Trump is doing what any rational man watching the numbers would do:

The 500 years of western asymmetric economic advantage has been dissipated through the (forcible) expansion of consumer capitalism (property, incentive, contract, credit), rule of law (reciprocity free of discretionary judgement), and aristotelianism (science).

The only advantage westerners retain is demography (our IQ distribution is still hovering around 100, we have lower testosterone, greater neoteny, and slower development than anyone other than the Han/Korean/Japanese, and we are still unique in our ability to produce a high trust/low corruption economy, and low context, high precision language).

We retain some cultural advantages, but those have been under assault in the postwar period to present – particularly since the widespread adoption of postmodernism (fictionalism).

We retain some capital advantage in the conquered territories (USA, Canada, Australia) can still be sold off.

Because of these losses of asymmetry, we can no longer afford to manage, police, and adjudicate the world systems of law, finance, and trade. So we can radically withdraw and lose 40% of our standard of living (Yes really), or we can force dependent nations (Europe) to carry the burden that they’ve been free of postwar, and particularly since the adoption of the euro in order to circumvent our tax on them via the petrodollar.

We have been in a race since the adoption of fiat currency, socialism under FDR and Johnson, and postmodernism, over whether the colonial states (Anglosphere) would hold on long enough that the continental malinvestments would cause a demographic crash, resulting in a cultural, economic, and civilizational crash. We knew this in the late 70’s. I was there.

I participated in the discourse.

By 1992 we knew democratic experiment was over. The 2008 crash was the end of the 20th century experiment in keynesian extension.

Somewhere between now and 2025 the asymmetry of economic, demographic, and military power will rebalance.

So we can move today to ensure this happens somewhat gracefully by accepting our declining influence in the world, or we can do what every other empire in history has done, and that is to burn itself through neo-con and marxist overexpansion.

And that is all he is doing.

Rebalancing the costs with the wealth, and protecting the remaining capital asset in preparation for the forthcoming adjustments not seen since the abrahamic dark age caused by the twin catastrophes of supernatural christianity and militant islam as together they brought about the 1000 year abrahamic dark age.

The world is more full of overconfident but abysmally ignorant americans than it can tolerate.