The America First agenda is predicated by isolationism. You have a demagogue with whom nobody is willing to say "no" and an army of self serving sycophants lined up to try and win favors. The political messaging is all built around zero sum language and arguments, and toughness is demonstrated by punitive measures taken against any allies deemed "weaker" than the U.S. (basically everyone). Those who know where this will lead are unwilling to speak up and the rest follow. Everyone involved seems to be in it for short-term transactional benefits, and nobody seems to acknowledge or care about what the long term outcomes will be for the country.

I'd posit that it is trying to wrestle it back actually. It lost it when their industries went abroad. From a global perspective this is good because it makes peace more sustainable if the world is interlinked and interconnected. National interests being distributed all over. Alignment of incentives. The issue is that it is not without friction. People's interests don't align so flawlessly.

The knee-jerk reaction is protectionism but it is too late. The other parts of the world have caught up. And that is normal and sound. It rebalances the world. It is a new equilibrium. This is just the natural way for most closed systems where there is a gradient.

What is weird is that it is almost like watching a movie. Meaning that the current technological push into AI, energy and robotics is likely to spearhead us into a whole new kind of economics (post-money/post-work kind of). And probably requires to open the system (find new territory beyond the existing). The point is that it will probably offset the current protectionist trend.

Wondering how AI will affect governance...

I think the US is giving up control willingly and turning more isolationist. It has been building for some time but I do not thing it is forced. It is a deliberate policy shift turning away from trying to control and police the world. America is pushed in and on to other countries and societies that a retraction might be the best thing

I came to the comments to say exactly this. I think the reason is a combination of incompetence, ignorance, and greed.

You cannot separate monstrously expensive calamities like Vietnam or Iraq from the military-industry complex that is the foundation for the U.S.’s role as the defender of the west. So many thousands of lives lost or ruined, trillions spent. To say nothing of the millions of foreign civilians killed and maimed. The American people are sick to death of it. Some politicians smartly harnessed that sentiment.

It's because it's not worth the expense. Vanity is a hell of a drug, but it has its limits.

Hasn't this been the Russian agenda for decades? I don't think it's a secret, or a fringe theory. They have worked on it long term, and seemingly finding success now.

I don't think China is against this change, but their agenda seems to be more focused on international trade and internal growth, rather than specific strategy against the US.

The EU is definitely not benefiting from it in the short term. While some argue it needs this change in the long term, it is difficult to imagine that the EU wants it to happen so arbitrarily and quickly.

Those holding any meaningful power in the US are either benefiting from this change, at least in the short term or personally, or oblivious to it, possibly also due to influence from the agents of change.

It's an opportunity for other states to gain influence. And in particular for Russia to advance their geopolitical ambitions, since this is from their playbook.

It would be in the interests of the United States to alter the course, and regain the influence already lost. The leaders seem to have chosen to ignore her interests, though.

The "world", implicit in your comment, is the liberal world order. This world order worked for America (ie Americans) until it became apparent that it did not, at least in a political and cultural sense (in a material sense it is of course still working perhaps even too well). The greatest champion of this world order, the EU bureaucratic class, views Americans' play for their sovereignty with bewilderment and casts it as renouncing its leadership in the world, yet leadership is not just blindly following a path to ruin but instead forging ahead down new and promising paths. In this sense the US is indeed still "leading" and it is the EU that stands firm in its intransigence and refuses to follow the leader. Yet it need not be this way and the EU very well could follow the US away from the excesses of hegemonic liberalism. There are signs of change in the air. This is politically interesting and the eventual outcome is not at all clear.

On the other hand, the emergence of China, India, and to a lesser extent Russia (as a puppet of the Chinese) upon the world stage as independent actors, out of the shadows of Western domination, is another way in which the US is "losing control" but this is much less politically interesting in the sense that it was an inevitable and expected outcome. There is nothing the US has done, is doing or could do that would diminish non-Western ambition and agitation for power.

America is, and always has been, an isolationist nation - behaving like an island nation even though it's not an island (although it might as well be, given it has only two neighbors of little consequence).

It was dragged into the first world war (despite strong public aversion) because J.P. Morgan Jr started lending money to Britain and France to buy American steel, thus setting in motion a cycle of investment and production protection that eventually required boots on the ground.

It was dragged into the second world war by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor (and Germany's subsequent declaration of war, as it was obligated to do under its treaty with Japan).

It protected Europe and SE Asia in the post-war years in order to contain communism, which it feared more than anything else. Once that threat subsided, there wasn't much reason for it to continue with its overseas footprint other than inertia and protecting important trade routes.

Gulf Wars I was to protect oil prices (and because they already had the equipment for war), and Gulf Wars II was to be seen to be doing something about 9/11.

Now that Trump is in power, America is performing its "great reset" (which was going to come eventually), where it becomes isolationist again, sticking to the Americas (reinvigorating the Monroe Doctrine), and leaving everyone else to their own devices.

Israel is rising to fill the void, and there are many indications that this is by design, all along...

I mean its hand has been forced. That's good imo, maybe my country will be able to regain its sovereignty after all.

those things are usually hard to discriminate

Trump's project is to turn the US into a playground for oligarchs such as himself, like in Putin's Russia. It doesn't matter if the US becomes way poorer and weaker in the process. "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven".

Why should we control the world? It’s very expensive running an empire, and all it has accomplished is getting people around the world to hate us. Do you know how much people in my home country hate Reagan and Nixon (who opposed our independence because of some stupid alliance with Pakistan against Russia)? Much more than they hate Trump.

The Europeans want it both ways: they want the US to pay for and be responsible for policing the world, but to do it the way the Europeans want with them free to criticize the US and act morally superior the whole time. This act has become utterly tiresome.