A World of Leverage

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President-elect Donald Trump understands, better than any recent American president, one simple rule when it comes to dealing with the world: Leverage matters and ought to be applied to those who oppose American interests.

Trump believes, for example, that tariffs ought to be used to threaten those who would close their markets to American products or flood America with fentanyl or manipulate the pricing system to their own benefit. He believes that maximum pressure ought to be unleashed on countries who seek to destabilize vital strategic regions to their own ends.

And he is correct.

Trump has often been characterized as a bully, both publicly and privately. But the reality of the world is simple: Someone will be doing the bullying, and someone will be bullied. The only question is which party is which. It turns out that if America ceases to use leverage against its enemies, or to pressure neutral countries to align more solidly with it, our enemies will use their leverage to do what they want.

China isn’t shy about its use of power in the world; neither are Russia or Iran. Xi Jinping has never apologized for his aggressive use of military threat against the Philippines or Taiwan; he has never shied away from the use of economic sticks and carrots against weaker countries. Vladimir Putin is fully willing to invade his neighbors and cut off oil supply to his enemies. Iran has spread its terror proxies across the Middle East, cudgeling entire governments into doing its will.

So why wouldn’t America pursue similar tactics?

This is, for some odd reason, a mysterious insight to members of the Biden administration, who seem willing to apply leverage only to America’s allies and who seem to think that conciliation and tepidity somehow achieve victory against America’s enemies. Perhaps they are of the Noam Chomsky-esque view that the world’s only country with actual agency is the United States, and that everything else is “blowback”—a common but foolhardy view rooted in a form of self-centeredness that ignores the fact that every country has its own interests and pursues those interests with alacrity.

China does not threaten the South China Sea because of America’s naval presence; were America absent, China’s threats would simply be far more successful. Russia did not invade Ukraine because of Western influence in Ukraine; were that influence missing, Russia simply would have treated Ukraine as an outpost like Belarus long ago. Iran does not spread terrorism because of American presence in the region; it spreads terrorism because that is the best way for it to foment control over areas outside its purview.

America has interests in the world. Those interests are worth muscular defense, particularly in economic terms. And Trump instinctively understands that. Geopolitics is not a place of laws and regulations, enforced by neutral arbiters. It is a jungle, and the laws of the jungle apply. The best hope for the world is that the strongest also happen to be the best. But if the best refuse to be the strongest, someone else will be.

The world will be more stable with Trump at the helm than Joe Biden. That much is obvious. And in quieter moments, world leaders often acknowledge that reality. But it should be remembered just why that is true: because the unapologetic American, confident in the interests of his country, is the best option for stability and growth in a cruel world. That does not make America the world’s policeman; American interests are not specious “global interests.”

But the pursuit of American interests has generally beneficial externalities. And American refusal to pursue those interests leaves the world in the hands of those who would tear it apart, piece by piece.

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