The whole world sees it: Trump is doing lasting damage to the global order that made the U.S. a superpower

A little more than a week ago, as President Trump completed his world mini-tour, my Ukrainian researcher emailed me. She witnessed some of the violence of Ukraine’s latest revolution and tends to be clear-eyed about the state of the things. Watching Trump’s behavior at the G7, and then with Kim Jong Un, she couldn’t shake that something profound had occurred.

“Every time I hear fireworks at night,” she wrote from Odessa, “my first thought is that it is not fireworks, so I wait to make sure. Low, loud planes make me wonder each time, too. Yet, Trump’s words [at] the G7, and after — as well as the following silence — are the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen, heard or sensed.”