Newsflash to my European friends — the more you criticize America and the more you marginalize Americans, the quicker you will push the U.S. away from the global stage and closer towards a new form of isolationism and nationalism.
One of the sad facts of life today is that many people in many countries have decided that America is no longer their friend, no longer a reliable partner in NATO and is willing to desert its allies in times of need.
Some are even calling America a rogue nation that is cannibalizing its own Constitution and is on a path towards a dictatorship with a megalomaniac narcissist at the helm.
Here in Europe, where I am, every day, the media in several European nations bring out their “America experts” who routinely characterize the U.S. as an example of everything that is wrong with the world.
They portray the country as anti-family because it won’t enact laws to promote paid family leave for men. They say it is racist because it chooses a meritocracy over racially-biased hiring policies. They don’t understand why the U.S. won’t levy massive taxes on entrepreneurs and risk-takers and they really don’t know why Americans are concerned about protecting their free speech.
In short, they feel that America refuses to adopt a host of policies that only “enlightened societies” (like theirs) see as inviolate.
Unfortunately, many of these same experts tend to be products of universities that have long-standing institutional views on the dangers of working too hard, being too ambitious and too devoted to creating a society based on the power of the individual and on the right of the majority to decide matters of national importance.
Some of these countries’ priorities seem to be rooted in perpetuating their own status quo that aims to protect and preserve their own beliefs that they — and they alone — have all the answers and solutions to society’s problems and challenges.
While this is not unusual for any country that wants to safeguard its own values and ideals, it can seem arrogant to other countries, especially when these views are promoted with missionary-like zeal, accompanied by a wagging finger.
Such is the case in the current situation with the United States. It must be said, however, that the U.S. has also been guilty of pushing its views of what constitutes an ideal society onto other countries, especially smaller ones. This has created a long-standing, frustration and simmering anger toward Americans, and this anger has now reached the boiling point after the election of Donald Trump.
His views, remarks and actions, the latest of which is the imposition of massive tariffs which many are calling the first battle of World Trade War I have created widespread animosity and fear among European nations.
Europeans are boycotting American products and are encouraging their national pension funds to disinvest in American companies and to seek out alternatives. Nothing American is safe from attack. Local and national governments are being told by angry constituents that it’s time to throw effective and affordable American software systems like Microsoft products on the dust heap and, instead, find European alternatives.
America-hate has also infected some countries’ defense purchases. Major American defense suppliers are feeling the pushback and are being forced to defend not only the effectiveness of their equipment but also assure Europeans that they will not hit the “kill switches” on sophisticated F-35 aircraft on a whim.
Tourism, too, is taking a hit. Foreign tourism to the U.S. is down, and this is the result of a “culture war” that is playing out, which, in my opinion, is linked to the trade war and that is robbing the dollar of its value, siphoning off industry’s profits and is serving to push America into a corner.
Yet, as everyone knows, when Americans are cornered, they generally fight back. Surrender has never been an option, so what then are the next likely steps if both wars continue simultaneously and apace?
Barring any monumental event or policy change, I would submit that the end result will be an America that chooses to go its own way, effectively taking the country back to the last century when isolationism was a powerful force for Americans. The thought being, “If the rest of the world doesn’t want us, doesn’t like us or our products, fine. We can live with that, but they shouldn’t have our number on speed dial if they want our help.” For globalists, this is the worst possible scenario, today.
The eight decades of friendship that followed the end of the Second World War could be erased quickly, leaving the world’s countries to adopt an “every man for himself” industrial policy.
Without the United States, NATO would collapse or be severely diminished. Bilateral agreements between countries would proliferate, leaving multilateral agreements worthless. Larger predator countries could feel emboldened because of the new disintegration of the old world order that was guaranteed by such multilateral agreements. We could see extra-territorial military incursions be used as test probes to see if other nations would rally to their neighbors’ defense. Current military capabilities of E.U. nations, for example, are insufficient to push back on an advance of say, Russia, against Latvia, which would probably justify its incursion to “protect the Russian-speaking minority” in that country.
Europe could be fighting on multiple “fronts,” some physical like military confrontations and others that are trade-related as countries ramp up domestic production of old industries that have been resurrected to replace the offensive American imports.
Tourism to the U.S. would shrink, dramatically, as would technical, academic and scientific collaboration and other forms of personnel exchange. Visa cooperation between the U.S. and 20 European countries that now enjoy visa-free travel would be suspended. The U.S. tourism industry would survive because of its highly developed destinations and tourism infrastructure, but European tourism would be dealt an expensive blow. U.S. participation in “save the planet” or international energy organizations would be non-existent.
It’s death by a thousand cuts, all because of a lack of understanding.
The unvarnished truth about the reasons for our current troubles with Europe for example, is that the Europeans do not understand what makes America or Americans “tick.”
For many years, they were happy watching America turn towards socialism under eight years of Barack Obama and four years under Joseph Biden. After all, those two presidents and their administrations were more “European-like” and they figured this trend would continue because they thought that most Americans wanted a more social democratic state like their own.
They were wrong.
There are two Americas and anyone who has lived there knows that. Those that haven’t rely on their national news media to paint them a picture that the mostly left-leaning European media believes that its consumers must have in order to perpetuate strongly-held national beliefs in the righteousness and validity of their values. Instead of using a magnifying glass to really see the United States for what it truly is, European media have given their viewers and readers a mirror and an echo chamber that has only strengthened their national bias.
Maybe a trial separation is necessary so that both the U.S. and its allies can truly determine what’s wrong with the relationship(s).
What we must keep in mind, however, is that every separation has real, long-lasting consequences, and depending on the length of the separation, the consequences can be minimal or significant.
Today, our trade patterns are on the table. Tomorrow it could be anything or everything. If we are to move forward and preserve that relationship we must accept the fact that we are different as people and societies, but that those differences should not lead to our downfall. We must work through them and learn why we are who we are and why we do what we do and embrace introspection and eschew condemnation. This is one of those times when Occam’s Razor cannot be employed … at least not until we know more about each other and stop viewing our differences as impediments to progress.
Stephen Helgesen is a retired career U.S. diplomat specializing in international trade who lived and worked in 30 countries for 25 years during the Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush Administrations. He is the author of fourteen books, seven on American politics, and has written over 1,500 articles on politics, economics and social trends. He now lives in Denmark and is a frequent political commentator on Danish media. He can be reached at: stephenhelgesen@gmail.com
Image: Library of Congress, via Picryl // public domain
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