Pax Americana Ends
February 20, 2025
The Latin phrase Pax Americana, or “American Peace,” described the relatively peaceful period after the end of World War II in 1945 when the United States became the world’s superpower. An international order was built, Europe was reconstructed, military alliances were formed, free trade proliferated, and America led the free world economically and militarily. Former President Bill Clinton once described the role of the President as “Santa Claus” or “a policeman,” but Donald Trump rejects both. He wants to refashion the world, and in his first month, has hit the ground running with an “America First” geopolitical agenda. He intends to upend everything. Alliances and institutions will be replaced or ended. It will be disruptive, controversial, and potentially disastrous. The betrayal of Ukraine and disdain for Europe in recent days are just the beginning.
The speed of execution of new foreign policy initiatives is head-spinning and unusual. This is because his administration rolls out a grand strategic plan that has been formulated and fine-tuned by conservative advocacy groups and leaders, technology tycoons, and military professionals for years. Decisions have already been made. Nothing is sacred; witness the dismantling of blue-ribbon, domestic institutions such as USAID or Elon Musk’s DOGE, which ruthlessly chopps government departments to reduce costs by $2 trillion. The urgency is based on this elite’s belief that growing debts and overspending will sink America and that China represents the gravest geopolitical threat internationally. To meet these challenges, America must quickly cut costs and create new, improved alliances to strengthen the West.
At home, Trump will deport millions of migrants in America and push its allies to do the same to strengthen their own societies. Musk wields his axe far and wide, deploying the “move fast and break things” motto that guides Silicon Valley. Allies are being privately and publicly rebuked and will be punished for not meeting military or other commitments. Some, like Canada, Greenland, and Panama, are criticized and threatened with tariffs or annexation if they don’t advance to Washington’s new Clarion Call.
Ukraine has been tossed aside, part of a treacherous cost-cutting exercise, and Europe is handed the bill. Trump falsely claims America has given the country $350 billion to fend off Russia, then hands its President Zelensky an I.O.U. for $500 billion that cannot be paid by a nation that’s been gutted and mauled by Putin for three years. He also badmouths Zelensky and wants him replaced as soon as possible. And yet the culprit behind his terrible war, Vladimir Putin, gets off lightly despite perpetrating his genocide in Eastern Europe.
The free pass is because Putin has promised that American corporations returning to Russia will reap hundreds of billions of dollars in profits. This month, two-way talks between Trump and Putin will be held in Saudi Arabia. Trump’s agenda will be to exclude Ukraine and Europe and then give Russia what it wants to enlist its help in surrounding and weakening China. His advisors do not consider Russia a significant threat despite its war crimes and nuclear arsenal. Its economy has tanked, and its armed forces have been seriously degraded by Ukraine. But Trump exhibits contempt toward Ukraine when he should have lavished the country with praise and a Marshall Plan in return for putting Russia on the ropes.
Trump’s pal, Benjamin Netanyahu, has also received kid glove treatment, and now his war is being sorted out. Two million Palestinians in Gaza will be cleared away, along with the debris, so that Trump and America can make Israel safe by building a Middle Eastern Miami Beach on the Mediterranean. This outrageous scheme and others will be announced during the next four years as Trump struts and bullies everybody to reforge the world.
Trump has already pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords and essentially ripped up NAFTA as well as all trading arrangements with his campaign of tariff terrorism. Canada and Mexico face high tariffs as punishment for their porous borders and trade surpluses. He’s also threatened to annex Canada and may end up sending troops and building military bases to guard its vast Arctic region. The same fate awaits Greenland. Mexico will be singled out for separate and severe treatment. Besides tariffs aimed at de-industrializing the country, Trump will eventually send special forces into Mexico to root out its cartels. One of his first executive orders declared that these criminal enterprises were “terrorist organizations.” This provides a legal tool to tackle their operations inside Mexico and throughout Latin America, as well as inside the United States, where they control the distribution of illegal drugs and aliens.
The future of NATO and the United Nations is uncertain in Trump’s new world. (The UN headquarters along the East River in Manhattan would make a dandy site for condos.) Kidding aside, these institutions might remain but will be recast to meet America’s new strategic objectives. He’s hectored NATO members for years for not meeting their 2% GDP defense commitments. He now demands this be raised to 5% of their GDP, a goal that must be reached because Trump believes Europeans must protect Europe. He also wants them to buy American-made equipment and weapons. All these changes appear chaotic but are based on a few underlying principles that will eventually affect all nations: In Trump’s World, each nation must exercise sovereignty over its territory or pay the U.S. to protect it.
Another sacrosanct principle is that America’s allies must reject China and are expected to embrace national populism instead of global liberalism. This catechism was behind Vice President J.D. Vance’s preachy and insulting speech in Germany. In it, he said European nations were “ignoring the threat from within” their societies posed by floods of immigrants and welfare statism. In a sermon likely adapted from stump speeches he’d delivered back home, he accused them of “retreating from values” and curbing free speech.
Another Trump fan, American academic David Goldman, described Trump’s strategy in Asia Times: “Donald Trump has a grand design for a new multipolar world: Make peace in Ukraine, stabilize the Taiwan issue, and then cut defense spending in half, averting an eventual US debt crisis.” In a column, Goldman advised Trump to “pull the plug” on Europeans and “let the sovereigntist parties of the New Right mop up the globalist Left. They believe in their countries and will fight to protect them, unlike the Brussels liberals cowering behind the skirts of Mother America.”
“The highest proportion of individuals ready to fight for their country came from supporters of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the conservative upstart party now polling at 20% of the national vote. In a more recent poll, 68% of AfD members said they would defend their country `with a weapon in their hand’ if Germany were attacked, compared to just 22% of Green Party supporters,” he added. Not coincidentally, Elon Musk supports the AfD, and Vance met with its leader this week.
Trump’s Pax Americana Redux is a theology that rejects free trade, embraces “fair” trade, and carves the world into spheres of influence. It will export right-wing populism (like MAGA) worldwide and insist allies become defensively self-sufficient by building strong armed forces. Trump’s newly appointed Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, is the lead architect behind America’s retreat from Europe and plans to stop China. “If China could establish hegemony over Asia, it could then set up a commercial and trading bloc anchored in the world's largest market that would privilege its own and subordinates' economies while disfavoring America's. The resulting drain on American businesses, large and small, would be most keenly felt by the workers, families, and communities.”
Trump is a man on a mission. Like a tech tycoon, he is certainly moving fast and breaking things. The question is who, how, and what will he break.
Diane, your crystal ball is outdoing itself. Your post succinctly explains all the various machinations of Trump & his minion and their expectations.
I hope you are wrong.
In fact, of the many objectives that Trump aspires to, I believe few will be achieved, or at least that is my hope.
It is true that “Pax Americana” is over, probably has been since the end of the Cold War. It is just that no one had threatened it until Putin came along. Trumps betrayal of Ukraine does not surprise me, given his predilection for dictators, I’m more surprised it took so long. The sudden withdrawal from Europe was bit more of a surprise. Given the level of engagement between the US & EU, I expected more cooperation despite the grumbling taking place.
It was clear that after JD Vances speech at Munich, that the US was going in a much darker direction. The speech, coming from someone who is given to lying, conspiracy theories and is a hypocrite, shocked many in Munich, the applause was thunderous - not.
Coming on top of Hegseth’s speech to NATO, it was probably the icing on the cake.
It is clear that Europe can no longer rely on the US and that it has to take care of its own, which in Ukraines case means using its far greater GDP & population to defeat Russia in Ukraine. It also means that the EU has no obligation to help the US in any future conflicts. Given this attitude by the US I don’t see were the improved alliances are going to come from, certainly not Europe and probably not in Asia.
I hope & believe that Europe will step up to the plate (% of GDP is irrelevant if you are fighting for your existence), although we will probably have to wait until conclusion of the German elections. I have heard that the numbers for the AfD have tanked since Vance’s speech, no one likes being lectured to, especially by a hypocrite. The CDU appears to have the numbers over the SPD and so far refuses to go into coalition with the AfD.
The Trump/Musk attempts to reduce government spending by $2 trillion by the cutting or dismantling of government departments are doomed to failure. Whilst no one would deny that government waste is not a thing, finding $2 trillion of waste out of a budget of $6 trillion is not going to happen, unless they take the knife to the DOD as well, which defeats the purpose of the cuts in the first place as that would mean defence spending is much closer to that of China. Trump’s thought bubble around building a Iron Dome for America shows just how detached from reality he is. He could close some of their military bases to save money. Perhaps the only silver lining for Trump will be the need for the America’s old allies to buy weapons and ammunition from the US. This will only be temporary until they find another source or produce their own.
I know its unlikely to happen, but until the tax rates for the wealthy go back to the levels seen prior to Reagans election, then America’s deficit and wealth gap will continue to soar.
Trumps push to tariff and/or annex Panama, Mexico, Canada or Greenland will only increase America’s debt & isolation and enable China to increase its dominance throughout the 3rd world and that of the BRICS union. If America didn’t have a drug problem, Mexico wouldn’t have a gun problem.
His plan to take over Gaza and deport its inhabitants will result in the total removal of the US influence in the Middle East and likely terrorist actions against the US for the next 50 years. Israel will not benefit either, non stop war may be its future, it will be exhausted and unable to assist the US or Trump in holding or developing Gaza. Hopefully nations such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE will fund rebuilding, they have the money. With the Gazan’s staying, but Hamas going. (Wishful thought)
Remember, that both Vietnam and Afghanistan (x2) defeated invasive nuclear powers. America should not take it for granted that all nations will tremble before them. The more they try to intimidate the more likely they will be resisted and/or not trusted.
Trump and his minions clearly do not understand that the higher standards of living in the Western world are in a large part due to the Rule of Law followed by most Western nations. Nations that follow the autocracy model are more likely to have greater discrepancies and turmoil within their nations. The US benefitted enormously the Rule of Law, which it helped to establish after WWII. Fairer tax and social standards usually lead to a more just and sustainable society, something which the US seems to have forgotten.
Trumps withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, WHO, NAFTA, cancelling of USAID and ignorance of the ICC have fundamentally damaged America’s reputation.
What is wrong here? Canada like the Europeam countries have been shirking their defense and security priorities in exchange for supporting social and health priorities. One of the first duties of a country is to ensure the security of its citizens and residents. There is nothing wrong in ensuring our security. We have been warned extensively by prior US presidents to NO AVAIL. It's not surprising that now its the hard way that is being used as well as it should. The issue of drugs and fentanyl has been studied and Canada and the provinces have been found lacking in dealing with the problem. No proper money-laundering policies and enforcement as well as lackadaisical border and import controls. The precursor chemicals come in by the containerful and we do nothing. Plus there is poor law enforcement against certain communities for fear of defaming them. (Please see book and articles by Sam Cooper). We only get what we sowed. In one way its about time.