By Matt O'Brien
Donald Trump came to bury the liberal international order, not to praise it.
There was no invocation of our democratic faith. No paean to a more perfect union. No peroration about the light of liberty we hope to see go up around the world. Instead, Trump's inaugural address was devoted to the idea that “it is the right of all nations to put their interests first” and that “we must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.”
This was a zero-sum view of the world where the winners are the ones selling things overseas and the losers are the ones buying them. Where there are no allies, only competitors. No principles, only power. Everything, in other words, is just a deal where one country is trying to pull one over on another. That's even true of something like the European Union, which Trump said earlier this week is “basically a vehicle for Germany” to get what it wants. Indeed, he seems skeptical of the entire postwar architecture of alliances and institutions meant to make the world safe for democracy and open for trade. As former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt pointed out, Trump didn't talk about leading the “free” world but rather the “civilized” one. There's a Putin-size difference between the two.
Whereas past presidents have thought that our values were our interests, Trump seems to believe that our values have only gotten in the way of them.