A former NATO ambassador shows how Trump has shattered 80 years of global trust in just 120 days, forcing allies to act without America for the first time.
In just 120 days, President Donald Trump has accomplished what no foreign adversary could achieve in eight decades: the systematic destruction of America’s global leadership from within.
On this WhoWhatWhy podcast, we’re joined by Ivo Daalder, former US ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and director of European affairs on President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council.
He delivers a sobering assessment of how rapidly the post-World War II international order is collapsing. The system that brought unprecedented peace, prosperity, and freedom to billions — built on collective security, free trade, and democratic values — is being deliberately dismantled by the very nation that created it.
“Never before have we seen a great power commit suicide in the way that the United States is,” Daalder warns. Trump’s actions have shattered the foundation of trust that enabled America to lead for 80 years. He details why allies are questioning whether the US shares their values or will defend them, and why trading partners doubt America’s economic reliability. The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency faces unprecedented uncertainty.
The consequences extend far beyond foreign policy, Daalder argues. By embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin, by imposing universal tariffs that exceed Depression-era levels, and by weaponizing the economy for political ends, Trump has alienated the same allies that afforded America its competitive advantage over adversaries like China and Russia.
Daalder sees two possible futures: a return to the “crass power politics” of the 19th century, where deals between strongmen replace international law, or a world where America’s former allies band together to preserve the liberal order without US participation. Early signs suggest the latter may be emerging, as Europe, Canada, and Australia demonstrate new resolve to act in concert but independently of Washington.
Once broken, Daalder emphasizes, trust is extraordinarily difficult to restore, leaving America potentially weakened for generations.
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JEFF SCHECHTMAN: Welcome to the WhoWhatWhy podcast. I’m your host Jeff Schechtman. In his seminal 1969 memoir, Dean Acheson, who served as secretary of state under President Truman, chose a title that perfectly captured his moment in history. “Present at the Creation.” It told the story of how America, emerging victorious from World War II, set about to build a new international order, one based on collective security, free trade, and the promotion of human rights and democracy. What makes the title so poignant today is my guest’s deliberate echo of it in his powerful new essay, “Present at the Destruction.” He argues that we are witnessing nothing less than the dismantling of that very order, a system that has underpinned global stability for more than 80 years.
Ivo Daalder brings unparalleled credentials to this analysis. As the United States’ ambassador to NATO under President Obama he worked at the heart of the alliance. Before that he served on President Clinton’s National Security Council directing European affairs. His scholarly work as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution focused on American foreign policy, European security, and transatlantic relations. Today as the CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the host of “World Review with Ivo Daalder” he continues to bring his penetrating insights to our understanding of America’s role in the world. He has authored or edited 10 significant books, including the prescient The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication of Global Leadership. Today we’ll look at the impact of just 100 days of the Trump administration and the witnessing of a fundamental reordering of the world America made, and why he believes that once broken this order can not easily be restored.
It is my pleasure to welcome ambassador Ivo Daalder here to the program. Mr. Ambassador, thanks so much for joining us here on The WhoWhatWhy podcast.
[02:15] IVO DAALDER: I’m really pleased to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
SCHECHTMAN: Well, it is a delight to have you here. To understand where we are today, talk a little bit about the world that was created in the postwar period. What its principles were, what its goals were, and why you think it endured so successfully for the past 80 years.
[02:35] DAALDER: What was really created at the beginning of our involvement in World War II, I did it back to December 7, 1941. In the intervening years, between World War I and World War II, the United States had experimented in many ways with a foreign policy that tried to retreat from the world even though we had engaged in the world for the 20 years prior to that, including in World War I. But a retreat from the world — the real belief that we could ensure our security at home and ensure our prosperity at home and indeed our freedom by cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world. And it was increasingly clear to our leaders, including Franklin Roosevelt, but others as well, that that was unlikely to work and indeed the world was up in flames. We tried to help, to some extent, the Brits who were, and others who were, either besieged by, or indeed occupied by, the Germans or the Japanese in the Far East. And when the Japanese decided to attack us in Pearl Harbor, at that moment the United States became fully mobilized and it’s from that moment on until really a very few weeks ago that the United States played a singular role. It played a singular role as the arsenal of democracy in ending World War II. Clearly, of course, the Soviet Union and others were part and parcel of that effort, but it wouldn’t have happened without the United States. Certainly not in the way it did.
And even as the war was still going on Roosevelt, and then, of course, his successor Harry Truman, started to think about what do we do in the post-Cold War period. What do we do when the war is over? And they came to the conclusion that what happened in the 30 years between the beginning of World War I and the end of World War II, that experiment of isolationism, just didn’t work, and what we needed was a collective security organization that would ensure that war would not reoccur. That what we needed was to make sure that trade and economic interaction would create interdependencies that would make it less likely that differences were resolved by the use of force. And, indeed, what we needed was the promotion and protection of universal human rights and democracy. And you see this happening in ‘44 and ‘45 with the creation first of the Bretton Woods economic institutions [that] create the IMF and the World Bank, to create economic levers to ensure that nobody falls behind. The emergence of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades, which was designed to open up trading and open markets. Of course, the signing of the United Nations Charter, which created the collective security system under its Chapter 7. And then in 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, negotiated in part by Eleanor Roosevelt. That was designed to say the kinds of rights that people as human beings have, [which are] indeed universal and need to be protected.
Now, the Cold War sort of intervened and it meant that [Dean] Acheson and [George] Marshall and [Harry] Truman had to shift from a universalist conception to a different conception that said, OK, let’s do collective security within an alliance structure of like-minded countries opposing the Soviet Union. Let’s look at trade not across the globe but at least among our friends and allies. And let’s defend — first of all defend and then ultimately promote — democracy and human rights of our own alliance systems, but then also beyond that. And that system worked, and it worked really for 80 years. And it brought peace and prosperity, in fact, in the largest historical period of great power peace. The largest growth in economic development, with more and more people benefiting from it, particularly after the opening of the world to China and the 6-7-800 million people in China who joined the middle class as a result of opening up markets there. [It] had an eradication of large degrees of poverty around the world. It was an incredibly successful system and the problem we face now is that we have a president who doesn’t believe in the system. Really the first president since FDR who doesn’t believe this is how the United States insures its security, prosperity, and freedom, and has embarked on a different course.
[07:35] SCHECHTMAN: How much of this system was at the time, and as it evolved, built on the notion of American exceptionalism coming out of the war?
[07:44] DAALDER: Well, the exceptionalism was that the United States had the power. It represented 50 percent of global GDP, was by far the biggest military power. Indeed, for four years after the war the only nuclear or atomic power until the Soviet Union in 1949 acquired an atomic device itself. And it had liberated large parts of the world that had been occupied both in Europe and of course in Asia. And represented a 150-plus-year-old democracy that while it had its problems, and continues to have its problems, was constantly trying to strive to improve that. It was an exceptional country. Might not be more exceptional, better, than other countries, but it was exceptional in its power. And it was exceptional in a very fundamental way. An understanding that the security, prosperity, and freedom of the United States depended to a large extent on the security, prosperity, and freedom of others. And we never had that, we never had a system, we never had a power, that believed that the way you ensure your security is to make others secure. And, indeed, our alliance systems were based on that entire concept. If countries like Germany, and France, and the UK were secured by us being prepared to defend them, then they would more likely focus their attention on economic and political development, economic prosperity, and enhancing freedom and democracy at home. And that would ultimately be to our benefit.
Over time the most important thing that happened is that our friends and allies, at least around the world, trusted the United States. Trusted the United States to use its power in a responsible way. That it would not, if it deployed troops abroad, use those troops to suppress, or in any way interfere in, domestic affairs of that country. That when it did open markets it would open markets freely and fairly to all. And that when it supported democracy and freedom it did so in a way that was not discriminatory versus one versus the other. Now, there were many imperfections in how the United States executed that, but that was the core of why the system worked.
[10:12] SCHECHTMAN: In the 80 years that the system operated, the world changed. The Cold War came and went, the rise of China, many other things happened in the world. To what extent did those things change, or weaken, or alter this superstructure that was created after the war? And to what degree do you think that that potential weakening in those changes during that period of time have made it so easy today to destroy all of that in such a short time?
[10:43] DAALDER: So, that’s an excellent question, and it’s an important one. Clearly, the end of the Cold War changed the system in a more fundamental way than anything else. It meant that a system that had really been set up to focus on, quote, the western world, could now be universalized. And, indeed, there were attempts in the late 80s and early 90s, and well into the mid-90s, to bring countries that had been under the yoke of Soviet domination into a western system of government. Successfully in eastern and central Europe. Not successfully when it came to Russia. And semi-successfully when it came to China. But the expansion, the global expansion, the globalization of the system, meant a number of things. One, as you mentioned, the rise of China. It meant that America’s relative power in the world, although not its relative power among its friends and allies, was declining. And its ability to steer, shape, and find ways to run the system required support and friendship from others. And there were many ways in which we could and probably should have adapted our leadership roles in the last 25, 35 years. [Changes] that could have maintained the system. But we actually acted in ways that made it less likely that the system would survive, and as you said, became more brittle.
And I’d argue there were three fundamental issues that undermined that. Number one is, and most importantly, a perception in 1990 that we were a unipolar power and we frankly could do anything we wanted. And, therefore, we acted in ways, at times, that well exceeded our capacity for change. Most notably by trying to export democracy to countries that had no interest in having democracy exported to them. Whether that’s in some ways even in Eastern Europe, but most importantly, of course, in the Middle East with the Gulf War, the Iraq war, and in other ways. Secondly, in this famous idea that Frank Fukuyama raised back in 1989, we believed there was an end of history. That sort of the inevitable final stage of history meant that everyone eventually would be a market democracy and that we could hasten that along. And one way, thirdly, to do that was to open up the economic system. And that with economic liberalization in countries like China and Russia would come political liberalization. Well, we were wrong. It didn’t happen. Democracy was not, in fact, the end stage of human civilization. There was a retreat possible from democracy, as we saw all over the place, including here at home.
And our hubris with regard to how we used our extraordinary position of power created counter pressures. And in all these ways, domestically and internationally, our power weakened. Our influence over global affairs weakened, certainly compared to what it was in 1990, or I would argue in 1960 or 1970. And it wasn’t all that difficult for someone to come along and say, you know what, the problem we have is not that we’re not executing our policy in the right way — which tended to be the debate among presidential candidates and Democrats and Republicans from 1945 until today. The problem is the very system itself, as Marco Rubio testified in his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State. He said the postwar system that we had built, the rules-based postwar system, is being, quote, weaponized against us. And that led to changes in policy that frankly undermined the three foundation stones of collective security, free and open markets, and support for human rights and democracy, that had guided American policy for 80 years.
[15:00] SCHECHTMAN: And how much did economic globalization contribute to that?
DAALDER: A lot, because economic globalization was supposed to lead to political liberalization in countries like China, which it didn’t. In fact, today I would say that China is politically more closed, more autocratic, more totalitarian in some ways, than it was certainly when globalization started back in the 1990s and opened up China. And secondly, globalization created counter pressures that needed to be dealt with. Most importantly, a deindustrialization among the most advanced democracies, including the United States. That really wasn’t dealt with in an inappropriate way. There wasn’t an effort to adjust the economic system in a way that allowed for those who were on the losing end of globalization to find new ways to benefit off the new ways. And secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, an unwillingness to deal with one of its main characteristics, which was the growth in inequality. Those who were most globalized, particularly the financial elite in the United States, benefited the most from the system. And those who are least globalized benefited the least. And that created inequities and pressures to counter the system that, frankly, Donald Trump in 2016 already saw and used and exploited to his benefit and led to his election in 2017… emerged as president in 2017. And, in some ways, to his return in 2024. Lots of other reasons for that, but, yes, globalization had negative consequences that produced political change of a magnitude that, frankly, many people hadn’t seen coming, and we’re now witnessing.
[17:05] SCHECHTMAN: And just as people didn’t see it coming, just as the success of the Cold War from the US perspective and globalization had unintended consequences that were clearly unseen, talk a little bit about where we are now and the potential consequences that we see. And a little bit about maybe gazing into the crystal ball and potential unintended consequences from where we are now.
[17:34] DAALDER: So, I think we’ve seen in the first 100 days, now I guess 120 days almost of this presidency, the most rapid destruction of America’s global position in history. I think the most rapid destruction of a power’s ability to affect what’s happening outside of its borders that we have seen. Never before have we seen a great power commit suicide in the way that, I think, the United States is. And in what way? Well, let’s start with alliances. A core strength, the highest competitive strength that we have with respect to our adversaries, actual or potential, countries like Russia and China, is we have allies. They don’t. They have clients. Clients are very different. They may do what you want if you pay them enough, but allies do what you want because they believe in what you’re trying to achieve.
And we have alienated our allies in a pure and fundamental sense. We’ve alienated them because we have raised a fundamental question about whether we see the world the same way as they do. By embracing, particularly in Europe, Vladimir Putin and Russia and blaming Ukraine, the victim of a war, for a war that was started by Russia. And [we] have called into question whether we are willing to defend our allies and friends, and that has major implications for how they look at the world. And we will see Europe, and to some extent Asia, it’s slower there, but [we will see] Europe adjusting to that and saying we need to be independent. A statement by the now-German Chancellor, made after his election — which would be unthinkable — a German Chancellor saying we need to be independent from the United States. And that’s what we have done. And as a result we have basically done away with the one thing that allowed us to compete effectively with our adversaries: allies.
And, secondly, we have weaponized our economy and used the ability to trade as a way to affect political favor and political change. And that has created an uncertainty in the global political economic system that is reducing growth; it’s reducing, therefore, prosperity and welfare of people. And, importantly, it has raised fundamental questions about the stability of the United States economy, and hands off the dollar and treasuries as safe havens for times of economic upheaval. And it is the dollar and the treasury, this idea of safe haven, that has been the core of not only the United States’ economic power, but also its ability to spend beyond its means, and to live beyond its means, which we’ve been doing for the last 30 or 40 years. And that was perfectly fine as long as people believed the treasuries were safe assets, that the dollar will be a safe currency and will remain a reserve currency, but now that is in question. And, of course, on the democracy and human rights front, not only have we cut every single program that supports democracy and human rights around the world, we’re behaving at home in ways that are deeply questionable with regard to issues like the rule of law and the strength of our own democracy. The weaponization of our judicial system for political ends, etcetera. That raised questions about whether we are in fact still a democracy ourselves, let alone a beacon on the hill, or as Ronald Reagan used to put it, a shining city on the hill. That [is what] many people, including myself as an immigrant to this country, saw as a reason for coming and believing in the United States, and that’s all being questioned.
And the result of that is that America’s ability to shape the world in a way it’s done in the last 80 years is severely undermined. Because the one thing that allowed us to do that — trust — they trusted the United States would choose its overwhelming power in ways that would not only benefit it, but also be to the benefit of an international system of which everyone could enjoy the benefits of. That trust has gone and restoring trust is something that, as anyone knows in a relationship — has built a personal relationship — when trust is broken it’s extremely difficult. And that’s why no matter what happens, no matter if all of a sudden we change policy, restoring trust is going to be extraordinarily difficult. And I fear that we will find in the not-too-distant future that we are a country that is punching way below its weight, that is much less influential, much less powerful than it was any time in the last 85-plus years. And less trusted. And that we live in a world [with] more fragmentation more distrust, probably more conflict and less riches. Not a great prospect.
[22:47] SCHECHTMAN: Given that the system that you talked about at the beginning — the system that we’ve had for the past 80 years — collapsed under the weight of its own success. And given what Trump has done and where we are now, and that it really is Humpty Dumpty that can’t be put back together again, how do we proceed from here to a potential new system or a new way of approaching the world that may set the boundaries for the next 50 to 80 years?
[23:17] DAALDER: Well, that’s a question that depends fundamentally on the evolution of our own politics over the next three years, three-plus years, and what happens at the end of that. And whether there is a return to a commitment of the kinds of ideas and thinking that underlay the policy the US has pursued over the last 80 years. Or whether we are, in fact, emboldened by the idea that what we need to do is to pursue policies that are more akin to the interwar years, or indeed to the late 19th century, which is where President Trump seems to want to be going. So, if we have a reduction in trade at an extraordinary level because of high tariffs, of fragmentation. If we find that countries, rather than balancing other great powers, start to hedge and indeed bandwagon with them and come under their control, whether that’s our friends and allies in Asia with regard to China or our friends and allies in Europe with regard to Russia, we may find ourselves, three or four years from now, in a world in which the kind of competitive behavior that’s so characterized global politics throughout much of history will have returned.
And we will look back at our 80 years as in some ways a historical anomaly, and that we are returning to the kind of crass power politics of realpolitik where deals are made among leaders that are kept only for so long as they seem to benefit both sides. And it will be a rougher and a tougher and a less peaceful, and certainly a less prosperous, world than we have witnessed in the last 80 years. The alternative is that other powers decide that, in fact, they want to maintain some of the benefits that have existed and been created over the last 80 years. So I can see our friends in Europe, Canada under renewal leader Mark Carney, our friends in Asia, saying, listen, this system that the United States created was an important system. We need to uphold it. And the way to uphold it is to band together. Not only against the countries like Russia and China that seek to undermine it, but indeed the United States, that seeks to undermine it. And we need to stand fast. And I think one of the lessons we’re learning in these 120 days is that, actually, Donald Trump is a lot of bluster. It’s not clear that he’s willing to follow through.
And just take you two examples. The last few days, of course, in the United States Trump has stepped back from his trade war with China. There’s still a significant tariff being put on trade between China and the United States, but it was Trump that blinked and decided that the cost was too large. Trump in March launched a major war against the Houthis and found out that in fact you couldn’t achieve politically what you through these military means and decided to declare victory and go home. In other words, one of the lessons I think he’s learning is that other countries have agency. They have capability. They know perhaps better than he does what they want and they’re willing to achieve, and they’re willing to stand up to him. And when they do they tend to succeed in in their goals and I think that’s a lesson that other countries are learning.
So the way I see the more positive side isn’t that we will have a world that will be not as fragmented, not as conflict prone, in which economic relations still can be maintained. But in which the United States plays a smaller role. And until, frankly, a new leadership emerges in the United States and will play a more of a spoiler role than the kind of role it’s been playing over the last 80 years. So, we’ll have to see how it evolves. The picture is bleak but I think what is happening in Canada, what’s happening in Europe, where I spend a lot of time, suggests that there are still countries, and there’s still people, who say, you know what, we like this world and we’re going to try to figure out how to maintain it even if the United States doesn’t want to be part of it.
[28:00] SCHECHTMAN: And finally, do you see enough global leadership — leadership in Asia, leadership in Europe — to pull together these kinds of regional alliances that might at least continue this system in some form as you’re talking about?
[28:17] DAALDER: Yeah, I do actually. I mean it’s interesting, of course, that both in Canada and Australia the incumbents won large, unexpected victories. In Australia particularly large. That means that in both of those countries you have two leaders with a mandate, a political mandate, to find ways to exercise leadership and the political capital to do so. I think in Europe you have an emergence of a set of leaders that is uniquely qualified to stand up and say, you know, we have been too dependent on the United States for too long. We should be figuring out ways to do this ourselves. That’s true for Kier Starmer in the UK, who still has four years to go on his political mandate. It’s true for the European leaders at NATO and the EU. Mark Rutte, a very seasoned politician at NATO, and Ursula van der Leyen at the EU. It’s true with a new chancellor in Germany, Friedrich Merz, who will be there for another four years. France is a problem, but Macron has singular powers as the president and will still be around for the next two years. Donald Tusk in Poland is a forceful leader. Most of the countries in Nordic Europe [have] strong leaders. We’re seeing it playing out in Ukraine, as we did just over the weekend. I think there’s a willingness and a recognition to stand up. And, indeed, I think the one positive is actually Europe realizing — and Canada and Australia and others — that standing up means you don’t have to depend on the United States always. You would like to have a better relationship with the United States. You would like to have trade relationships with the United States. You would like to have a security relationship with the United States. You would like to see a United States that supports freedom and democracy at home and abroad. But even if that’s not the case you still have the capacity to act and to do so together. So, in that sense the world is changing. There may be a hope that others are starting to fill the vacuum that President Trump has created through his policies in the last 120 days.
[30:38] SCHECHTMAN: Ivo Daalder, thank you so much. You’re substack is “America Abroad” and I thank you so much for spending time with us today here on the WhoWhatWhy podcast.
DAALDER: I enjoyed it greatly. Thank you so much.
SCHECHTMAN: Thank you. And thank you for listening and joining us here on the WhoWhatWhy podcast. I hope you join us next week for another WhoWhatWhy podcast. I’m Jeff Schechtman. If you like this podcast please feel free to share and help others find it by rating and reviewing it on iTunes. You can also support this podcast and all the work we do by going to whowhatwhy.org/donate
