America’s Influence Abroad Can’t Outrun Division at Home

The root cause runs deeper. The electorate that brought Trump back to power is fundamentally different from the one that sustained American hegemony through the Cold War and the decades after. It is more skeptical of the costs of global leadership. For many Americans, foreign policy now looks like a "guns versus butter" choice, with diplomacy seen as draining resources from domestic needs. Surveys conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in partnership with New America show this view is strongest among younger and minority voters already strained by inflation and inequality. The bruising fight over the $95 billion Ukraine aid package in 2024, the rancor surrounding support for Israel, and wavering on defending Taiwan highlight how deeply domestic polarization shapes attitudes toward America's role abroad.

The forces driving this shift are irreversible. A more diverse, anxious, and war-weary electorate simply will not support the global commitments that sustained American hegemony up until COVID-19 struck in 2020. Polling shows Americans increasingly favor selective engagement over blanket leadership, economic tools over military intervention, and burden-sharing over hegemonic responsibility. This isn't isolationism - most still back an active U.S. role abroad - but rather recognition that U.S. influence must align with the political limits of democracy, a reality allies must confront regardless of who holds power in Washington. Meanwhile, beneath the political noise, far more consequential competition is unfolding.

Industrial transformation is the true engine of geopolitical change. The energy and digital revolutions are reshaping how societies work, shop, consume, communicate, and do politics - and they're creating new power centers that will redefine the global order. Control over critical minerals and supply chains matters because they feed into who dominates the next industrial epoch. Yet the U.S. approach remains fundamentally misguided. While China methodically integrates resource-rich nations into its industrial ecosystems and builds the factories and innovation networks that will power the next era, Washington weaponizes tariffs and pursues zero-sum trade wars that alienate allies and fracture the industrial partnerships America needs. Treating trade as punishment rather than as the architecture for industrial collaboration guarantees that others will shape the transformation that matters most.

This fragmentation has consequences beyond supply chains. When trade policy fractures without strategy and when the President himself openly questions defense commitments - equivocating on Ukraine defense aid, expressing doubt about NATO, suggesting Taiwan might not warrant protection - allies draw an inescapable conclusion: American promises are unstable, contingent on electoral cycles and presidential whim.

The data tells the story of collapsing credibility. International opinion now mirrors what allies have learned from experience. In 15 of 24 countries surveyed this year by the Pew Research Center, favorability toward the U.S. declined, with drops of 20 points or more in Mexico, Sweden, Poland, and Canada. Only in Israel, Nigeria, and Turkey did views improve. Across the board, just one-third express confidence in Trump’s global leadership; nearly two-thirds do not. The paradox is telling: Trump is widely seen as arrogant and dangerous, yet many still concede he projects strength. That mix of mistrust and grudging respect reveals why soft power no longer cushions Washington. Once stability becomes the exception rather than the rule, admiration has little staying power.

Americans want to believe they are the “good guys” using influence for noble purposes, but decades of Iraq, Afghanistan, CIA interventions, and support for dictators tell a different story. The soft power framework let Washington pretend its influence came from Hollywood and Harvard rather than bombs and sanctions. What made soft power look effective was not necessarily moral attraction. It was the combination of overwhelming military and economic strength with policies perceived as reliable, even when U.S. hypocrisy undermined them.

Many well-intentioned people built careers around these ideals. State Department officers, USAID staff, academics, and NGO workers genuinely believed in democracy promotion and institution-building. Trump's dismantling of institutions like the U.S. Institute of Peace and USAID has been brutal, but even insiders now admit that a stagnant foreign policy apparatus was ill-suited to a world shaped by industrial disruption, climate catastrophe, mass migration, and resurgent great power rivalry.

More fundamentally, America's approach to competing in the industrial revolutions ahead is fragmented across three disconnected domains. Innovation leadership remains concentrated in labs and tech companies with no coordinated path to manufacturing dominance. Trade policy weaponizes tariffs against potential partners rather than architecting integrated supply chains. And diplomatic relationships are managed separately from industrial strategy, leaving allies uncertain about long-term commitment. China, by contrast, is synchronizing all three: Coherent state industrial policy aligns with technological capacity-building and systematic integration of resource-rich nations into its production ecosystems. American innovation without industrial partnerships, tariffs without relational architecture, and diplomacy disconnected from economic strategy amounts to running in three directions at once.

What comes next must be more durable. A strategy resilient to political swings must combine military alliances with economic and technological frameworks - each reinforces the other differently. Military commitments provide visible reassurance to allies facing immediate threats, but they're also hostage to domestic politics and vulnerable to sudden reversal. Economic partnerships and technology standards work through different channels: They're embedded in corporate systems, supply chains, and regulatory structures that outlast any single administration's policies. But these cannot succeed in isolation.

Winning the industrial transformation ahead requires synchronizing three strategic lanes simultaneously. Institutionally, the United States must modernize trade law and establish coherent long-term industrial policy that doesn't reverse with each election. Technologically, it must embed innovation capacity into domestic manufacturing and production networks rather than treating research as separate from industrial strategy. Relationally, it must build integrated supply chain partnerships with resource-rich middle powers based on shared prosperity rather than zero-sum competition. Semiconductors and artificial intelligence should be treated as strategic assets - investing in domestic capacity and setting global standards on AI governance gives the United States an edge rivals cannot easily copy. Innovation networks adapt faster than bureaucracies, but only if they're connected to production capacity and bound to allies through long-term relational commitments.

Technology partnerships should extend to the energy transition, though strategy must reflect market reality. The global energy picture will remain mixed for decades - fossil fuels will not disappear, and the United States will retain its dominant position in oil and gas production. Rather than pretend otherwise, American industry should leverage those revenues strategically. Capital from energy production can finance the clean tech transition: mobilizing investment in global renewable deployment, funding AI and software systems that optimize grid performance, and critically, directing revenue into the frontier materials science that will power the next decade. Heavy investment in post-lithium battery chemistries, rare earth-free magnets, and advanced storage technologies keeps the United States competing for platforms not yet locked down.

The U.S. also remains competitive in sectors where geography or technological edge persist: offshore wind, grid modernization, hydrogen systems, and integrated energy infrastructure. This is not surrender to Chinese dominance. It is strategic realism about how energy dominance can actually fund the industrial transformation ahead. Forging bilateral partnerships around these value layers and frontier technologies, rather than joining and abandoning international agreements, would deliver the consistency allies need.

Engaging middle powers will be equally essential. Nations like Indonesia, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Chile want agency, not alignment. Many are resource-rich and positioned at critical points in emerging supply chains—they control the materials that make modern life possible, from lithium and cobalt to rare earths. They will partner with whichever power builds industrial ecosystems that create shared prosperity. India's reluctance to commit to sanctions against Russia despite American pressure illustrates the point: New Delhi prioritizes its own interests. China understands this; it integrates these nations into its production networks, offers long-term investment, and commits to joint industrial development.

Building durable coalitions with middle powers requires the same coordinated approach: institutional frameworks that guarantee market access and technology transfer, technological partnerships that embed these nations into innovation networks, and relational commitments that last across electoral cycles. This means treating them as co-architects of industrial strategy, not junior partners in a system designed for a different era. The United States must modernize trade law and build genuine industrial partnerships based on complementarity rather than dominance.

For adversaries, America's dysfunction is already factored into their planning. Russia bets its staying power in Ukraine will outlast U.S. patience. China sees opportunity: Its consistency in economic partnerships, however exploitative, often looks more reliable than American commitments that swing with elections. Both assume time favors them if U.S. promises remain hostage to polarization.

A new American approach must flip that script. Strength abroad will not come from denying polarization but from outlasting it. Regulation and legislation offer a sturdier base than rhetoric. Binding rules on technology, finance, and corporate conduct constrain corruption and market abuses while delivering consistency across administrations - something no speech or troop surge can guarantee. Anchoring prosperity, security, and governance in durable frameworks allows the United States to counter Russia and China's bet on division and reassert its role in shaping the global order.

If this adjustment fails - if the United States cannot synchronize its institutional, technological, and relational capacity into a coherent industrial strategy - the consequences extend far beyond American prestige. China will consolidate dominance over the industrial ecosystems and innovation networks that are reshaping global society, having synchronized all three lanes while America is fragmented across them. Resource-rich nations will integrate into China's production networks by necessity rather than choice. Authoritarian powers will define how the energy and digital revolutions unfold - what technologies govern daily life, which standards prevail, whose interests shape the transformation. Innovation without production capacity, trade wars without partnership, and diplomacy disconnected from economic strategy amount to a guarantee that others will write the rules for the next epoch. That outcome serves neither American interests nor global stability.

The Ron Clifton Lectureship in American Studies was inaugurated in 2018 to recognize the long service of Ron Clifton to the field of American Studies at Salzburg Global.