Soft power includes research and knowledge. So these have been cut. What you don’t know can’t hurt you, which is how Trump figures he got to the top. The amount of information that he doesn’t know is approximately equivalent to the power he now wields, so you have to give him that.

Soft power includes development assistance to help build a stable, prosperous world less likely to start fighting wars. But what good is American-backed prosperity for foreigners when that isn’t America first? Plus, they might start to like the United States and then want to come here! Plus, they won’t even let us take their oil! Cut the assistance.

AD

AD

Soft power includes diplomacy, and that just means a lot of complicated agreements that Trump doesn’t have the patience to read, understand, think about or honor. Why on earth would we pay money for that? Cut the diplomacy.

Soft power includes environmental protection. Trump backed crystal-clear water during the campaign, but he was referring only to water he could sell with his name on it. For public water supplies, and streams, lakes and oceans, crystal-clear meant only as crystal clear as his health-care policy, which was the consistency of the crystal-clear mud he needs to fling at opponents.

Soft power also includes preserving the climate. If the climate goes haywire, you can count on certain things. Reliable patterns of agriculture will be disrupted, probably in some places severely. With agricultural failure, you can count on economic havoc, civil unrest, revolt, government collapse and refugees. With refugees, you can count on instability spreading. Any hope you have for a stable world will not be possible to build on a dramatically destabilized climate. And what is the Trump budget’s answer to that? Simple. Walls, weapons and warfare, which you are going to absolutely NEED in a world like that.