Through tariff policies, threats to invade allied countries, unilateral use of force in Venezuela and elsewhere, Trump’s America has returned to acting like the imperial powers of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Indeed, Rubio seemed to bemoan the fact that this era had ended. “For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe.”
If this is what the United States seeks to offer the world as the new global order — a return to imperialism, empire building, exploitation of national resources, the imposition of Christendom — than surely the rest of the world can be forgiven for saying: No, thanks!
Nor did Rubio’s nostalgic appeal to Western civilization as the basis of transatlantic unity go over well. “We are part of one civilization — Western civilization,” Rubio declared. “We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry and the sacrifices our forefathers made together.”
But for most Europeans — indeed, for most Americans — these are hardly the features that set the West apart. Missing from the list were such essential Western values as democracy, human rights and the rule of law. As America celebrates its 250th year of independence, it is remarkable that its chief diplomat seems to have forgotten what made America different — the idea, inscribed in the Declaration of Independence, that: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Trump’s America is offering the world something patently unacceptable to all but the most diehard realists, who put their faith in power and its naked pursuit. It is not a world others will want to live in.
But that doesn’t mean that the rules-based order is over. Yes, its major powers, led by Russia, China and the U.S., are no longer willing to live by the rules painstakingly developed over the past 80 years. But the rest of the world surely does — not least those middle powers, like Canada, the EU, Japan, Australia, India, Brazil and others Carney called to action.