In any bilateral deal, even one with China, the United States will for the foreseeable future be the stronger party—especially if, as Trump promises, it also sets itself up as the judge of whether the deal is being complied with. Trump sees the world as a competitive arena in which nations either dominate or are dominated. And he imagines the U.S. as the world’s ultimate dominator, imposing its will on each nation, one by one.
Trump is not the first leader to think this way. In fact, almost every previous ruler of a mighty state has thought this way, from Ozymandias onward. But they have all failed, with disastrous consequences. States that dominate inevitably inspire resistance. The subject states join together to overthrow the bully. And they almost always win, because no one state is ever stronger than all other states combined, or not for long anyway.
The men who built the postwar world anticipated this danger and sought to avert it. They designed trade and treaty systems governed by rules, rules to which the United States would submit, even though it was the strongest party. Indeed, they intended exactly the things that Donald Trump now complains about—that the U.S. would have to make concessions to smaller partners; that it would not act as judge in its own cases; that it would subordinate its parochial and immediate national interests to the larger and more enduring collective interest. America would find security by working for the security of others.
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