Chinese and American flags flying together
For a long time I thought the new world order would be a perverse mirror of the Cold War: two blocs facing off, periphery war, minimal trade between them (There was some trade, mostly in commodities.) The difference this time would be that the US was leading the weaker block, not the stronger.
Trump has made this very unlikely. His tariffs and threats have broken the unanimity of the alliance and vassal circle. The EU is in China right now seeking to cut a trade deal with the possible of end of many sanctions on the table. Canada’s presumptive PM has said the old order is dead. When China cut off US LNG who stepped into the gap? Australia and Canada. Even Japan, the most loyal of vassals, has noted that you can’t make a deal with Trump, because blackmailers always come back for more.
With the EU, Japan, South Korea, and the Anglosphere, the US had a credible trade and military bloc. Without them, there’s no goddamn way. They don’t even have to go over to China’s bloc, they just have to be neutral.
And that’s the way this is tending, economically, with signs that military is to follow. The EU is attempting to remilitarize and it is trying to stay away from American weapons as much as possible. Canada is reconsidering both Aegis and F-35s. And so on. Without allies to buy its weapons, the US mil-industry complex will wither. If Japan isn’t considering getting its own nuclear deterrent, it would be geostrategic malfeasance.
Trump thought that the US was still the essential nation. That if it put the pressure on, everyone else had to buckle. But those days are gone, and Trump’s stupidity is not only going to cost the US its empire, its dollar privilege and inflated standard of living, it is costing the US even its leadership position.
This is likely a good thing for the world, overall, though lack of some sort of secondary great power able to resist China somewhat will have costs.
But Americans will regret it bitterly.
bruce wilder
Hegemony has been costing way too much. On so many levels. All power corrupts, they say. Breaking this deal with the devil will be regretted most by the worst.
mago
“Americans will regret it bitterly “
Which Americans?
The ones sleeping in their cars?
The ones shitting in their pants?
The everyday walking around dazed and confused?
The cohort already lost and gone?
There’s no regret and no respect.
Who cares?
SRL
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Bob
Ah, I’m relieved that your last sentence at least suggests that you’re weary of Chinese power unlike so many online who seem to see China as the socialist messiah instead of an accelerator of full authoritarianism and the end of the natural world.
someofparts
Golly. I have friends/relations who have been doing a lot of world travel since they retired. They are in solid opposition to Trump from the start, so if his policies are making their travel plans problematic they will be quick to place the blame where it belongs. The thing is that, since they are good blue-no-matter-who Democrats, they also seethe with contempt and indifference to anyone who isn’t very very prosperous, so that whole solidarity thing is not an option with them.
If ever a citizenry deserved the miserable fate that awaits them it would be the denizens of the good old USA.
thermobarbaric
Reply to Bob and his read of Ian’s final sentence:
I think Ian is suggesting that for every dominant hegemon, some kind of counterbalance is always a good idea. Bob’s highly emotive language, “…… instead of an accelerator of full authoritarianism and the end of the natural world……” is more than a bit extreme. China, after all, is now the world’s biggest supplier and user of clean energy.