When Friendship Becomes Personal: Trump and the End of the American Alliance System
Donald Trump’s warm relationship with Kim Jong Un, combined with his increasingly hostile treatment of traditional U.S. allies, reveals something deeper than an unconventional foreign policy. For decades, American power depended not only on military strength but on the belief that alliances, treaties and commitments would survive individual presidents. Trump is replacing that institutional logic with a personal one: who respects him, who frustrates him, and who is willing to make a deal. This analysis asks what happens to American power when friendship between nations becomes friendship…
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