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Kids are taught that bullies are bad. And, historically, we know that threatening to take everybody’s lunch money may be lucrative in the short term, but that, in the long run, there is always going to be another bully who is bigger, or that the victims will eventually figure out that they can just pool their strength and fight back. In addition, bullies are not exactly popular, so they are living a pretty lonely existence.
And yet, Republicans are so enamored with Donald Trump’s abrasive tactics that they seem to have forgotten these universal lessons.
A week into his second term, the GOP is really embracing the role of America becoming the biggest bullies around.
This may result in some short-term gains, i.e., the quick “wins” that Trump relishes. However, in the end, it will leave the US isolated and facing a united front of allies-turned-adversaries who are eager to get some payback.
Which brings us to Trump’s spat with Colombia this weekend.
After the South American country announced that it would not allow military planes carrying deported migrants to land there, the US president threatened a variety of actions, first and foremost tariffs, that would greatly harm Colombia if it did not do his bidding.
Although its president Gustavo Petro initially pushed back by reminding Trump that a trade war with his country would result in higher coffee prices, the Andean nation quickly yielded.
At least that’s the US version. The reality might be a bit different because Petro had not objected to the return of deported Colombians in general, just to their degrading treatment. That issue seems to have been resolved after a brief war of words.
In other words, the bully claimed a fairly minor victory.
That’s not how Republicans saw it (or how Trump spun it).
“The Government of Colombia has agreed to all of President Trump’s terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Republicans celebrated Trump’s disproportionate threat of Colombia’s entire economy to get his way on a minor issue (that traditional diplomacy between friends could have resolved) as a huge victory that proved that his brand of bullying is a winning foreign policy strategy.
It won’t be for long.
Because, if the response to anybody defying Trump is to threaten them with economic annihilation, his victims will eventually band together and fight back.
While rightfully eyeing the incoming administration warily, most of the “good guys” on the world stage still consider the US an ally.
It has been like that for 250 years.
Even when the US became the most powerful nation in the history of the world, it mostly worked through alliances and diplomacy instead of violence and coercion. That was one of the main differences from the Soviet Union, which fell apart because it ruled by force instead of leading by example.
However, the US’s standing on the global stage can quickly change, and any damage Trump does will take a long time to reverse.
Already, Europe is reconsidering its relationship with its greatest ally, and Canada is developing a game plan for what is going to happen when it rejects overtures to become the 51st US state and Trump goes ballistic.
Of course, those two have the economic weapons to hurt the US.
Other countries do not, so it remains to be seen what happens when, for example, Trump tries to take control of the Panama Canal.
By the way, this is not just the GOP’s strategy when it comes to foreign policy. Republicans also want to use their narrow election victory to drastically reshape the country, which will require more bullying.
The best example is Trump’s plan to tie disaster relief for California to election reforms in the Golden State (that Republicans hope will allow them to take control of the richest state eventually).
GOP lawmakers from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on down are enthusiastically embracing this unprecedented strategy.
Perhaps drunk on power and an (imagined) mandate, they are intent on taking everybody’s lunch money.
However, it won’t take long for all of those former foreign friends and blue states to band together to fight back.
After all, nobody likes a bully.
