The wheels fall off the US world order 

Trump believes there are no allies, only satellites, and that power is Washington’s alone to wield 

Financial Times Europe 2 Sep 2026 Mar tin Wolf Eco nom ics mar tin.wolf@ft.com

 On August 16, Don ald Trump announced a sub stan tial reduc tion in joint mil it ary exer cises with South Korea. On August 19, he announced what came, five days later, to be called “Oper a tion Eco nomic Out cast” against Iran, defined as an effort to “sever the eco nomic life lines that sus tain the Ira nian regime”. On August 21, US trade talks with Canada col lapsed, after the Amer ic ans made new demands that would limit Canada’s free dom to make trade deals with other coun tries and keep its rules pro tect ing the French lan guage. On August 28, Trump announced “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!” which would give the US 55 per cent con trol of the out put of a new Venezuelan com pany that would develop 17 fields with a “proven poten tial” of 65bn bar rels. That is an aston ish ing effort in just two weeks. The beha viour itself is not sur pris ing. But it does reveal the sort of world Trump believes in. It is a world in which the US does not have allies but satel lites; one in which the US can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whomever it wants; one in which power alone mat ters; and, above all, one in which the US thinks that it alone has the power, with that power con cen trated in the hands of one man, who is, not coin cid ent ally, a bully. It was not ever thus.

 In 1969, Dean Acheson, sec ret ary of state to Harry S Tru man from 1949 to 1953, pub lished Present at the Cre ation, in which he laid out the logic of post-second world war US policy. In its pro logue, he describes “a tale of large con cep tions, great achieve ments, and some fail ures . . . Its hero is the Amer ican people, led by two men of rare qual ity, Pres id ent Tru man and Gen eral Mar shall.” He goes on to explain “the enorm ity of the task before all of them” as being “to cre ate half a world, a free half” out of chaos, “without blow ing the whole world to pieces in the pro cess. The won der of it is how much was done.” Yes, it truly was. Because of what they then cre ated, the then embattled “free half” won the cold war, the last of the great European empires, the Soviet Union, fell and much of the world dreamt of peace and prosper ity. 

When Trump writes his auto bi o graphy, I hope he calls it Present at the Destruc tion. That is not because he was per son ally respons ible for the death of those dreams. But he is cer tainly the man now nail ing their coffins shut. Just con sider the four actions he took in the two weeks briefly noted above. We are in a law less and unpre dict able world. Trump is not the cre ator of that world. But he is surely its prime mover. Let us start with the story of South and North Korea. The Korean war began when the lat ter invaded the former in 1950. Over all cas u al ties of this con flict were some 5mn. The US itself lost 37,000 sol diers in the three years of con flict. Today’s long-last ing armistice, not a true peace, was the res ult. When explain ing his decision to cut down this year’s exer cises, Trump cites his “very good rela tion ship with Kim Jong Un”, hered it ary ruler of a com mun ist regime. Moreover, it is not just any com mun ist regime: North Korea is the world’s most total it arian coun try. South Korea, however, is the product of one of the world’s greatest eco nomic mir acles and a demo cracy now rated more highly by Free dom House than the US. The exer cises never caused a war. But cut ting South Korea off might. (See charts.) Now turn to the trade war against Canada. This, too, is astound ing. Behind it lie three char ac ter ist ic ally Trumpian beliefs: Canada is not a sov er eign coun try; trade sur pluses are pred at ory; and con stant changes in trade policies are cost less. 

The out come of these beliefs is, inev it ably, dis order. But, for Trump, chaos is an oppor tun ity, not a prob lem. He loves it. Again, con trast that with what Acheson lauded. The great cre ations of the Tru man era included the Mar shall Plan and the Gen eral Agree ment on Tar iffs and Trade. But these are, for Trump, ideal istic fol lies. Will his trade war with Canada work? No. Might it lead to war between these erstwhile friends and neigh bours? Who knows? Then there is the next stage in the Iran war. With hos til it ies recently reopened, we are back to won der ing what dis rup tions come next. What is cer tain is that the out come has been far from the one prom ised when the con flict star ted in Feb ru ary. Any reopen ings of the Strait of Hor muz are fra gile. It is also still hard to see any pos it ive longer-term out come from this war for the US or its allies, be the lat ter in the Gulf or else where. Is it likely that “Oper a tion Eco nomic Out cast” will make the dif fer ence? In my view, no, for three reas ons: first, the Ira nian regime has sur vived pro longed hos til ity and now war; second, its lead ers know what is likely to hap pen to them if they lose power; and, third, when can cel ling Barack Obama’s nuc lear deal in 2018, Trump prom ised that his then new pro gramme of “max imum pres sure” would do the trick. It failed to do so. Will this new vari ant achieve more? As Paul Krug man argues, China is likely to ensure it does not. 

Finally, we have the new Venezuela deal, as tra di tional a piece of 19thcen tury colo ni al ism as one can ima gine. I am sure many Venezuelans are delighted Nicolás Maduro is in a US prison. But they must have hoped for the over throw of the dic tat or ship, not a new colo nial mas ter with its hands on their oil. Will this even work for the US? I doubt it. Who can ensure the safety of the new private investors? When try ing to under stand Trump’s view of the world, it is impossible to look for ideas or prin ciples. It is not even a return to Palmer sto nian real ism. What it is, rather, is the anti thesis of what was cre ated after the second world war. We are all “present at the destruc tion”. Today’s dis order is Trump’s present to the world.