## Donald Trump Appears to Be Undermining US Global Dominance **Report Provider:** Jacobin **Author:** Branko Marcetic **Publication Date:** August 9, 2025 This report argues that Donald Trump's pursuit of American primacy, defined as the United States being by far the most powerful and influential global nation, is being actively undermined by his own policies and actions. The author contends that Trump's "sheer strategic incompetence" is inadvertently benefiting China, the US's chief rival. ### Key Findings and Conclusions: * **Undermining US Primacy:** The central thesis is that Trump's approach, characterized by "force and intimidation" rather than traditional statecraft, is alienating key allies and creating opportunities for China to expand its influence. * **Damaging Key Partnerships:** The report highlights specific instances where Trump's policies have strained relationships with crucial US partners: * **India:** * Trump has imposed a **50 percent tariff rate on India**, a key partner, which is significantly higher than the **30 percent tariff on China**, the perceived adversary. * This is attributed to Trump's desire to punish India for buying discounted Russian oil, despite China also purchasing Russian oil and Trump's own soft stance on Russia. * In response, India has halted a planned purchase of US weapons and canceled an upcoming US defense minister trip. * India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled for his first trip to China in seven years to meet with President Xi Jinping. * This strains decades of bipartisan effort to draw India closer to Washington and away from Beijing's sphere of influence. * **Brazil:** * Trump has used trade relations to interfere in Brazil's internal politics, specifically by imposing sanctions on a judge and tariffs on the country due to unhappiness with the prosecution of ally Jair Bolsonaro. * China has responded by assuring Brazil of support against "bullying practices" and has approved **183 Brazilian companies** to sell coffee (a sanctioned good) in the Chinese market. * This has intensified Brazil's estrangement from the US and increased its reliance on China, described as a "strategic nightmare" for US policymakers. * Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and India's Modi, leading countries heavily impacted by Trump's tariffs, have vowed to deepen their trade ties. * **Europe:** * Trump triggered outrage in Europe with a trade deal that lowered some tariffs in exchange for significant trade and regulatory concessions. * The EU had considered using its "anti-coercion instrument," originally designed against China, to retaliate against US tariffs. * The EU has endured "humiliations" and threats, leading to resentment that could sow future discord. * **Erosion of Global Standing:** * Trump's support for Israel's actions and his administration's harassment of foreigners and hostility to international students have further damaged US global standing. * An **April survey** across **100 countries** found the US viewed negatively in most, with nearly **80 percent** of the world having a more favorable view of China. * **Alienating Allies:** Trump is antagonizing allies like Canada by hinting at trade punishments for their policies towards Israel. * **Violation of Sovereignty:** Trump has secretly approved military and spy agencies to wage war on drug cartels in Latin America, potentially violating national sovereignty in a region where China is a major trading partner and actively deepening ties. * **Abandonment of Multilateralism:** Trump's hostility to the UN and abandonment of multilateralism have created openings for China to increase its influence within international bureaucracies. * **Economic Dependence Exposed:** Trump's trade war inadvertently revealed the US's economic dependence on China, leading to an "embarrassing climbdown" and a blow to perceptions of US power. ### Key Statistics and Metrics: * **Tariff Rates:** 50% on India vs. 30% on China. * **Brazilian Companies Approved for Chinese Market:** 183. * **Survey Data:** * US viewed negatively in most of 100 surveyed countries. * Nearly 80% of the world has a more favorable view of China than the US. ### Notable Risks or Concerns: * The report expresses concern that Trump's actions are strategically weakening the United States and strengthening its primary geopolitical rival, China. * The alienation of key allies like India and Brazil, and the potential for resentment in Europe, are highlighted as significant risks to US global influence. * The author suggests that Trump's approach is counterproductive to his stated goal of maintaining US primacy. ### Trends or Changes: * A shift in relations between India and the US, moving from strained to improving with China. * Brazil's increasing economic reliance on China due to US trade actions. * The EU's growing resentment towards US trade policies. * China's active efforts to capitalize on US policy missteps to expand its global influence. ### Material Financial Data: * The report mentions tariffs as a key tool, with specific rates of 50% on India and 30% on China. * It also notes the impact of trade on specific goods like coffee from Brazil. ### Important Recommendations: The report does not explicitly provide recommendations but implies a need for a more strategic and less confrontational approach to foreign policy to effectively maintain US global standing and counter China's rise.
Donald Trump Seems Intent on Sabotaging US Dominance
Read original at News Source →It is highly debatable whether a strategy of US primacy — meaning, a global power arrangement where the United States is not just one of a number of similarly powerful nations, but by far the most powerful and influential — is even in the country’s best interests. Pursuit of this goal has been devastating for American communities over the past few decades, from free trade deals that hollowed out local industry to endless wars that sent young Americans home in planes full of body bags.
But winning a permanent US-dominated future is what Donald Trump thinks is in the best interests of the United States. And so far, he is doing everything possible to undermine his own goal.Just look at the state of US relations with India, a key US partner and a lynchpin of Washington’s wider strategy to counter a rising China.
India is emerging as a major global player and economic powerhouse that, crucially, has spent the past few years at a low point in its relations with China.When Trump’s trade war with China necessitated finding a new production base for iPhones to insulate US consumers from what would have been a price explosion, India gamely stepped up, allowing Apple to move the majority of iPhone assembly to its shores.
As Trump side-eyes BRICS, the economic partnership not-so-subtly angling to sidestep US dominance, India is the closest thing to Washington’s man on the inside, steadfastly opposing the grouping’s budding efforts to undermine the US dollar supremacy core to global US power. This is the fruit of decades of bipartisan work across multiple administrations to draw India closer to Washington and away from Beijing’s sphere of influence.
In the space of a little more than a week, Trump has jeopardized all that. Trump is now levying a significantly higher effective tariff rate on India (50 percent), his ostensible partner, than China (30 percent), the country he considers his biggest adversary. This is driven in large part by Trump’s characteristically incoherent desire to punish India for undermining Western sanctions on Russia and buying Moscow’s discounted oil, something India has been doing for years now.
The fact that Trump has taken a distinctly soft line on Russia throughout his second term, and the fact that China also buys Russian oil, makes this decision doubly baffling for frustrated Indian officials.As a result, Indian relations with the United States are now suddenly strained — and actually improving with China.
To retaliate, New Delhi has put a halt on a planned purchase of US weapons and cancelled an upcoming American trip by its defense minister. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is now set to make his first trip to China in seven years, where he will meet with President Xi Jinping.India is far from the only example.
Trump has likewise been antagonizing Brazil, which has for years been giving China hawks gray hairs as it has inched closer and closer to Beijing, even under previous far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. From the point of view of US policymakers, China deepening its ties with the largest country in South America and the world’s sixth-largest economy, a country practically on the United States’s doorstep, would be a strategic nightmare.
So naturally, Trump has used the US trade relationship with Brazil to meddle in its internal politics, pushing the country further into the arms of China. Unhappy with the Brazilian supreme court’s prosecution of Bolsonaro, whom Trump considers an ally, for trying to instigate a coup during the last election, Trump has both slapped sanctions on the judge overseeing the case and imposed steep tariffs on Brazil as a whole.
Beyond the damage to the Brazilian economy, it is also arguably the most nakedly political use of the United States’s economic heft that we have seen in modern times.It has not taken Beijing long to capitalize on the situation, with China’s foreign minister personally assuring the Brazilian government that China will support Brazil in “resisting the bullying practices of arbitrary tariffs.
” China has now given the go-ahead for 183 Brazilian companies to sell their coffee, one of the sanctioned goods, in the Chinese market. China’s embassy in Brazil is trumpeting how Chinese and Brazilian firms are increasing their respective presences in each other’s markets.In other words, Trump effectively intensified Brazil’s political and economic estrangement from the United States, its largest trading partner at the start of this century, and increased Brazil’s economic reliance on what the United States considers an adversary trying to get a foothold in its backyard.
Further twisting the knife, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and India’s Modi — leading what are now the two countries hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs — had an hour-long conversation about the matter where they vowed to deepen their trade ties.This isn’t the half of it. Less than two weeks ago, Trump triggered howls of outrage throughout Europe over a trade deal that somewhat lowered Trump’s exorbitantly high tariffs in exchange for a host of other trade and regulatory giveaways to the United States.
At one point prior to its capitulation, the European Union considered hitting back against Trump’s tariffs with its “anti-coercion instrument” — tellingly, a retaliatory tool it had originally devised to potentially hit back against what it considered its most dangerous adversary, China.The EU has swallowed a series of US-imposed humiliations in just seven months of Trump’s second term, including enduring repeated threats to annex a member state’s territory and reluctantly agreeing to massively increase military spending to take the pressure off the United States.
The EU is playing the role of loyal poodle so far, but you have to wonder what future seeds of resentment are being sown.We could keep going. Trump’s steadfast and, in fact, markedly escalated support for Israel’s ongoing genocide has — together with a variety of other policies, including his administration’s harassment of foreigners and hostility to international students — further run US global standing into the ground.
An April survey of more than one hundred thousand people across a hundred countries found that the United States was viewed negatively in most of these countries. It also found that nearly 80 percent of the world has a more favorable view of its chief rival, China.At the moment, Trump and his political allies are busy antagonizing friendly countries, including NATO ally and second-biggest trade partner Canada, by hinting at using trade and other mechanisms to punish them for, of all things, their policy toward a foreign government, Israel.
It has just been revealed that Trump secretly approved the US military and spy agencies to wage war on drug cartels in Latin America, potentially violating national sovereignty in a region that has long chafed at US meddling in its affairs. At the same time, China is often the largest or second-largest trading partner in Latin America, and has actively been deepening ties with individual countries.
Trump’s abandonment of multilateralism and his hostility to the UN have opened the door to China, letting Beijing and its partners maneuver their own officials to positions of influence within these bureaucracies. And let’s not forget the way that Trump’s trade war inadvertently laid bare the extent of the United States’s own economic dependence on its rival after decades of neoliberal policy, leading to an embarrassing climbdown — an unforced, self-inflicted blow to global perceptions of US power.
If the United States had a leader who was actively trying to subvert US global power from the inside and give its chief rival win after win, that leader could hardly do better than Trump has done through seven months of sheer strategic incompetence. In a desperate bid to retain US primacy, Trump, in a pattern not unlike that of the predecessor he always trashes, has abandoned statecraft in favor of blunt force and intimidation.
Ironically, that approach is only making the outcome he’s trying to avoid more likely.
