

The US president has surrendered America's global leadership and started a fight with China he cannot win

Donald Trump’s second term was to be a grand demonstration of US power. Instead, the president’s first months in office have described the limits of America’s global reach. Behind the bombast and braggadocio, he has succeeded only in drawing those lines still tighter. As the world’s pre-eminent power, the United States still has a unique capacity to turn things upside down. That’s not the same, he is learning, as imposing its will.

This week’s re-election in Canada of Mark Carney’s Liberals carried a nice symbolism, Trump barrelled into the White House declaring that the destiny of the US’s northern neighbour was to become the 51st state. Canadians responded by voting for a leader whose campaign was built entirely around a robust pledge to see off the bully in Washington. The president’s other promised land grabs - of Greenland and the Panama canal - look ever more hollow.

In the weeks before imposing draconian tariffs on imports from China, Trump sought to speak to Xi Jinping. You can imagine his comically delusional pitch. Strongman to strongman, the two presidents could sort it out. They would strike “a great deal”. The Chinese leader chose not to indulge Trump’s pathological vanity. He would speak to him only when he withdrew the threats. In the meantime, Beijing would present itself as the champion of the Global South in resisting American blackmail.

The result has been an effective moratorium in US-China trade with tariffs of 145 and 125 per cent respectively. Trump has stumbled into two awkward truths: Beijing cannot be pushed around, and the pain of a trade war will be felt most acutely by American voters. Sure, he can bully pliant business leaders such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos into keeping quiet. The real world effects of his policy - consumers and businesses can no longer buy the things they want except at prohibitive prices - are not easily concealed.

The administration has replayed an elementary mistake made by Britain’s Brexiters in 2016 when they argued that they held the cards in departure negotiations with the European Union. The Germans and the rest sold more to Britain than vice versa so had more at stake, the Brexiters declared. They discovered soon enough they were wrong. And Trump is wrong about China.

Sure, the loss of the American market will deliver a powerful shock to the Chinese economy. But the tariffs are a direct tax on Americans. And you have to be more than brave to bet that US consumers will prove more resilient in the face of hardship than Chinese workers. When the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs makes videos flagged “Never Kneel Down” you can be sure Beijing is preparing for a long confrontation.

Sooner or later, and, looking at the fragile state of the US economy, the nervousness of financial markets and Trump’s sinking ratings, my guess is that it will be sooner, the White House will be scrabbling to find an escape route from its own foolishness.

The Pax Americana ended well before the start of Trump’s second term. Joe Biden, and Barack Obama, however, understood the value of alliances in buttressing American power. China might match America’s economic might. It had nothing to compare with NATO in Europe or the US alliance network in the western Pacific. It is no accident that both China, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, have long put weakening those alliances at the top of their strategic ambitions.

Trump has done the job for them. Instead of leveraging the support of America’s long-standing friends, he has turned against them. Nato, the most successful alliance of modern times, is now cast as an imposition on the US. Washington’s longstanding security guarantees to Japan and South Korea have been devalued. The president has enjoyed the discomfort this has caused leaders in European and East Asian capitals. As with tariffs, he has not counted the cost.

This has been no more evident than in the Ukraine conflict. Trump promised peace within 24 hours - always delusional. There was a chance though that with resolve and in concert with the Europeans he could have forced an exhausted Russia to the negotiating table. Instead he disarmed himself at the outset by breaking with Nato and accusing Volodymyr Zelensky of prolonging the conflict, thereby removing any incentive for Moscow to give ground. The only winner has been Putin, as some in the administration now seem to be quietly acknowledging.

To be clear, America’s allies are not looking for an immediate break with the US. They have too much to lose, whether on trade or security, from a sudden rupture. What’s changed is that Washington has vacated its seat as the west’s convening power. For now erstwhile allies will seek, as far as it is possible, to engage with Trump. Looking to the medium and long-term, they have begun to consider alternative arrangements to “de-risk” the relationship with Washington - to make their own trade deals, provide more of their own security, and, perhaps, to steady their relationships with China.

Trump’s America First has become America alone. In Beijing’s contemptuous description it looks like “a small, stranded boat”. Not quite. The US still accounts for one quarter of the world’s economic output. But Trump has set a course that will make it at once relatively weaker and poorer. American voters, Trump’s fast falling poll ratings suggest, look set to conclude they were promised something else.