The New Yorker has published a depressing piece by Evan Osnos, about how Trump has stupidly ceded global leadership and how China has rushed in to fill the vacuum.  Trump can very likely become our version of Gorbachev, who, you will recall, oversaw the unraveling of the Soviet Union into a loose amalgamation of oligarchies and totalitarian states dominated by Russia.  From the very first moment of his term, Trump has set about unraveling our country’s generations-old leadership position in the world, and China has gladly Hoovered up every opportunity to exercise its new found world position.
One notable of example of this phenomenon was the World Trade Organization conference in Marakesh last October, convened to update international trade rules.  We’ll let Osnos tell this sorry tale:

“The Trump Administration, which has been critical of the W.T.O., sent an official who delivered a speech and departed early. ‘For two days of meetings, there were no Americans,’ a former U.S. official told me. ‘And the Chinese were going into every session and chortling about how they were now guarantors of the trading system.’”

Trump continually boasts about “Making America Great Again”, and “Putting America First.”  The problem is that he simply doesn’t understand what that means and has made idiotic decisions that has diminished our country, and creating opportunities for other countries, especially China and Russia to jump into the breach.  Exiting the TPP was stupid.  Now American beef comes second to other beef producing countries like Australia.  Withdrawing from the Paris climate accords has damaged our reputation and stature throughout the world.  China is also negotiating to create the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which will form a 16 country free trade zone.  The US is NOT one of the 16 countries.

The damage that Trump has inflicted and continues to inflict will be multi-generational.  Some of the damage may never be repaired.  The US’s unilateral surrender of its prominent position as world leader has emboldened other countries to take over that prominence.  Protectionism and isolation never works, especially in the new, interconnected global market.