Trump's Orchestrated Rupture With Traditional Allies Will Long Outlast His Presidency

This is a picture of a magnet that was being sold at Strand's Book Store in New York City a few years ago. No, I did not buy it, but I liked it and took a picture, which I am sharing here now. 

The presidency of Donald Trump will have an enormous and last impact for Americans, even if most of them do not fully realize the extent of it yet.

This is not something that the country will simply put behind it as soon as Trump is gone, as many left-leaning Americans seem to believe and hope. No, this will have a lasting impact. It might not have had Trump really been an aberration, a fluke who got elected into office once and then disappeared.

But he did not disappear. In fact, he dominated politics even while out of office, and then got elected back into office. Whether or not he cheated is beside the point. He won the Republican nomination three straight times, more than any other major party candidate has done in most of our lifetimes. And he is serving his second term in office. 

In short, he is no fluke.

And so what he is doing has apparently been given the green light of approval, collectively, by Americans, whether most Americans agree with it or not. Even while family and friends in other countries know that I am not a Trump supporter, they still continue, rather relentlessly, to refer to Trump as "your president."

That is the reality that Americans will have to face. This is "our president," and his policies are thus "our policies." And the way that he torpedoed traditional alliances with Western countries with the tariffs and the criticism of their lack of involvement in a war that he himself started (without bothering to consult them first) and especially his threats to the sovereignty of other nations (especially Greenland and Canada) has set some serious ill will between the United States and the rest of the world.

Regardless of who becomes president after Trump, that is not something that will quickly be fixed or removed. The skepticism and distrust will take decades before it is forgotten. 

To me, that will be a huge part of the real legacy of having elected someone like Donald Trump to this nation's highest office.

How sad.

‘There Is No Going Back’: The Inside Story of Europe’s Rupture With America by  Joe Parkinson ,  Drew Hinshaw  and  Daniel Michaels July 5, 2026:

Trump’s tariffs, threats against Greenland spurred a rebellion by top leaders; the limits of ‘flattery diplomacy’   

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/european-rupture-with-america-e3a9bb3c?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwY2xjawS5WZBleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEemEvAWW-wbH3uY0qXj1vFt5ZE2z4r0dsDiRzr-cC_FPdH_urL_mAGv5xiJz8_aem_oZXCRmBTDppp8G20RbFzBQ

‘There Is No Going Back’: The Inside Story of Europe’s Rupture With America - WSJ