ABNA24 - The New York Times has reported that President Donald Trump has turned the United States into a “zombie” state and that the country has lost its global leadership role.
Criticism of Trump’s policies has continued in the United States following his warmongering in the region and his role in fueling international tensions. In an article titled “The Zombification of America” Stephen Marche, a columnist for The New York Times, wrote that Donald Trump’s policies have not only weakened the international order that Washington had led for decades, but have also prompted U.S. allies to reshape their security and economic strategies based on the assumption that relying on the United States is no longer a safe option.
He added that the initial reaction to Trump’s policies—which included calls for the annexation of Canada, control over Greenland, the imposition of tariffs on allied countries, and the weakening of NATO—was marked by anger and anxiety among America’s partners.
However, according to Marche, U.S. allies gradually came to realize that the costs of slowly distancing themselves from Washington were lower than they had originally anticipated.
The author argues that Trump’s threats against Greenland prompted the European Union to resort to retaliatory trade measures, ultimately forcing the U.S. administration to back down.
On the military front, he writes, the war with Iran exposed the limits of American power. According to Marche, despite intense military pressure, Tehran managed to preserve its political system and eventually secured the lifting of sanctions through a memorandum of understanding with the United States. Meanwhile, the Persian Gulf states have reportedly become increasingly doubtful about the reliability of U.S. security guarantees in the aftermath of the conflict.
Stephen Marche further noted that Trump’s remarks at the recent NATO summit in Ankara—in which he criticized several allies and reiterated his demands regarding Greenland—are no longer as alarming as they once were. In his view, many countries now regard such statements as political posturing lacking the capacity to be implemented.
The article goes on to say that a number of countries have, for some time, been working to reduce their dependence on the United States in areas ranging from trade to military affairs and technology. The European Union has been moving toward decreasing its reliance on American technology companies, while countries such as Belgium and Finland have also taken steps to distance themselves from Amazon’s cloud-computing services.
The author describes the United States on the international stage as a “zombie”: a country that still possesses considerable power, but which, because of its internal political divisions and the persistent uncertainty surrounding its future trajectory, has lost the ability to provide stable leadership for the international order—regardless of the outcome of future elections.
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