Abraham Lincoln suggested the United States was “the last, best hope of Earth.” Ronald Reagan celebrated it as a “shining city on a hill.” George W. Bush argued that the nation was “the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.”
But to President Trump, America is the all-powerful player in a series of high-stakes transactions.
“You don’t have the cards right now,” he lectured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in their extraordinary Oval Office showdown.
Mr. Trump is radically different from his Republican predecessors in countless ways. But rarely is the contrast starker than in his approach to American leadership in the world.
While those Republicans sometimes spoke of global alliances in terms of good and evil, Mr. Trump joined with America’s adversaries to oppose a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and falsely suggested that Ukraine had started the war. While they championed free trade, he has started trade wars. And while they argued that American assistance abroad could fend off problems at home, he has moved to gut foreign aid.
Now, Mr. Trump’s nakedly transactional style is forcing Americans to reimagine how they see their country’s place in the world, according to interviews with roughly two dozen voters, foreign policy experts and current and former elected officials from across the country.
“I fear we are risking what made us great over the last 80 years, since the close of the Second World War,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a former ambassador to NATO and China. “Every president until now adhered to democratic principles and values, including the idea that America should be the standard-bearer for democracy around the world, to uphold the rule of law and defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each country.”
Here’s a snapshot of how Mr. Trump’s moves on the global stage have alarmed an ideologically diverse range of critics, left other Americans deeply torn and delighted his supporters.
The disillusioned idealists
The Oval Office dressing-down of Mr. Zelensky shocked America’s allies abroad. But it was especially distressing to some people in Pennsylvania.
The state is home to one of the nation’s largest populations of people of Ukrainian ancestry, and Mr. Zelensky visited an ammunition factory in Scranton last fall, where he thanked workers for manufacturing artillery shells to support Ukraine. Vice President JD Vance mischaracterized that trip as a campaign stop as he berated Mr. Zelensky at the White House.
In Scranton, some recoiled, said Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti, a Democrat who noted that City Hall has displayed the Ukrainian flag.
“It’s really a personal affront here in Scranton, the idea that the American government would turn its back on Ukraine, and really turn its back on Europe,” she said.
She warned against taking American global strength for granted.
“I worry that the Trump administration, maybe some of the Americans who support this current administration, think that America, well, ‘we’ve always been so strong,’” she said. “They’re really playing with fire.”
Two hours south of Scranton, Karen Curry, 65, was having lunch at the Eagle Diner in Warminster, Pa., in politically competitive Bucks County. Ms. Curry, who said she voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 but backed former Vice President Kamala Harris last fall, said the Trump administration was threatening America’s standing.
“My whole life, I felt like we were the leaders of the free world, that America was the moral compass,” said Ms. Curry, who said she was a registered Republican. “Now, we have a transactional president who’s more interested in padding his own pockets and his legacy, and really likes powerful dictators. If we continue down this path, I don’t think we’re going to be the leaders of the free world.”
The concerns go beyond issues of war and peace.
In Columbia, S.C., Mayor Daniel Rickenmann, a Republican, said he understood the Trump administration’s emphasis on promoting manufacturing in the United States.
“At the same time, we can’t isolate ourselves from the rest of the world,” he said, speaking in particular of trade policy. “I’m worried about that.”
Many Americans across the political spectrum have long been idealistic about the United States’ role as a global power, viewing the nation as a force for good and a champion of democracy, even if the historical record is far more complex.
Kristin Ortlieb, 51, of Buckingham, Pa., said she had always viewed America as a global leader with obligations to provide aid and work to advance “the greater good.”
“With Trump in office, in my view, we have lost that vision and that leadership,” she said. “If you look at leaders in other parts of the world, they have long memories, and they will remember when the U.S. abandoned them.”
Recent polling suggests that Americans largely disagree with Mr. Trump’s claim that Ukraine is the aggressor in its war with Russia, and are more inclined to sympathize with Ukraine than Russia.
The people reserving judgment
Mr. Trump won the election last year in part because he successfully cast himself — again — as a change agent.
And some Americans, even a few who backed Ms. Harris, say they are keeping an open mind about his norm-shattering approach at a time of protracted conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Alan Almonte, 34, a manager at a consulting firm in Philadelphia, said he was a political independent who voted for Ms. Harris, and worried about what he saw as Mr. Trump’s “bullying” tactics. But, he said, “the old methods are not working.”
“It’s unconventional,” he said, though he continued, “The way we’re doing things, I don’t feel is getting things done.”
State Representative Keith Harris, a Democrat from Philadelphia, said Mr. Zelensky “did deserve some respect.” But he agreed with Mr. Trump’s emphasis on ending the war.
“That’s one thing Trump may be right about,” he said. Mr. Zelensky, he added, “can’t keep asking for money when he can’t win.”
On Capitol Hill, Representative Mike Lawler, a New York Republican from a competitive district and a vocal supporter of Ukraine, said “we can agree or disagree at times on rhetoric.”
But he argued that to reach a settlement between Russia and Ukraine, “you actually have to get both parties to the table, which requires engaging those with which we disagree,” adding, “And in this case, it would be Russia.”
U.S. officials have also had talks with Hamas officials about Israeli American hostages taken to Gaza, and Mr. Trump has raised the possibility of reopening negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
“He’s strong enough to talk to adversaries or look them in the eye and make clear what America will stand for,” said Brian Hughes, a National Security Council spokesman. “President Trump’s approach is, there’s no greater force for peace and stability in the world than a strong American homeland.”
Asked about the view, widely held by his critics, that Mr. Trump is overly susceptible to flattery, Mr. Hughes replied, “I don’t believe any adversary anywhere in the world believes that flattery will diminish his exercise of America’s strength.”
The supporters who like the tough talk
Last week, Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan delivered the Democrats’ response to Mr. Trump’s address to Congress — and in many ways, she sounded more like a traditional Republican than he did.
“Trump would have lost us the Cold War,” she said from Wyandotte, Mich., arguing that his actions “suggest that, in his heart, he doesn’t believe we’re an exceptional nation.”
But on the ground in working-class Wyandotte, some voters argued that Mr. Trump’s combative approach to the world was what the country needed.
Carrying a box of meat as he left a Polish butcher shop, Jeff Zarenski, 59, a millwright from nearby Brownstown, said approvingly that the United States was “turning more into the bully.”
“Some people are getting pissed off at us,” said Mr. Zarenski, a Trump supporter. “I like it. It’s a show of strength.”
In affluent Brookhaven, Ga., an Atlanta suburb, Willie Candler, 28, a real estate agent and a self-described center-right Republican, was milder in tone, but said he, too, supported Mr. Trump’s foreign policy.
“It can be kind of in your face, or ruffle some feathers,” he said. “I’ve got a different style for the way I approach sales. But at the end of the day, if he gets the result that’s beneficial to America, then I think it’s good.”
Ryan Patrick Hooper contributed reporting from Wyandotte, Mich., Johnny Kauffman from Brookhaven, Ga., JoAnna Daemmrich from Warminster, Pa., and Joel Wolfram from Philadelphia.
