The writer is an FT contributing editor, chief economist at American Compass and writes the Understanding America newsletter
No one doubts at this point President Donald Trump’s intention to tear down the international economic system that the United States has fostered since the end of the second world war. The confusion is about what might replace it. Comments from the Trump administration have offered some clues as to the potential contours of a new US-led economic and security alliance, but the biggest of open questions concerns Europe.
In February, secretary of state Marco Rubio gave an answer that provides the best starting point for understanding the Trump administration’s actions. “It’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power,” he observed. “That was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the cold war, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multi-polar world.”