ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the 1941 article by Henry Luce titled ‘The American Century’, and raises the spectre that Trump has hastened the decline of the US as a world power and as global exemplar of a democratic society. It makes the point that the December 2019, 70th anniversary of NATO, indicated that leaders of countries that have stood with America for years, see no reason to support President Trump, in the way they once might have done for a US President. They do not even see a need to be polite about him among themselves. In the space of only three years, something significant has happened to the prestige of the US – it can hardly be coincidence that these years are the ones of Donald Trump’s Presidency. The chapter also explores the widespread disillusionment regarding the neoliberal concept of trickle-down economics and raises the probability of a new, more inclusive economic regime emerging. Three possible scenarios are considered for the post-Trump world: a global reversion to nationalism, a continuation of the status quo from the pre-Trump era and, a world that has been shaken up by current events enabling a new world order to emerge. It is considered that this new world order will probably be centred in Asia and explores the implications around this.
