by 
US
president
Donald
Trump’s
MAGA
brand
of
foreign
policy
has
been
treated
with
contempt
and
consternation
by
much
of
the
world.
He
has
incited
the
ire
of
neoliberal
theorists
like
Francis
Fukuyama,
as
well
as
many
European
intellectuals,
who
rarely
have
much
positive
to
say
about
America
anyway.
To
them,
Trump
epitomises
a
destructive
American
arrogance
and
imperial
delusions.
Whatever
he
may
think
of
himself,
Donald
Trump
is
no
Augustan
figure,
no
colossus
ready
to
conquer
the
known
world.
He
is
a
phenomenon
borne
of
concern
about
American
decline,
ranging
from
failing
education
levels
and
massive
debt
to
frayed
national
coherence
and
fading
industrial,
even
military,
supremacy.
He
is
driven
not
by
imperial
ambitions
(despite
his
absurd
claims
about
acquiring
Greenland
and
Canada),
but
rather
in
response
to
the
consequences
of
recent
imperial
overreach.
The
old
US
foreign
policy,
argues
secretary
of
state
Marco
Rubio,
is
‘obsolete’.
Attempts
to
reshape
the
world
through
unrestrained
globalisation
and
foreign
interventions
have
not
only
failed,
he
says,
but
are
now
also
a
‘weapon
being
used
against
us’.
Even
the
name
of
Trump’s
movement,
MAGA,
says
it
all.
Make
America
Great
Again
implies
that
it
is
not
so
great
now.
Trump’s
promised
‘golden
age’,
if
it
arrives
at
all,
will
be
forged
in
a
new
mercantilist
era
that
has
been
gradually
embraced
as
well
in
Europe
and
supercharged
by
China’s
drive
to
world
preeminence.
Right
now,
America
looks
dominant
largely
because
its
traditional
competitors
–
like
the
UK,
Japan
and
the
EU
–
are
all
suffering
markedly
worse
economic
and
demographic
crises.
By
2050,
the
populations
of
Germany,
Italy,
Japan,
South
Korea
and
Spain
are
all
expected
to
drop
significantly.
Even
China
suffers
from
a
diminishing
workforce,
an
overreliance
on
manufactured
exports,
mass
alienation
among
the
young
and
educated,
a
massive
real-estate
collapse
and
capital
flight.
However,
other
nations’
problems
do
not
make
America
less
vulnerable.
The
US’s
own
population
growth
has
also
slowed,
and
recent
economic
trends
have
mostly
benefitted
the
affluent
and
those
working
for
the
government.
The
top
10
per
cent
of
all
earners
now
account
for
half
of
all
spending.
This
is
well
above
the
roughly
one-third
of
three
decades
ago.
Partially
this
comes
as
many
of
the
companies
historically
tied
to
high
wages
–
US
Steel,
General
Motors,
RCA,
Xerox,
Intel
and
Boeing
–
have
either
disappeared
or
markedly
declined.
Read
the
rest
of
this
piece:
Spiked.
Joel
Kotkin
is
the
author
of
The
Coming
of
Neo-Feudalism:
A
Warning
to
the
Global
Middle
Class.
He
is
the
Roger
Hobbs
Presidential
Fellow
in
Urban
Futures
at
Chapman
University
and
and
directs
the
Center
for
Demographics
and
Policy
there.
He
is
Senior
Research
Fellow
at
the
Civitas
Institute
at
the
University
of
Texas
in
Austin.
Learn
more
at
joelkotkin.com
and
follow
him
on
Twitter
@joelkotkin.
Photo
credit:
Gage
Skidmore
via
Flickr
under
CC0
2.0
License.
Go to Source
Author: Joel Kotkin
