The world’s leaders are done with Trump’s games. America has become refusable

March 20, 2026 — 4:00am

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At least George W. Bush got his Mission Accomplished moment. That was six weeks after he had invaded Iraq, three weeks after the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. The easy part had been done. From there, one of the worst foreign policy disasters of this century unfolded.

Trump, though, is having serious trouble with the easy bit. Whatever else America is meant to be capable of, it is meant to be able to smash things. Trump commands the most awesome military machine in human history. And yet, barely a fortnight into his war on Iran, he’s already reduced to asking for help – not just from traditional allies in Europe – but from China. China!

Here is the mighty US, in the process of becoming great again, beseeching its main geopolitical rival to deploy ships to the Strait of Hormuz, so it can get oil containers flowing through it again. China, of course, can still move oil because Iran is allowing Chinese ships through. China, then, is being asked to join an American war against one of its allies, to solve a problem that is more American than Chinese. It said no.

So, too, did Europe, to the same request. This included several of America’s NATO allies, thereby demonstrating the ways their foreign policies are being uncoupled. Where many followed Bush into his Iraqi disaster, this time they feel they can say no. America has become refusable. “This is not our war,” said the German defence minister. “France will never take part in operations to open or liberate the Strait of Hormuz in the current context,” declared President Emmanuel Macron. Even Trump-friendly Italy declined. Now Trump thunders about NATO alliances “do[ing] nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need”, musing the possibility of a US withdrawal. He overlooks the fact the only time NATO allies were drawn into military action was to America’s benefit, after the September 11 attacks. Perhaps Trump barely recalls this, given he recently dismissed the sacrifice of NATO troops, accusing them of staying “a little back, a little off the front lines” in Afghanistan. There will be no such sacrifice this time.

What a deeply ironic mess. When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued last rites to the international rules-based order in his famous Davos speech in January, he observed that for all its manifest inadequacies, one of international law’s great benefits was that it provided “open sea lanes”. Now, here’s Trump, having dispensed with even the pretence of observing international law in waging this war, casting around desperately for a way to keep one of the world’s most crucial sea lanes working. He suspends the rules, generates a crisis, then tries to solve it by using brute force to reconstitute the very international co-operation he’s dismantled.

Petrol queues and rationing: How Trump and his secretary of war ignored the lessons of history

Inevitably, this fails. Trump didn’t consult or even meaningfully warn his allies before launching this war. He has articulated no geopolitical strategy for it. Meanwhile, he’s loosened sanctions on Russian oil, which subverts both Ukraine and the interests of America’s European allies. Aside from the mere fact Trump wants it, they have no reason to get involved. And in the words of the EU’s foreign policy representative, that amounts to having “no appetite” for it at all.

So, also inevitably, Trump declares he didn’t need or want their help anyway: “WE NEVER DID!” Then comes the latest Trump doctrine: “In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!” Then he dropped a bunker-busting bomb on the strait.

No one disputes the fact of American power. It has the world’s largest economy, and spends more on its military than the next nine biggest spenders combined. And yet it has a strange habit of proving to the world just how limited its power really is. You could go back to Vietnam if you wish, but the events of this young century will do. George W. Bush showed what American power couldn’t do in Iraq. Barack Obama showed something similar when he drew a “red line” in Syria over Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, then did nothing when it was crossed. Joe Biden finally withdrew from Afghanistan, handing the country back to the Taliban. America doesn’t lose these wars in the traditional sense. There’s no treaty of surrender or victory parade for the enemy. But it doesn’t win them either.

It’s therefore no surprise to see signs Trump is already running into such limits. A war with no clear aims, and executed with no apparent plan is a difficult one to win. Confronted with Iran’s response, firing missiles at its US-allied Gulf neighbours, Trump is caught completely off guard: “Nobody expected that. We were shocked,” he says, even though Iran warned it would do this and his advisers told him it was a risk.

Trump wants out of this costly war. The Iranian regime has him trapped

Clinton FernandesAcademic and former intelligence officer

Academic and former intelligence officer

That’s because Trump sees American power in blunt, linear terms. For him, it’s almost entirely a matter of leverage and coercion. He then assumes that power is unchallengeable and straightforward. Here, he makes two mistakes. The first, he has in common with Vladimir Putin, who apparently presumed his war in Ukraine would last a week: failing to recognise that when a foe is militarily outgunned, it will use less conventional forms of power. Perhaps it becomes guerilla warfare on home terrain. Perhaps it’s a swarm of inexpensive drones. Perhaps it involves choking the flow of oil with relatively little fuss. None of this requires a world-beating military. All exact a grinding toll.

Trump isn’t the first president to overestimate what American power can achieve. Where Trump differs is he presumes that power is enhanced in isolation. That’s because he sees alliances and international institutions as constraints, hemming the US in, rather than a way of extending its influence. This week, these two errors combined: American power looks less potent and more isolated than it did even a fortnight ago. America First, perhaps – but by a smaller margin than he’d like to believe.

Waleed Aly is a broadcaster, author, academic and regular columnist.

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