The world is beginning to react to the VSG style - by looking at how to proceed without US leadership

I wonder if this will spur the VSG to get a clue:

The EU and Japan just signed a trade agreement, while the U.S. sat on the sidelines. This was a bad move on America’s part, because latecomers will ultimately find themselves with no option but to accept the terms of the deal.

How do we know this? It was America’s own strategy with the postwar General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) itself. With those agreements, the United States set parameters and precedents that have become the backbone of the global market. But now, the European Union — with an economy similar in size to America’s, at 25 percent of global GDP — has teamed up with Japan, which produces another 5 percent of global GDP, to take the lead.

So why was the U.S. missing from the table? First, because we abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which included Japan and a dozen other countries from around the Pacific Rim, covering over 40 percent of the global economy. Second, because we demanded renegotiation of key agreements such as NAFTA on terms that would raise barriers to trade, in effect backing away from our own approach to trade. Third, and more recently, because our use of unilateral tariffs and other trade obstructions represents an embrace of protectionism that has isolated us from partners and competitors alike.

The EU–Japan deal sends a message that while the U.S. is pulling back from the global economy, other countries are not afraid to step forward. The agreement removes tariffs from imports and exports such as wines, cheeses, cars, and electronics. As Japan’s markets open, EU companies will save a little more than $1 billion a year. EU manufacturers and farmers will receive a massive tax cut — not to mention better access to the Japanese market than their U.S. counterparts enjoy.

This will very quickly reduce U.S. market share and sales. But the long-term effects are worse. The EU and Japan, for example, are not home to the global leaders in film and music. Their approach to trade will not protect those copyrights to the extent we would insist on. Film and music producers will quickly find it harder to assert their ownership of those rights and the revenues they produce. 

Then there's the security-arrangement level. So far, it's true, it's playing itself out mostly on the level of attitude - as the excerpt below asserts, there's really no getting around the fact that only the US has there resources at present to address the looming Russian presence - but there's not much in the way of team spirit:

Deeply alarmed at President Trump’s attacks on NATO and the transatlantic relationship, European governments are rethinking their reliance on the United States as a strategic ally against Russia, but they are unlikely to make regional security arrangements independent of Washington.

Trump has forced the reassessment in recent days by calling the European Union a “foe,” expressing reservations about defending other NATO members, and blasting Germany and other allies — comments he said were aimed at strengthening the U.S.-European alliance but that raised concerns across the continent.

"We can no longer fully rely on the White House,” Heiko Maas, Germany's foreign minister, said Monday, a position echoed by other senior European officials and diplomats. "The first clear consequence can only be that we need to align ourselves even more closely in Europe."

But European allies bewildered by Trump’s seeming hostility for NATO must confront a sobering reality: They have few good alternatives for protecting themselves against Russia or other potential adversaries.

Historical cycles are indeed discernible phenomena, but they don't just happen because the calendar says it's time for one. There is nothing inevitable about the upending of the 70-year postwar order.

Our big-mouth president is forcing the issue by his spontaneous style for doing - well, everything.

We've all seen the literature on effective leadership. It may be that your email inbox, like mine, is inundated with come-ons from motivational and "coaching" gurus touting their personal spin on the subject. But the basics they peddle are nonetheless true. A real leader inspires those he wishes to lead. He inspires confidence and group cohesion. He imbues followers with a sense of their own potential greatness.

The Very Stable Genius may occasionally utter things having some faint taste of this, but his endless flow of randomly generated outbursts is just as likely to produce something demoralizing or indignation-engendering.

This is not to say his past, say, three predecessors were great at leadership - especially the most immediate past guy. But none of them employed the kinds of rhetorical blunt instruments we witness regularly from the VSG.

What concerns me is that, if he can be said to demonstrate any leadership qualities, it's the example of his boneheadedness, which is certainly showing up in European politics, but also in Latin America. In Brazil, it's taking the form of far-right presidential aspirant Jair Bolsonaro and in Mexico in the form of far-left president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Both have outsized personalities and brash rhetorical styles.

It appears we're entering an age of national leaders quick to get their feathers ruffled, who see themselves as populist champions constantly on the outlook for those offering "bad deals."

The hothead era. All together now: "Yee-haw!"