In international politics, strength is not only about the power to compel, but the power to attract. This is what former Harvard Kennedy School dean Joseph Nye called soft power: the ability of a country to win support through its values, institutions and global leadership.
For decades, the US led the free world not just with aircraft carriers and trade leverage, but through the power of its ideals. That leadership is now in jeopardy.
According to Pew Research Center’s global attitudes survey this spring, global confidence in US President Donald Trump has plummeted to 24 percent, nearly equal to the confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) (22 percent). Just one year earlier, US leadership was viewed with a majority confidence (53 percent). The global favorability of the US also fell to 35 percent, indistinguishable from China’s 32 percent.
This collapse is no accident. It is the direct result of the early months of Trump’s second term. While Trump’s first term already weakened the US’ credibility, his second term — barely under way — has accelerated the erosion of US soft power through four destabilizing actions.
First, Trump decreased military aid to Ukraine, saying that “Europe should handle its own problems.” He also threatened to withdraw from NATO again, calling it a “bad deal” for the US. These moves sent a chilling message: US leadership in the free world is no longer reliable nor principled.
Second, Trump has revived his tariff threats and economic intimidation, targeting Canada’s steel exports and reigniting trade tensions with China. Most disturbing was his political bullying of Brazil, where he publicly pressured Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to undermine judicial proceedings of the case against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally. This open interference in another democracy’s internal affairs not only contravenes diplomatic norms — it further discredits the US as a champion of the rule of law.
Third, the US’ unconditional backing of controversial Israeli military actions has lacked strategic coherence and humanitarian concern. This approach isolates Washington diplomatically and diminishes its moral standing, even among its traditional allies.
One of the most dangerous long-term impacts of Trump’s second term is the systematic dismantling of US soft power institutions. Funding for the US Agency for International Development has been cut drastically or redirected toward narrow political ends, undermining the US’ global development presence. Voice of America and other public diplomacy arms have also faced politicization, censorship and mass resignations under Trump’s appointees. Rather than broadcasting democratic values, these agencies have been muted, defunded or turned inward — effectively surrendering the ideological battleground to autocracies such as China and Russia.
Soft power is not a luxury, it is a strategic necessity. For Taiwan, US credibility helps sustain global diplomatic support, protect its democratic model and deter authoritarian aggression.
When the US president is viewed no more favorably than China’s, and Washington undermines democratic norms abroad while silencing its own institutions of global influence, the distinction between liberal and authoritarian orders begins to blur. That is not just a reputational problem — it is a structural weakening of the very alliances and narratives that support Taiwan’s survival.
For Taiwan and the free world, this is not just a US crisis. It is a vacuum of leadership, and the world’s autocrats are already moving to fill it.
Simon Tang is an adjunct professor at California State University, Fullerton, who lectures on international relations.
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