In siding with Russia over Ukraine, Trump is not putting America first. He is hastening its decline

Has any nation squandered its diplomatic capital, plundered its own political system, attacked its partners and supplicated itself before its far weaker enemies as rapidly and brazenly as Donald Trump’s America?

The fiery Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday saw the American leader try to publicly humiliate the democratically elected leader of a nation that had been invaded by a rapacious and imperialistic aggressor.

And this was all because Zelensky refused to sign an act of capitulation, criticised Putin (who has tried to have Zelensky killed on numerous occasions), and failed to bend the knee to Trump, the country’s self-described king.

What’s worse is Trump has now been around so long that his oafish behaviour has become normalised. Together with his attack dog, Vice President JD Vance, Trump has thrown the Overton window – the spectrum of subjects politically acceptable to the public – wide open.

Previously sensible Republicans are now either cowed or co-opted. Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is gutting America’s public service and installing toadies in place of professionals, while his social media company, X, is platforming ads from actual neo-Nazis.

The FBI is run by Kash Patel, who hawked bogus COVID vaccine reversal therapies and wrote children’s books featuring Trump as a monarch. The agency is already busily investigating Trump’s enemies.

The Department of Health and Human Services is helmed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine denier, just as Americans have begun dying from measles for the first time in a decade. And America’s health and medical research has been channelled into ideologically “approved” topics.

At the Pentagon, in a breathtaking act of self-sabotage, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered US Cyber Command to halt all operations targeting Russia.

And cuts to USAID funding are destroying US soft power, creating a vacuum that will gleefully be filled by China. Other Western aid donors are likely to follow suit so they can spend more on their militaries in response to US unilateralism.

What is Trump’s strategy?

Trump’s wrecking ball is already having seismic global effects, mere weeks after he took office.

The US vote against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia for starting the war against Ukraine placed it in previously unthinkable company – on the side of Russia, Belarus and North Korea. Even China abstained from the vote.

In the United Kingdom, a YouGov poll of more than 5,000 respondents found that 48% of Britons thought it was more important to support Ukraine than maintain good relations with the US. Only 20% favoured supporting America over Ukraine.

And Trump’s bizarre suggestion that China, Russia and the US halve their respective defence budgets is certain to be interpreted as a sign of weakness rather than strength.

The oft-used explanation for his behaviour is that it echoes the isolationism of one of his ideological idols, former US President Andrew Jackson. Trump’s aim seems to be ring-fencing American businesses with high tariffs, while attempting to split Russia away from its relationship with China.

These arguments are both economically illiterate and geopolitically witless. Even a cursory understanding of tariffs reveals that they drive inflation because they are paid by importers who then pass the costs on to consumers. Over time, they are little more than sugar pills that turn economies diabetic, increasingly reliant on state protections from unending trade wars.

And the “reverse Kissinger” strategy – a reference to the US role in exacerbating the Sino-Soviet split during the Cold War – is wishful thinking to the extreme.

Putin would have to be utterly incompetent to countenance a move away from Beijing. He has invested significant time and effort to improve this relationship, believing China will be the dominant power of the 21st century.

Putin would be even more foolish to embrace the US as a full-blown partner. That would turn Russia’s depopulated southern border with China, stretching over 4,300 kilometres, into the potential front line of a new Cold War.

What does this mean for America’s allies?

While Trump’s moves have undoubtedly strengthened the US’ traditional adversaries, they have also weakened and alarmed its friends.

Put simply, no American ally – either in Europe or Asia – can now have confidence Washington will honour its security commitments. This was brought starkly home to NATO members at the Munich Security Conference in February, where US representatives informed a stunned audience that America may no longer view itself as the main guarantor of European security.

The swiftness of US disengagement means European countries must not only muster the will and means to arm themselves quickly, but also take the lead in collectively providing for Ukraine’s security.

Whether they can do so remains unclear. Europe’s history of inaction does not bode well.

US allies also face choices in Asia. Japan and South Korea will now be seriously considering all options – potentially even nuclear weapons – to deter an emboldened China.

There are worries in Australia, as well. Can it pretend nothing has changed and hope the situation will then normalise after the next US presidential election?

The future of AUKUS, the deal to purchase (and then co-design) US nuclear powered submarines, is particularly uncertain.

Does it make strategic sense to pursue full integration with the US military when the White House could just treat Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul and Canberra with the same indifference it has displayed towards its friends in Europe?

Ultimately, the chaos Trump 2.0 has unleashed in such a short amount of time is both unprecedented and bewildering. In seeking to put “America First”, Trump is perversely hastening its decline. He is leaving America isolated and untrusted by its closest friends.

And, in doing so, the world’s most powerful nation has also made the world a more dangerous, uncertain and ultimately an uglier place to be.

Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Atlantic Council, the Fulbright Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the Lowy Institute and various Australian government departments and agencies.