It is time to start making serious plans to reconstruct U.S. diplomacy once the Trump era ends.
The U.S. president has only been in office for six months. If he can shake off the specter of impeachment, Donald Trump will direct American foreign policy until 2021 or 2025. But it is now utterly clear that he will leave the international system, at the very best, in disarray. The only really intriguing question about his remaining time in the White House is whether or not the U.S. will enter into a major war due to his miscalculations.
If Trump has followed a theory of international affairs to date, it has been that he can charm or coerce a small number of other international leaders into cooperating with America to run the world. He has tried, despite domestic opposition, to develop a strategic relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he has pushed his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to crack down on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.