What America has done to its soft power, public image, national security and scientific research goes a bit beyond introduce a few semi-permanent non-tariff barriers to trade and lose some votes on some decision making bodies though. Though it's certainly done that too...
There's always been an undercurrent of contempt for the US, particularly from Europe. Even during the Clinton and Obama years. There's no satisfying that.
> There's always been an undercurrent of contempt for the US, particularly from Europe. Even during the Clinton and Obama years. There's no satisfying that.
Of course. But there's a difference between the sort of mild disdain tinged with envy you get from being the self-appointed "leader of the free world" and the reaction that electing a nakedly corrupt thundering moron who constantly belittles and threatens allies whilst kowtowing to a former superpower gets you.
(Of course, there are people that always regarded the US as actively hostile, but they tended to be rival superpowers, Global South socialist governments, Islamists and Western protest groups, not Western officials who might once have identified as strongly aligned with the US. And for the wider world, there's a difference between the longstanding view that many of the values the US preached were sanctimonious hokey and the increasing view that the values the US preaches are fundamentally opposed to stability and democracy)
I wouldn't say it's ever been tinged with envy, really.
As far as being led by a nakedly corrupt thundering moron, you're absolutely correct. He's every one of those things.
The issue is that in dealings with other powers, it doesn't seem the rest of the world exercises the same standards.
European powers gladly inked the deal for Nordstream 2 after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. There wasn't much soul-searching when it came to sending athletes and fans to both the Sochi Olympic Games and the 2018 World Cup, both of which occurred after the invasion/annexation of Crimea and after the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine. Russians are still able to get visas to the Schengen Area to this day despite the invasion of the Donbas and numerous acts of sabotage on EU soil by Russian agents.
A number of countries are currently hollowing out their industrial bases by buying up Chinese EVs. This is despite the Uighur genocide in western China, numerous acts of hacking, and continued threats to take over Taiwan by military force, which seems to be a more realistic threat in the next five years.
When you keep doing those sorts of things - things which have fundamental impacts on the world order and on your domestic economies - making Trump the hill you die on just seems stupid.
> The issue is that in dealings with other powers, it doesn't seem the rest of the world exercises the same standards.
Sure, Europe not boycotting a competition and continuing to trade with Russia are exactly the same thing as US government officials parroting Kremlin lines after cosy chats with the one foreign leader the POTUS will not condemn, and even rocking up in Europe to campaign for the election of Putin's closest allies! Reality is Europe (and historically the US) trade with dictatorships out of some combination of commercial interest and necessity, the present day US has moved towards publicly fawning over dictatorships them whilst condemning the values of European democracy.
Actually when it comes to continuing to maintain cordial relationships and trade with belligerent superpowers who display open hostility to our values and human rights and even drop hints of threats towards our territories, Europe is generally pretty consistent. It's one reason why we're not boycotting the World Cup and still regard the US as a necessary partner in most things...
> When you keep doing those sorts of things - things which have fundamental impacts on the world order and on your domestic economies - making Trump the hill you die on just seems stupid.
China murmurs about invading Taiwan, the US openly threatens to annex a Danish territory, and even Americans who don't like Trump wonder why we're not following their instructions (not their example) to boycott China!
Part of the reason the damage to US soft power is likely to persist beyond Trump is the increasing evidence that his "Europe bad" worldview is not an aberration...
