Also, the current administration is blatantly ignoring key parts of the constitution and the legislature… just lets them. I don’t know why anyone would expect ratified treaties to magically have stronger protections.
Perhaps to ask the prior question:
Does the US want to regain international goodwill?
Much of the nation does, it’s just useful for things like trade and alliances.
Trump and company no; they want to be feared and hated.
People are missing the most obvious way that the US regains international goodwill… which is the sweeping rise of far right parties across the Western hemisphere forming a trans-atlantic coalition.
Reform wins the next election in the UK
AfD takes over Germany
Marine Le Pen is the next President of France
Meloni continues to consolidate power in Italy
Vox rides a wave of discontent in Spain
Orban continues in Hungary
Ukraine is sacrificed in order to form durable co-operation agreements with Putin
India continues under Modi to be broadly non-aligned and Xi is happy in China to sit back and watch everyone else making mistakes.
Canada, Australia & New Zealand still manage to be barely center left but are distinctly junior partners who must bow to the whims of the majority regarding foreign policy.
ICE tactics are exported across the Western world as there’s a mass expulsion of non-white Immigrants and militarized border are erected as all refugee treaties are torn up. The UN is officially abandoned or made a ceremonial institution only.
Transgender and LGBT rights are rapidly overturned, with US laws used as blueprints. None of the countries trust each other but each are content leaving the others alone as long as there’s broad political alignment. Youth in each country is brainwashed into far right politics using manosphere/tradwife/RETVRN/tech bro influencers, all the major tech platforms are on board so there’s no room for dissenting voices across the broader internet.
I doubt that would work, for the simple reason far right wingers don’t have good will towards each other. They hate everyone else, look at outsiders as enemies or prey, and are completely untrustworthy. Such a scenario would most likely led to multiple wars, eventually.
But what’s unique about the US? It seems like you could just as easily ask: how can you put any credence in any treaty/alliance/agreement with any country, as there’s no It Can’t Happen Here reason they can’t likewise tear it all up? Isn’t that the lesson to be learned from all of this?
But they also have a strong innate sense of hierarchy so there’s some degree of deferment to the US as the “big dog” in the relationship. I have no doubt, for example, that if Reform wins in the UK, their foreign policy will be a firm tonguing up the US asscrack as long as MAGA is in power. France and Germany are far too proud to let it go that far but I suspect they’ll also be pragmatists and come to some kind of arrangement with the US that as long as their interests aren’t messed with, they’ll let the US do what it wants.
Because trust is built up over decades and lost in moments. There are countries where alliances are not considered valuable because there’s been a consistent history of going back on them. The US was historically not one of those countries by demonstrating a consistent willingness to abide by self imposed constraints within agreements, even if the agreement was signed by a previous president. It did so because the trust credit allowed it far more future soft power leverage.
Think about it in terms of companies, there are some which you inherently believe what they say and others which you treat as shady and worth double checking on. A large part of Warren Buffet’s later career was leveraging his reputation to invest in companies at favorable terms when they needed to borrow his credibility because theirs was shot.
As said, it’s a matter of history. Tearing up deals means nobody makes them with you, so most nations avoid doing that. America built up a legacy that it would keep its side of a deal; that is now destroyed, for decades at the best.
I take your point, but I still can’t help but feel like other folks can’t help but extrapolate from it; I can’t really picture anyone saying, with a straight face, “well, you’re acting just like the US did, so we have no reason to think you’ll act like the US now does” — or to pitch themselves by saying “hey, we act like the US did, so don’t expect us to act like the US does.”