Quietly replacing the US

There's a story rumbling along beneath the surface of World Events. The US administration's evolved posture to geopolitics is instantly and dramatically apparent in the horrors of the Middle-East, Ukraine and Africa. However, beneath this, subtler changes are occurring. I'm not sure that Americans truly appreciate what their standing in the world was, and what it is now.

The United States was the leader of the free world. A position that it earned through shrewd use of power both "hard" and "soft" over a period of decades. Economic and military might made the US the pre-eminent super-power.

I heard Kevin McCarthy (Ex Speaker of the House) explaining how everything that Trump says is a negotiation. It's the "he's cleverer than he looks" argument. He made this case in an interview with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell and Stewart pushed back that Trump had in a matter of months dismantled any trust allies had in America. McCarthy, I think genuinely, resisted. He argued that the US and its allies had fought side by side and that those bonds are strong.

He's wrong. Fundamentally and catastrophically wrong.

While Trump sets up negotiations by imposing tariffs, or threatening invasion of allies, or blaming Ukraine for being invaded by Russia, the rest of the world is disengaging from the US in every sphere.

The EU has been banging on about digital sovereignty forever, but since Trump 2, talk has become action. The Danish government is phasing out Microsoft software and cloud services. Schleswig-Holstein, a German state is moving to Linux and Libre Office.

This is happening on a corporate level too. Companies are waking up to the idea that several American companies could shut them down at the press of a button. American companies run by men who bought themselves places next to Mr Trump at his inauguration. I can imagine boardroom conversations around what would happen, if for whatever reason, the US administration decided that "as part of a negotiation", a button should be pressed. The ONLY possible conclusion of such a conversation is, to explore how a company can regain control of it's own data and systems.

Is this the end of Microsoft, or Google? No, I suspect it isn't, but I think it is fundamental.

Will the US quit NATO? Probably. Will doing so undermine their own defence industry? Yes, I suspect it will. How many Danes or Canadians are going to vote to maintain dependence on US-made arms? In theory, Trump (this one, at least) should be out of office long before Europe can recreate strategic independence, but I suspect it doesn't matter. Europe has, since the end of the Second World War, relied on full-throated participation from the US in NATO. Nobody ever questioned what would happen if the US retreated, as they have.

That cat can't be put back in the bag.

I'm not sure that American commentators have fully internalised what the destruction of trust means in Europe, or indeed the world. China is pouring money into countries left bereft by the dismantling of USAID, picking up influence and favour at a price so low it can barely believe it.

Now, for any purchase, corporate or personal, I favour goods services or brands from the EU. If I can't find what I need, then I'd include the UK and Far East. My last alternative would be any American brand or service. I don't pretend that my purchasing decisions will have the tiniest impact on the world economy, nor do I seek to "punish" anyone. The reality is, I can have no certainty that anything American will still be available to me going forward, and at what price. I won't be the only one.

The death of trust means the world is actively finding ways of marginalising the importance of the United States. Reducing reliance on anything American and seeking to spend elsewhere is simply good business, and that's bad news for the US.

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