There is the possibility that when historians look at the time we are currently, they will describe this, the moment at the inauguration of Donald Trump, as the moment when the global has changed.
This may say (yes, of course, it all depends on what’s happening) at the moment when the 35-year era of globalization that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall has ushered in a new era. This is the time when the dominant assumptions among the governing elite, that loose industry and other people’s loose movement were principles of critical policy, were replaced through new ones.
Those principles – that barriers to migration flows and tariffs on trade flows are a valid part of the policy toolkit – are not exactly new. Indeed, look back over the past two centuries and you see that every 75 years or so, the pendulum swings to and from an adherence to free trade. Nor is it entirely true to say Donald Trump changed everything. Look at Joe Biden’s policies while in office and you see that far from reversing the Trump 1.0 stance on China, Biden reinforced it with new tariffs and protectionist measures.
Even so, historians tend to attract symbolic moments and this is in fact one of them. The Americans have given their popular a president who not only defends another interpretation of the American foreign commitment than the maximum of their post -war predecessors, but glorifies it. .
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Since Franklin Roosevelt, one of the overarching goals of U. S. policy has been to use its force to verify to seek foreign stability and to enshrine democracy and secure social and economic values (the “Washington consensus” as we know). These goals have been reinforced through multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. Unlike its predecessors as a global Hegemon, the United States would eschew outdated imperialism in favor of this more enlightened style of multilateralism, or at least asserted.
But the Trump 2.0 era seems to suggest that model is now over. From his obsession with tariffs to his claims over Greenland and Panama, to his transactional attitude to NATO, the new president’s demeanour harks back to a different era and a different America. The global superpower is changing and ushering in a different world. The consequences are likely to be profound.