Joseph S. Nye takes Trump to task for abusing America’s “privileged international system” for short-sighted policies, while inflicting lasting damage on the global framework of international institutions. This reckless approach will only embolden other countries to “extricate” themselves from these international networks of interdependence the US had set up after World War II to “limit” conflict and “create” global public goods.

When Trump came to office he promised to “make America great again,” restoring its might. According to the Economist, his method has turned out to be a “wholesale weaponisation of economic tools.” The author points out what Trump’s zero-sum game and “wrecking-ball approach” would do to the US in the long run. The institutional costs will amount to diminishing American power and prove “costly” for America’s “national security, prosperity, and way of life.”

The author points out how sanctions, tariffs, and the restriction of access to dollars have been “major instruments” of Trump’s foreign policy in recent years, as a result of our globalised economy. He wants to teach the world to fear the US, a superpower “unconstrained by allies, institutions, or rules”, in using economic muscles to bend opponents to its will.

According to The Economist, America’s clout stems “not just from troops and aircraft carriers, but from being the central node” in the network that underpins globalisation. “This mesh of firms, ideas and standards reflects and magnifies American prowess.” But Trump’s approach may “spark a crisis, and it is eroding America’s most valuable asset – its legitimacy,” because an overuse could threaten the primacy of the US and the dollar in the world economy.

The author says Trump is “not the first president to manipulate economic interdependence, nor is the United States the only country to do so,” and highlights a few valuable examples in history. He and Robert O. Keohane published in 2012 “Power and Interdependence“, a book that explored the variety of ways in which “asymmetrical interdependence can be manipulated as a source of power,” with the warning that short-term gains could turn into long-term losses.

On May 30th Trump threatened crippling tariffs on Mexico after a row over migration, and a Mexican delegation rushed to Washington to negotiate. A day later preferential trading rules for India were cancelled, and the Modi government did not put up a fight and promised to preserve “strong ties”. Tighter sanctions against Iran are strangling its economy. Trump may feel smug that his threats worked. They trigger anxiety and panic, and he tells his base that nobody should take the US for granted, as it is prepared to protect its national interest at all costs.

China may be too big an enemy for Trump. The US and many in the West “have legitimate complaints about Chinese economic behavior such as the theft of intellectual property and subsidies to state-owned companies that have tilted the playing field in trade. Moreover, there are important security reasons for the US to avoid becoming dependent on Chinese companies like Huawei for 5G wireless. And China has refused to allow Facebook or Google to operate within its Great Firewall for security reasons related to freedom of speech.”

The author says, “it is one thing to restrict certain technologies and companies for security reasons and quite another to cause massive disruption of commercial supply chains to develop political influence.” Although Chinese leaders continue to seek “dialogue” with the US, they have also adopted a very long-term perspective. President Xi has stressed the need for self-reliance and innovation, in face of mounting tariffs on Chinese exports to the US, and Huawei being severed from American suppliers.

According to Henry Kissinger, the world order “depends not only on a stable balance of power, but also on a sense of legitimacy, to which institutions contribute.” While the US must respond to Chinese controversial economic polices, Trump was “wrong to do it without regard for the costs imposed on US allies and international institutions. The same problem weakens his policies toward Iran and Europe.”

No doubt an international framework is urgently needed to “enhance cooperation on the use of the sea and space, and on combating climate change and pandemics.” Yet it is misleading to call such a framework a “liberal international order” – a term populists and nationalists abhor. It has nothing to do with promoting liberal democratic values, but upholding a system that safeguards global public goods.

“China and the US disagree about liberal democracy, but we share an interest in developing an open, rules-based system to manage economic and ecological interdependence.”

Trump lacks political acumen, and his new tactics – a poker-style brinkmanship – and weapons that exploit America’s role as the nerve centre of the global economy to block the free flow of goods, data, ideas and money across borders etc, will soon backfire on the US.