Sirantos Fotopoulos - Trump’s renewed flirtation with imperial bravado — from resurrecting the fantasy of seizing Greenland, to Western hemispheric hegemony, to the broader posture of military and economic coercion — is a stress test of the political economy that underwrites American power, and it exposes how fragile that system becomes when intimidation takes center stage. The danger is not an abrupt geopolitical rupture or a dramatic market implosion. The danger is subtler and far more corrosive: a growing global consensus that the United States is no longer worth subsidizing, economically or politically, and that the costs of its behavior should finally be allowed to fall where they belong — at home.
For decades, American power has depended not just on military dominance, but on a dense web of cooperation that quietly absorbed U.S. volatility. Allies tolerated unpredictability, markets extended trust, and trading partners structured supply chains around American demand. This was a calculation that the United States, for all its flaws, was a stabilizing anchor. Trump’s posture threatens to reverse that calculation. When threats replace diplomacy and coercion replaces consent, foreign governments do not need to respond with theatrical retaliation. They can simply stop smoothing the path. This is where the mythology of American invulnerability becomes dangerous. The United States has long behaved as if global systems will continue to bend around its political dysfunction no matter how aggressively it behaves. But cooperation is not automatic; it is chosen. When that choice is withdrawn — incrementally, legally, and without fanfare — the consequences accumulate inside the U.S. economy in ways that are deeply political. Not catastrophic, but grinding. Not spectacular, but relentless. Trade friction is the most obvious channel. Regulatory delays, and exclusion from preferential trade arrangements do not announce themselves as punishment, yet they reliably translate into higher prices, disrupted supply chains, and lost export markets. Last year's trade tariff wars offered a preview. The stock market reacted with high volatility from a sharp sell-off. Farmers were crushed by retaliatory measures. Manufacturers and retailers were caught between rising input costs, wildly unpredictable tariffs, and shrinking demand. And the federal government was forced into bailout spending and agricultural sector subsidization simply to prevent social and political blowback. Foreign governments learned from that episode. They saw where pressure lands in the United States, and how quickly affordability becomes a political crisis. Beyond trade lies alliance reorientation — the quiet decision to buy elsewhere, to source energy, infrastructure, and equipment from non-U.S. firms, and to deepen regional arrangements that deliberately route around Washington. These choices are rarely framed as retaliation. They are framed as diversification, resilience, or strategic autonomy. Yet over time they erode the high-value markets that sustain American wages and industrial capacity. The United States does not lose influence in a single dramatic break; it loses it because partners conclude that dependence on a volatile, threatening hegemon is an unnecessary risk. Regulatory pressure on U.S. corporations offers another lever. Aggressive antitrust enforcement, data localization requirements, environmental standards, and compliance regimes can all be justified under domestic law, while disproportionately burdening American multinationals. These costs are not absorbed quietly at the top. They are passed through to consumers as higher prices, fewer services, and diminished access. What appears abroad as routine governance registers at home as yet another squeeze on household budgets. Energy remains the most politically sensitive fault line. Even modest shifts in supply preferences, shipping conditions, or contractual flexibility can raise fuel and electricity costs, which then cascade through transportation, food, and housing. Americans feel this immediately and viscerally. The affordability crisis is lived daily. Foreign governments do not need to coordinate explicitly to understand that higher energy costs destabilize U.S. politics. The structure of American consumer life makes that obvious. None of this requires overt election interference. There is no need for foreign states to endorse candidates, coordinate messaging, or comment on U.S. domestic politics. The strategy, if it can be called one, is simply to allow the costs of American unilateralism to become visible to American voters. Inflation, tighter credit, rising rents, and more expensive groceries do the political work on their own. Responsibility is diffuse, but blame is not. It attaches to the president, always. As the economic strain from eroding global cooperation and rising costs intensifies, the U.S. labor market is showing signs of stagnation. Job growth has slowed, wages remain stagnant when adjusted for inflation, and industries dependent on exports and global supply chains are shedding positions or delaying hiring. If this underperforming job market continues throughout 2026, it could compound political and social pressures and the midterms could reflect not only dissatisfaction with Trump’s policies but widespread frustration with economic insecurity. This dynamic matters profoundly as the 2026 midterms approach. Trump’s political vulnerability is structural, not rhetorical. His base is disproportionately working-class and acutely sensitive to price increases. His record is already associated with tariffs, instability, and economic brinkmanship. When affordability worsens, the mythology of strength collapses into resentment. Voters do not parse global supply chains or alliance politics; they experience immediate material pressure and draw conclusions accordingly. A presidency that promised dominance but delivers higher costs invites backlash from its own core supporters. The deeper risk, however, extends beyond any single election. As the United States substitutes coercion for cooperation, it accelerates a long-term erosion of the privileges it has enjoyed for generations: preferential access to markets, deference from allies, and the ability to externalize economic disruption onto others. When those privileges are withdrawn, even partially, Americans experience the adjustment as decline — not because the country has suddenly collapsed, but because it must now pay full price for its own behavior. As the quiet subsidies that once stabilized American life come to an end, cooperation erodes and costs once externalized abroad are pushed inward, showing up as higher prices, tighter credit, and fewer buffers against economic shock. What felt like normal baseline affordability was sustained by deference and accommodation; without it, Americans are left to absorb the direct consequences of Trump's conduct. Trump’s adventurism abroad serves as a convenient distraction from the affordability crisis and other contentious issues he would rather Americans ignore — yet external forces exist that can recenter the focus back on affordability. This is the true backfiring of Trump’s adventurism. Not a sudden crisis, but a world that quietly decides the United States is no longer worth accommodating — and an American electorate that feels the consequences in their wallet well before they ever understand the geopolitical logic behind it all. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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