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Why Is America Going It Alone? A Conversation With Margaret MacMillan
During his second term, Donald Trump has railed against the United States’ closest allies. He has imposed tariffs, threatened to upend security commitments, and openly challenged the borders of Canada, Panama, and Greenland.
Historians often look to the past for insight about the present and future. But although alliances have collapsed for many reasons over past centuries, Margaret MacMillan argues in a recent essay for Foreign Affairs that Trump’s current behavior toward allies has little precedent. His approach, she writes, “does not suggest a clever Machiavellian policy to enhance…
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