On the surface, the United States still appears to be an unrivaled superpower: a president signing trade deals in Asia, shaping a new order in the Middle East, and moving naval fleets across Latin America. But behind this polished façade lies a deeper truth—one that today more clearly than ever exposes the widening gap between America’s performance of power and its actual capacity to govern.
The recent federal government shutdown—though now resolved—became the longest in American history. It was not the result of a temporary partisan quarrel, but a symptom of the broader erosion of the country’s governing capacity. For weeks, Washington teetered on the edge of paralysis, from passport services to security contracts. The reopening of government merely switched the lights back on; the structural cracks remain firmly in place.
Within this environment, Trump appears again with the promise of “restoring American greatness.” Yet the machinery meant to produce that greatness is still weighed down by internal mistrust, budget shortages, and institutional disarray. The result is a foreign policy that leans less on strategy and more on tactical crisis-making.
Trump’s extended trip to Southeast Asia in October 2025—marked by trade deals with Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and a one-year truce with China—looked, at first glance, like diplomatic success. But these achievements resemble “artificial respiration” more than a true resurgence of American economic leadership.
China continues to consolidate its advantage in key sectors—from pharmaceuticals and semiconductors to lithium batteries. A one-year truce may ease political pressure at home and generate positive headlines for Trump, but it does little to alter the structural trajectory of the U.S.–China rivalry.
Trump’s recent threats against Venezuela, Colombia, and even Nigeria signal the return of a “doctrine of performance”—a blend of media shock, military posturing, and a lack of durable strategy. Whether it is threatening intervention in Nigeria “to protect Christians,” deploying warships near Venezuela, or imposing tariff pressure on Colombia, these moves do not project confidence. They reflect deep strategic anxiety.
Washington increasingly relies on displays of hard power to mask weakening soft power. But in practice, these gestures reveal confusion far more than authority.
Now that Syrian President Ahmad Ashra has completed his long-planned visit to Washington and returned to Damascus, the realities have become clearer. His trip—the first by a Syrian president to the White House in over a decade—was less a breakthrough than a reminder of how desperately Washington is trying to preserve influence in a region no longer dependent on it.
Trump hoped the meeting would be framed as “the beginning of a new era of stability,” but the core issues remain unresolved: lifting sanctions on Syria depends on a Congress still consumed by the aftershocks of the shutdown; proposed security agreements involving access to the Damascus airbase lack institutional backing; and the U.S. national security structure—strained by budget cuts and personnel shortages—is in no position to pursue multiple major initiatives in the region simultaneously.
Meanwhile, the visit of Mohammed bin Salman is shaping up more as an economic and technological negotiation than a step toward “normalization with Israel”—a slogan now more hollow than ever. Trump’s 20-point plan for an “international force in Gaza,” currently circulating in the Security Council, remains little more than ink on paper without domestic consensus or financial resources.
From the beginning of his return to the White House, Trump sought to shrink the national-security bureaucracy. Now those very decisions have become his biggest vulnerability. The prolonged shutdown and budget cuts have simultaneously weakened the State Department, the Pentagon, and the intelligence community.
Today, America’s instruments of national power—diplomacy, intelligence analysis, and coalition-building—are operating at half-strength. U.S. foreign policy is being limited not by external challenges, but by internal dysfunction.
Foreign policy is always a reflection of domestic health. A country unable to manage its own political divides cannot lead the world.
The contradiction between the “promise of greatness” and the “reality of decay” is becoming more exposed each day. Washington’s crisis of governance has now become a geopolitical crisis—one where other powers, from Beijing to Tehran, face not American hegemony but American volatility.
The world is not waiting for America’s return; the international order is moving ahead on its own. And today, more clearly than ever, a fundamental contradiction stands revealed: a power that seeks to build global order, but struggles to maintain order at home.
