>> "now President Trump is retreating from the American chief executive’s traditional role as Leader of the Free World"
Citation? He may not be some people's ideal of the leader of the free world but I wouldn't say he has retreated.
Citation? He may not be some people's ideal of the leader of the free world but I wouldn't say he has retreated.
There's no evidence of that. The President is a citizen figurehead (with limited powers) which has to fight a monumentally massive bureaucracy made up of other branches and citizens. Trump is not a godhead or even going to be considered important in the long run (a generation+). Curb the sensationalism.
The logical assumption is that the US President is not in fact a leader of anything outside of the US and only the pride and arrogance of the citizenry would lead to that title. Alternatively, it could be true that the US President is indeed the dictator of the rest of the world, but then it would be more fitting to call him a dictator rather than some Americanized version of "Great Leader".
IMO this marks a retreat from many previous administrations.
Historically the U.S. has avoided drilling much of its reserves preferring to use oil from foreign sources first, knowing that it would have its own remaining if those ever dried up, either literally or because they became untenable to access for whatever reason.
If the U.S. uses up its reserves and doesn't drastically cut its consumption, it's no longer a net exporter.
One potential solution:
Use local reserves in the short term while redirecting military spending toward building sustainable / clean energy infrastructure domestically to avoid a scenario in which the country runs out of domestic reserves and is no longer able to obtain oil from foreign sources.
And of course the US is neighbors with another huge oil producer up north that happens to have a small population. Mexico also likely has a lot of oil it's unaware of, near Texas, in the form of shale. Given it only has 500m people, North America is an energy reserves monster.
Historically, shale oil was not economically viable. This has drastically changed the equations because suddenly available supply has shot up, rendering the old calculations moot.
(Note I am not implying anything further other than what I said. There are good aspects to that, there are bad aspects to that, and there will be disagreement about which is which. I'm just saying the old strategy has been obsoleted by practical shale extraction.)
Which means it needs to buy things from the outside, and trade something people want in return - that means oil. If you want to be stable on oil, it's either competing with international market or you're throwing up price controls and export restrictions to try and keep the price down. Do that, and your currency starts devaluing anyway making all those things you want more expensive.
A more appropriate equivalent would be standing for mayor of your town and saying you will be a good leader, but you will be putting your family’s interests ahead of everyone else.
Is diluting your vote on your nation's policies to include the rest of the world a necessary cost for having a free world?
Take the PRK. Will it collapse any time soon? Probably not. The government disarmed the populace. They are internally too weak to oust Kim. Does bringing the PRK into the less violent world benefit people? Yes. The US would have to spend far less on Korea. So the US could save anywhere from 350 million to 1 billion by not having to be there. [1]
TPP was terrible for rights of the individual. It was a promotion by the media companies, among others, to strip ownership rights. It also pushed a greater term for copyright, which at the current levels already stagnates the economy.
Reducing NATO has the benefit that it's making EU members start to think about spending their money on defense. The US has funded the EU social systems for too long. The EU countries mock the US saying, "If you spent less on your worthless bombs, perhaps you could provide good medical systems to your population." I'm tired of this lie. They don't spend much on their defense. They don't spend what they should with Russia parked on their front lawn. Is it good leadership to have your crew, who appear to be of little worth, make you spend on every outing?
Initiating trade conflicts is not necessarily wrong if the deals are bad. Are Americans better off under these new deals? I don't know; not enough details nor time. If they are, isn't pushing such negotiations ago thing? Could the same ends been achieved with different means?
1 - https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-the-US-spend-on-defendin...
On the idea of free trade https://youtu.be/rw7PUrgU3N0
Imagine if Canada had to actually spend real money on defense to keep Russia from going after its northern most territory (Russia has begun getting aggressive there). They're spending 1.3% of GDP on their military, with no ability to actually secure their own territory if Russia decides to start claiming some of their land in the Arctic region. Who are they going to look to as Russia gets more aggressive? The US of course, nobody else can do anything about it.
On the back of threatening NATO, the US approved the largest increase in defense spending ever. To what end? Who are your enemies in a world where you apparently don't plan to commit to NATO and are going to reduce foreign imperialist activity?
The US military is largely worthless in a true asymmetric war without our territory. There are better options in both law enforcement and the true concept of the US citizenry being part of an independent State militia. If we let the EU fall or stand on its own, the US could get rid of the majority of its standing military. We wouldn't need friendly bases because we could scrap the idea of a volunteer army. Such armies make foreign adventures palatable since the soldiers asked to join. An army that is mostly conscripted does not go abroad unless it has too. A conscripted army is not large enough to threaten the homeland.
If we collapsed our military to just Navy and Air force, enough to keep trade routes open and secure our airspace, we could free up 300-400 billion dollars. The US could pay down some of its 20 trillion dollar debt year after year after year.
And why would an expansionist China let any country in its sphere of influence give preferable trade deals to Americans at all? The point of an empire is to get it to pay tribute to you, which is what the US currently does via it's various economic relationships backed by its military.
The reality is that if other country's build up their military's, then any money from trade the US is getting is diverted since what are they going to buy from you? The first thing you do for a self-reliant military is build your own industries, or make military alliances with your neighbors to share industrial capacity. All of which would have lost any reason to bother with US hardware.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Structured_Cooperati...
But also, this is an opinion piece, no need to take it too seriously in any measure. The responses you are getting are aligned opinions.
While you won't find a citation of him saying "I'm no longer interested in being the leader of free world" you will find that he rejects the concept of "the free world" by decrying "globalists" as being the cause of a perceived decline in America's influence and power.
Not to mention his bashing of allies on trade, security and a variety of other issues - making it clear he's not interested in "leading" but rather ... dominating(?)
So to me, retracting from the global economy, bashing allies, and complimenting authoritarian monsters would seem to indicate he's cool with "retreating" from that role.
However, he may think he is being a "tougher" leader than before.
Soft power is great when it works. Soft power leaves personal and bilateral relationships largely undisturbed and reinforces stability. The problem is this... it doesn't work when both sides do not share a strong incentive (or the same timeline) to reach a negotiated agreement. Hard power is required and not inherently bad when gridlock, urgency and incentives justify its use.