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For reasons he’s never fully explained, Donald Trump has long fixated on the United States’ international standing. As his first term came to an ignominious end, for example, the then-outgoing president delivered a strange farewell address in which he found it necessary to tell the American public, “The world respects us again.” The Republican added, in an apparent message for his Democratic successor, “Please don’t lose that respect.”
None of this made any sense. International public-opinion research found that the United States’ global stature soared during Barack Obama’s presidency, collapsed during Trump’s first term, and then recovered during Joe Biden’s presidency. Trump had the entire story backwards.
And yet, Trump has suggested that he, and he alone, can restore the country’s international standing, despite reality. Indeed, in his second inaugural address, Trump declared, “From this day forward, our country will ... be respected again all over the world.”
Six weeks later, the world is eagerly expressing its respect for one country and one leader, but it’s not our country and it’s not our leader. The New York Times reported:
European leaders quickly pledged their continued support for Ukraine on Friday after President Trump’s blistering criticism of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in a meeting at the White House. Leaders lined up behind Ukraine and praised its embattled president, the statements coming one after the other: from France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Norway, Finland, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, Belgium, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Ireland. Canadian, Australian and New Zealand leaders added their voices to the Europeans’.
That list reads like an inventory of countries that have stood proudly with the United States for generations. But after Friday’s fiasco in the Oval Office, leaders and officials from these countries practically tripped over each other to express their public support for Ukraine and its president — making clear to global audiences that they were not on board with the American president’s obscene display.
Indeed, one day after the debacle at the White House, Zelenskyy arrived in London to a hero’s welcome from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Subtle, it was not.
The embrace came on the heels of European Union foreign minister Kaja Kallas saying, “Today it became clear that the free world needs a new leader.”
She didn’t call out Trump by name, but given the context and the circumstances, she didn’t have to.
As the dust settles, Britain, France and Ukraine have agreed to work on a ceasefire plan. It’s the kind of work that used to be done by and with the United States — and would’ve been done by and with the United States up until six weeks ago.