America has got its mojo back

The United Nations was always essentially an instrument of American soft power. Only somewhere along the line, the UN took on a life of is own and successive US administrations were seemingly oblivious to its transformation into something quite unwholesome. You don’t have to be a rabid Zionist to notice that it spends much of its time castigating Israel while having little or nothing to say about the human rights abuses by third world kleptocracies. Certainly, for as long as I can remember, the UN has been a byword for hypocrisy and corruption.

The UN, though, is a little understood organisation, and in fact comprises of several organisations, nearly all of which have been captured by liberal internationalists pushing the globalist agenda on the pretext of addressing climate change - culminating in Net Zero. Perhaps the high water mark was during the Obama years, when the groupthink of Western elites was that of post-nationalism, where nation states invested their sovereign powers in multilateral organisations.

While America was never a full convert to multilateralism (It has always been the bed blocker to establishing global regulations and standards, and (rightly) sabotaged the WTO) - the US has used the UN as the main vehicle for the politics of climate change. Much like the EU, the UN welcomed this agenda in that it extended its period of international relevance.

It was inevitable though, that climate policies would soon hit the reality buffer. Certainly, the international drive towards renewable energy has been a blisteringly expensive failure, while climate regulations have strangled the life out of Western economies, and exported jobs and geopolitical power to enemies of the West.

More than any other issue, aside from immigration, this ideological crusade is the reason why we’ve seen populist movements thriving throughout the West. In its adoption of multilateralism, open borders, and the climate agenda, Europe, particularly, has hobbled its own growth and diminished its capacity to respond to the demands of electorates - leading to the ever growing disconnect of the elites and widespread discontent.

To any serious political observer, the writing has been on the wall for the “International rules based order” since 2016 (and probably for a while before), and the election of Trump (and Brexit) was the first major crack in the dam. Politics on the left ever since has been a full mobilisation to prevent the collapse of the post-war (neo)liberal order and the transnational bureaucracies that sustain our elites.

Donald Trump has always understood that the climate agenda is the keystone. The first Trump administration suspended US participation in the Paris climate accords, which was very rapidly reversed by Joe Biden. The left understands that the climate agenda is their political meal ticket, and the ideal pretext for their authoritarianism. This was always to be a key battleground.

For decades, liberal internationalists believed, fundamentally, that multilateralism (in an unprecedented era of peace) made hard power redundant. They believed that geopolitical objectives could be secured through trade and international pressure. The decision to treat China as a market economy was symptomatic of that very mindset, even though China has been waging an economic war on the West for the last thirsty years.

From this ivory tower, diplomats, statesmen and academics viewed Donald Trump as an oafish luddite, and a threat to their world order. They were certainly right about that last part. The White House this week has now issued a memorandum pursuant to Executive Order 14199, directing federal agencies to withdraw the United States from dozens of international organisations, conventions and treaties that no longer serve the interests of the American people. This might very well be it. The final nail in the coffin of globalisation.

This follows the DOGE initiative, which saw major cuts to foreign aid, marking a broader defunding of the international NGOcracy, many of which are actively hostile to the US and its interests. America finally noticed.

In other domains we also see a sea change in American foreign policy. The daring snatch raid in Venezuela is a clear indication that America has shaken off its post-Iraq defeatist funk and is again establishing the principle that American might is right. America has got its mojo back. We’re seeing the rebirth of American power - and, more importantly, American self-interest.

This stands in stark contrast to the EU. The EU has always talked up "soft power" and the "international rules based order" because it has never had any other means at its disposal. There have been repeated attempts to create a defence union, and to insert itself into a hard power role, but has never been able to secure a European consensus. Ultimately, the peoples of Europe do not wish the EU to be what it was designed to be (a European superstate) which is why it lingers on as a geopolitically irrelevant economic union.

The EU's main success is exporting its system of regulations, and in terms of trade it is a regulatory superpower, but as it is now finding, as globalisation goes into reverse, being a regulatory superpower is no power at all. It can pontificate from the sidelines, but has no means to assert its preferences. Meanwhile, member states are in much the same boat as they respectively leaned on US-backed NATO for security while dismantling their own defence capabilities to prop up generous welfare systems.

In the meantime, Europe has gone all out to make itself an economic irrelevance by closing down its heavy industry and offshoring strategic production capabilities, all in the name of net zero and saving the planet, and now finds itself a spectator in geopolitical affairs, unable even to exert influence over a border skirmish in its own back yard. Worse still, Europe has opened the floodgates to mass immigration which further compromises its own security and stability.

As such, contrary to its own belief, Europe is not in any position to be wagging the finger at the United States for securing its own interests and its borders. European elites believed that "soft power" and trade incentives would eventually reshape the world in its own image. That ideology has proven to be catastrophically wrong. In fact, America's more recent decline is largely down to the Obama-Biden regime's determination to emulate the European approach, outsourcing its own authority to international organisations determined to undermine American power.

Trump has up-ended all of these assumptions and has been right each and every time. By asserting American military and economic sovereingty, the US is clawing its way back to prosperity and security - while Europe quietly dies. The soft power doctrine of the EU has done nothing to dissuade Putin, strengthened China and handed it the upper hand in the trade war against the West. It has vacated Africa so that Russia and China can fill the void. Europe doesn't even hold influence in its own neighbourhood.

The European elite's distaste for Trump is that Trump is not a signatory to the Great Western suicide pact. America's determination to thrive, prosper and defeat its enemies is a betrayal of the progressive agenda. The West, in the eyes of European elites, is not supposed to be self-confident and assertive in its own values. We are meant to look inward with shame and guilt - and surrender all that we are and all that we have. Progressivism is the West's very own death cult. Donald Trump stands in opposition to this managed decline - and that's why they hate him.

As a Brit, I can only look on at America with envy. We see a self-confident leader demolishing all the obstacles to growth, taking control of the borders and reversing the woke degeneracy in public life. Meanwhile, the old order clings on in Britain and Europe - ever more censorious, authoritarian and unserious, doubling down on all the worst ideas and passively allowing an invasion of migrants. While America surges back to life, Europe is staring down the barrel of an existential crisis.

What’s happening right now is essentially the death of the post-war liberal order; a belated end to the twentieth century. The old institutions based on obsolete ideas and flawed assumptions are crumbling. Rather than attempt to preserve them, America is stepping boldly into the future. War correspondent Ann Vandersteel nicely summarises the dynamic shift:

This is a course correction. American taxpayer dollars are no longer being automatically routed into international bodies that operate without accountability and routinely push policies that undermine our constitutional framework. Decision making authority is returning home where it belongs.

This shift is about restoration of our republic. A sovereign nation governs itself. It does not outsource its laws its economy or its moral authority to unelected global institutions.

This moment is about reestablishing lawful order rooted in national sovereignty. It is about restoring constitutional governance and ending the era where America was expected to bankroll and obey systems designed by others.

The anxiety coming from global elites is revealing. Power is shifting back to the people through their nation states. Change is happening....

The republic is reasserting itself and the world is adjusting to that reality.

This, of course, is what Brexit was supposed to be for Britain, only to be defeated the way Trump was brought down the first time. Trump has clearly learned the lessons, and is now delivering for the American people, doing all the things he said he would - and the world is better off for it. The thought that the same could one day happen here is what keeps me going. Trump is proof that the West can rise again.