Moves (Page 6)

For years, the United States projected global influence through what foreign policy experts call” soft power” – the ability to form world politics through social appeal, political engagement and intellectual interest rather than military power.

Under President Donald Trump’s administration, this traditional approach to international relationships is undergoing a basic change.

Critics decry the move as withdrawal of American administration. They’re missing the point. What we’re witnessing isn’t a foolish destroying of American influence but more a necessary recalibration for a universe where the old rules no longer use.

The standard soft energy model lacked clear indicators in today’s competitive world landscape. While previous administrations invested heavily in abstract notions of kindness and long-term control, Trump recognized that in a world where China and Russia wield economic liquidity to grow their spheres of influence, America needed a approach prioritizing substantial returns over intellectual appeal.

This approach has manifested in several high-profile decisions: withdrawing from agreements like the Paris Climate Accord and the Iran nuclear deal, questioning the value proposition of NATO ( in today’s form ), and reconsidering America’s role in international organizations.

These movements signaled that US agreements may be subject to practical national passions rather than abstract principles of international security.

Take, for example, Trump’s critique of the World Health Organization ( WHO ), the United Nations ‘ global public health agency. While his amounts weren’t perfect ( according to various fact-checking publications ), his fundamental analysis was correct.

Based on WHO estimates, American combined assessed and voluntary contributions to the WHO’s 2024-2025 resources is US$ 706 million, compared to$ 184 million for China.

Whatever the measures, it is hard for British citizens to understand how the country’s second largest economy with a considerably larger community pays only 26 % of what the US contributes to the WHO.

Trump’s critics have characterized these decisions as America retreating from global leadership. In reality, they represent a strategic pivot toward a more transactional form of influence.

Trump recognizes that foreign aid can be restructured to serve a more immediate geopolitical purpose, aligning with his broader” America First” doctrine. Aid and alliances are now treated as business arrangements with expectations of immediate returns – a sharp departure from past administrations that justified foreign assistance primarily as instruments for building goodwill and sowing benign influence.

Having deconstructed the old model, the challenge now is how to complete the redefinition of American soft power for this new era. Four key areas demand particular attention:

First, America must transition from viewing foreign aid as charity to embracing strategic economic engagement. China’s Belt and Road Initiative demonstrates how infrastructure projects can build influence while ensuring recipient nations see tangible benefits from alignment with a major power.

America should develop its own model of partnership that yields mutual advantages. It is not clear the US International Development Finance Corporation ( DFC) is the vehicle to do this, thus Trump’s desire to create an American sovereign wealth fund.

Second, the US faces global threats on three key fronts: military, economic and technological. The Trump team has been extremely clear on the first two threats. The technological front can sometimes fall under the radar but is vital to success on all other fronts.

It is imperative that US technological leadership becomes a cornerstone of America’s global influence strategy. As digital connectivity reshapes international relations, US dominance in technology, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity offers powerful leverage to shape global norms and standards in ways that reflect democratic values.

Third, America needs resilient, flexible alliances rather than outdated treaty frameworks. The limitations of institutions like the UN and NATO have become increasingly apparent with the UN hamstrung by the Security Council and NATO struggling to balance the interests of all members ranging from Turkey to France.

The EU itself continually has a love-hate relationship with different members from Italy to Hungary. Interest-based coalitions that reflect contemporary geopolitical realities will prove more effective than rigid multilateral structures designed for a bygone era.

Finally, America must compete more effectively in the global information space. Nations are now shaping their own images through state-controlled media and digital diplomacy. The US must rethink how it communicates its values and interests to global audiences.

Abandoning platforms like Voice of America without replacement strategies surrenders the battlefield of ideas at a critical moment when America’s enemies will spend richly to ensure their narratives gain global traction.

While podcasts and new streams of communications dominate in the West, a large swathe of the world’s population still turns on the television, listens to the radio and picks up a newspaper for world news. To abandon those information spaces would be counterintuitive to American diplomacy.

Critics say Trump’s tenure is irreparably damaging traditional US soft power, the reality is it is exposing the need to modernize America’s approach to global influence.

Whether through economic incentives, technological leadership or reimagined alliances, America’s ability to attract and influence must evolve alongside an evolving geopolitical landscape.

The challenge for the Trump team and beyond is to reconstruct American soft power with a clearer strategy—one that recognizes both the limitations of past approaches and the opportunities of a new era.

Kurt Davis Jr is a Millennium Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He advises private, public and state-owned companies and their boards as well as creditors across the globe on a range of transactions.

Continue Reading

I don’t think Donald Trump is a quietly Russian factory that the Kremlin hired to sabotage the United States ‘ economy and influence. But incredibly, Trump’s activities are often identical from what he might do if he&nbsp, were&nbsp, a foreign agent bent on death. This review some of his most recent moves.

First, there is yet another round of tariffs, this one for the automobile industry. This time Trump is putting&nbsp, 25 % tariffs on imported cars and car parts. These taxes will disrupt the whole US auto supply chain ( the Cato Institute has &nbsp, a great explanation on how this works, if you’re curious ), because many US vehicles use foreign elements and US-made pieces are frequently assembled into full vehicles across the borders.

Prices will increase for US producers, and prices will increase for American consumers. Consistently, American automakers saw big drops in their inventory prices:

Many of Trump’s supporters, of course, think that the suffering is only temporary, that US automakers will invest more in America and finally reap the benefits of the absence of foreign competition after a adjustment.

However, stock prices are prospective because when GM and Ford experience decline, it indicates that investors anticipate that their stocks will suffer no only temporarily but also over the long run. In other words, investors are not buying the” short-term pain for long-term gain” thesis.

The supply ring may be affected by the engine taxes, which will have repercussions everywhere. The cost of automobile plan will likely increase as well. And inland industries that provide the car industry, such as British steelmakers, &nbsp, may be hurt as well:

More than 600 Iron Range workers will lose their jobs as two Minnesota operations are temporarily shut down by Cleveland-Cliffs… [N] gross taxes on imported goods from Canada, Mexico, and China are wreaking havoc in the British car market.

Trump’s taxes are harming all of the sectors that were intended to be protected.

The oil market — a long-time citadel of Republican help — may get hurt because well, because of the increased cost of cutting equipment. Tracy Alloway, from Bloomberg, is quoted as follows:

[ W]e’ve got to talk about the most recent energy survey from the Dallas Fed, whose turf covers a lot of the US oil patch. It’s definitely worth reading&nbsp, the whole thing&nbsp, but to sum it up, it’s full of private power executives complaining about how the novel Trump administration is creating enormous uncertainty for their business viz the back-and-forth on tariffs.

Oil rig counts are flat; “drill, baby, drill” is a distant memory.

Trump and his supporters simply have no idea how the industries that surround them, such as manufacturing, mining, drilling, and other ones, actually function. It’s all&nbsp, theory, no actual knowledge. Trump himself doesn’t even notice or care when reality doesn’t cooperate; instead, he simply lets the American people suffer as a result of his theory‘s failures.

Even Trump’s inner circle is beginning to feel irrational, with the exception of Peter Navarro, his economic guru. Here ‘s&nbsp, some reporting by Politico:

Even those closest to Trump have privately stated that they are unsure what the boss will do just days after his announcement of global tariffs on April 2 and have been granted anonymity because…

The issue Trump’s own advisers and Hill Republicans have is that the president doesn’t share their concern.Trump actually supports the protectionist policies being promoted by aides like Navarro, the long-term trade adviser, who Republicans almost universally despise. The president also believes that his tariffs are popular with voters…

One of the people close to Trump’s inner circle of advisers said,” The president isn’t looking at it like they are.” For him, if the economy is weak, then fine, the economy is weak because the president truly believes that it will rebound and that the nations will give in because they can’t withstand the pressure from the U.S. S”.

No 1, the president is not running for reelection, this person continued,” so where this may have been a political concern in his first term, it is no longer a political concern.” … And no 2, we’re likely to lose the House in the midterms.

The auto tariff move — which comes in advance of another huge wave of tariffs that’s expected to be&nbsp, announced on April 2&nbsp, — will only add to a growing attitude of economic pessimism. Following the announcement, the overall stock market&nbsp decreased. Sentiment is falling both among the wealthy and the poor:

Crucially, this isn’t just “vibes”; Americans ‘ expectations for their own financial situation are now, close to the lows of 2022, when post-pandemic inflation was causing real incomes to decline:

It’s not just that people expect tariffs to put them out of a job or put pressure on their wages. They also believe that, despite the decline of aggregate demand, the tariffs will lead to higher inflation. 5-year inflation expectations are rising, and survey-based expectations are rising:

And expectations might just be following reality here. The most recent inflation figures  appear to be quite alarming:

And here’s a table with a number of different inflation indicators, all of which increased by more than 3 % when taken only over the course of the first few months since Trump’s election:

What is Trump’s strategy for this? According to the Politico article, he basically has no plans to run for president because he is not running for president and his wacky theory and Peter Navarro, his one trusted economic advisor, are telling him that the long-term effects will be positive.

That’s one possibility. Another is that he will turn to the playbook that quasi-authoritarian leaders typically employ when threatened by inflation: price controls. It appeared that Biden might attempt to use price controls to stifle inflation on the&nbsp during the Biden administration, according to the advice of the Warrrenite progressives. But to his credit, he never did. Trump is currently making the same noises:

Trump warned the CEOs of some of the nation’s top automakers early this month that they better not raise car prices because of tariffs. Some of the executives were left rattled and worried that they would be punished if they raised prices, according to people with knowledge of the call.

Trump’s “warnings” and commands carry a lot more weight than Biden’s, because Trump is a lot more willing to use executive power to&nbsp, punish individual companies&nbsp, he doesn’t like. Real price controls would put the nation in danger of a catastrophic downward spiral of inflation, hoarding, “anti-hoarding,” and shortages.

All of this is, of course, set against a world of crass moves on a global scale. Trump continues to&nbsp, threaten to invade and conquer Greenland, with JD Vance&nbsp, especially pressing for this move. This additional piece of evidence should come as a disappointment to those who are still desperately looking for alternatives to the Mad King theory.

The country’s business community is beginning to realize that the country has elected a Mad King, despite Trump’s apparatchiks still bellowing&nbsp, that his tariffs will reindustrialize America.

They expected a replay of the laissez-faire policies of Trump’s first term — a lot of bombastic rhetoric but few real policy changes and a lot of small, quiet deregulatory moves. Instead, they received a completely different Trump this time, one who is determined to undermine the American economy in the name of ideology.

People on the Tech Right are starting to realize something similar. Here’s my friend&nbsp, Brian Chau, who is more frank and honest than most:

The American business community hasn’t yet experienced a&nbsp, preference cascade&nbsp. Anyone who speaks out against Trump is probably preventing them from sticking their neck out because of his willingness to target and punish wealthy individuals or individuals who criticize him.

And the memory of the Biden administration’s anti-business rhetoric, and the continued&nbsp, anti-business rhetoric&nbsp, emanating from both the Warrenite and Bernie wings of the Democrats, are probably still a deterrent as well.

It will take some time before the business world will turn to the Democrats when things start to get bad. What other options will businesses have if the Mad King’s madness continues to grow and things continue to get worse?

In any case, center-left Democrats who care about winning elections should be working feverishly to welcome businesses ( and rich people ) into their big tent. I hope that the recent embrace of Abundance liberalism marks the start of the era of the class-war effort.

The more quickly that change takes place, the more stable the environment will be for America. Hopefully, the damage to US prosperity can still be limited. Trump needs to be abandoned by business, and Democrats need to make more than one move to break up the coalition. However, it’s a crucial component of the puzzle.

This article was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion&nbsp, Substack and is republished with kind permission. Subscriber or subscriber can sign up for Noahopinion.com.

Continue Reading