In this day and age it takes a lot to shock me and even more than that to stop me cold in my tracks, but this morning that has happened. I’m sitting here at the Cornell Club, having flown into JFK last evening with Kim from Prague via Finnair and Helsinki, over the pole (flyin’ in a big airliner..just like Paul McCartney wrote in Back in the U.S.S.R.). There were no chickens flying everywhere around the plane..at least not in Business Class, but there were plenty of Russians on the plane and in every nook and cranny of the Helsinki Airport…we could literally hear it being spoken around us wherever we were, which was equally the case in Prague. I remember landing at JFK thinking about how happy I was to be back in the good old U.S. of A., a feeling I have always held for the past 71 years whenever I have returned home from abroad. First it was about coming home in the 50s and 60s to the U.S. from Latin America as a child. Then it was about coming home from Europe in the 60s and 70s as a teenager. In adulthood during the 80s and 90s I was flying in from literally everywhere (Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Canada, Eastern Europe, Australia…) after one business trip after another and one expat assignment after another (Toronto, Tokyo, London). And the feeling was ALWAYS the same. I was glad to be back home to my country, the greatest country in the world (even with all its faults and foibles, of which as a global citizen, I was acutely aware of). This was the country that EVERYONE wanted to come to and live in. Why? Because we had the best lifestyle, the most freedom, the most open melting pot society, the best opportunities, the broadest sense of globalization. No passport carried more weight than a U.S. passport and all for good reason. I truly believe that I lived in the best of places in the best of times. But all of that has now changed and only my sense of nostalgia prevents me from saying that it has changed forever.
We all know that great empires rise and fall, and that while that sometimes happens by external force, it most often happens through various forms of internal decay. But rarely has a great empire literally dismantled itself so openly and wantonly as the Trump Administration has chosen to do before our very eyes. To quote Heather Cox Richardson, my chosen historian and chronicler of these turbulent times, “Late last night, the Trump administration released the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America. The Trump administration’s NSS announces a dramatic reworking of the foreign policy the U.S. has embraced since World War II.” It states quite clearly and with great dispassion that the U.S. will back away from the global engagements that underpin the rules-based international order that has been in place since the end of World War II. All of the great system of institutions like the United Nations (which my mother worked for as a Diplomat for fifteen years), alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (under who’s shield I lived during high school), and free trade between nations (which formed the basis of my global banking career), are, according to this perverse interpretation of American policy, supposedly contrary to the interest of “the character of our nation.”
Instead of glorifying the reality of all that we have accomplished as a nation and a world in the past eighty years…to most of us a true “Golden Era” of global prosperity, this Administration chooses to seek another greatness that they say is “the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health,” and “an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward to a new golden age,” based, supposedly, on a “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.” This is the imperative of white supremacy, which they believe is being eclipsed by these transnational and international organizations. They ignore the reality of history and the importance of immigration to our core values and collective culture and call for an end to immigration. They cite the damage that has been done to Europe by the massive and continued migration that is leading to “civilizational erasure”, which they see as rendering Europe “unrecognizable”. They seem prepared to see the Russification of Europe and are prepared to bow to Russian demands by calling for an end to NATO, which they see as “a perpetually expanding alliance.” I’m not certain, but that sounds like it might come straight from the Putin worldview playbook. Having just spent time in the heart of Eastern Europe, I would declare that while there is evidence of some cultural change in the “old country” population composition, it seems more consistent than not, whereas the overburden of Russian crass tourism (they truly are the new “Ugly Americans” on the global travel scene) is the far ruder change. Actually, as we traipsed through the airports of Europe this trip, I would argue that Russian, Middle Eastern and even sub-continent (Indian) nouveau riche are the true scourge of Europe with all their Hermès, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, Prada, and Bottega Veneta, dripping across their possessions. I saw more Bentleys and Rolls Royces on the streets of Prague than I can remember.
What this NSS document replaces this oh-so-successful world order with is a new approach we have all seen coming, but thought we were extrapolating the hints too conspiratorially. This is a world divided into spheres of interest by dominant countries. The U.S. should dominate the Western Hemisphere through Trump’s version of “commercial diplomacy,” through this random, hodgepodge and kleptocratically-driven web of tariffs and reciprocal trade agreements, not as Congress and the American people see fit, but as Trump himself in his midnight derangement sees fit. Trump envisions U.S. diplomacy as a tool for commercial development and dominance, but to what end? Are we to become one large multinational corporation, driven to advance our pecuniary interests so that anyone not us will serve our needs and wishes? It is the sort of fever dream that despots and dictators have had since the dawn of man. But never before has someone sitting atop the greatest empire in the history of mankind thought so much that enough can never be enough when it comes to self-interest. Never has anyone so ignored the wishes and needs of the rest of mankind to the point of openly declaring its intentions for all to see and revolt against. And that is the true stupidity and amazement of the Trump 2025 NSS. His manifesto, which he calls a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine of Manifest Destiny, is actually much more and much worse. It ignores the sanctity and sovereignty of other nations and cultures in the region. It is a bald-faced claim on the the resources of the region for the interest of America…or at least Trump’s favorite Americans. The NSS document says openly that the U.S. will extract resources from the region. “The Western Hemisphere is home to many strategic resources that America should partner with regional allies to develop…to make neighboring countries as well as our own more prosperous.” (emphasis on “our”). Everyone who reads this new policy document comes away with one certain understanding. The U.S. has now chosen to abandon the world order that has created our and all the rest of the world’s current prosperity…and they are doing it at breakneck speed. The Council on Foreign Relations has declared that “The West as, it used to be, no longer exists.”
That’s as close to an “End of an Era” declaration as could be made. I believe in always looking forward, not back, but the coming era defined in this manifesto is nothing short of barbarian.