President Donald Trump has repeatedly downplayed the notion that America has any responsibility toward the rest of the world.
In a Truth Social post last month, as trade talks with Canada collapsed, Trump posted, “WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!” In March, when he was still insisting that combat with Iran would be over in a matter of weeks, he warned that other countries would have to “fend for themselves” in the Strait of Hormuz when the fighting subsided.
Trump wants the glory of being a global superpower with none of the responsibilities — and we’re beginning to see the impact of that ignorance abroad.
That delusion will be on full display next week in New York as Trump meets with world leaders for the United Nations General Assembly, with side talks planned on his war of choice with Iran, alongside global summits on the climate crisis and future pandemics. The U.N. acknowledged that much of the assembly’s diplomacy happens behind closed doors, but the global crises Trump’s policies are accelerating are forming right before our eyes. And soon, they will unfold right here on our doorstep.
The administration continues to act as though America exists in a vacuum.
The administration continues to act as though America exists in a vacuum. Trump seems to not know that our actions abroad do not stay abroad.
Last year, the Trump administration shuttered a State Department program where U.S. embassies independently monitored air quality in their respective cities. A 2022 study from the National Academy of Sciences estimated that this program prevented a median of 895 pollution deaths in the cities where it was implemented. A new study has found that air pollution levels have increased up to 33% in the months since the program ended.
That may not mean much to an administration that’s shown little to no regard for the stability of other countries, but its potential impact on America should send the White House springing to action.
A study from the Bipartisan Policy Center earlier this year found foreign pollution leads to as many as eight thousand premature deaths and more than $60 billion in increased U.S. health expenses per year. If the loss of life isn’t enough to make this administration care, it also sabotages a key Trump campaign promise of boosting manufacturing. That study found that foreign pollution blocked new industrial permits and restricted manufacturing in at least 85 U.S. counties.
It’s not the only instance of Trump undermining his own platform in his haste to vaporize America’s role in the global governing ecosystem. Public health experts estimate that the devastating cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development designed to combat global hunger have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, with potentially millions more by the end of the decade.
But if the mass death of children isn’t enough to convince the administration to change course, Trump’s own self-interest should be.
The cuts to USAID decimated income for the American farmers he claims to love and who typically provided around 40% of international food assistance. The impact expands beyond agriculture as well. More than 80% of companies that had contracts with USAID were American. USAID-Stop Work, which tracks the impact of the cuts, estimated the slashing resulted in layoffs of at least 13,000 American workers.
Air pollution overseas eventually finds its way here.
Then there are other consequences. Air pollution overseas eventually finds its way here. Disease outbreaks in other countries that could’ve been prevented with fully funded global health programs make Americans more susceptible. Destabilizing nations and exacerbating the climate crisis sends displaced people flocking to America’s doorstep.
Here at home, prices at the pump continue to climb, and Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee estimate Americans have paid an additional $4,200 on goods and services per household since Trump took office. It’s more than understandable that the impacts of Trump’s global policy may be peripheral to those agonizing over making ends meet.
That’s why it’s vital to have leadership that understands cause-and-effect; that doesn’t shrug off the intricacies of foreign policy. But for now, America is saddled with a president determined to diminish America’s global standing — and with it, the quality of millions of American lives.
Evan Brechtel contributed to this report.
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