THESE AREhappy, “I told you so” times for foreign-policy cynics. In many world capitals the inauguration of an America First president inspires not shock, but vindication. Over a policy-filled lunch in Asia, a veteran official tells The Telegram that his government feels “serene” about the return of President Donald Trump. Westerners are forgetting their history, he suggests, if they mourn the crumbling of a principled, America-led world order that has supposedly prevailed for 80 years. Tell that to Asian peoples attacked by colonial European troops as they fought for independence, he says. Moral values never guided the post-war world. At least under Mr Trump, the mask is off, and interests are all.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “America the imperfect, indispensable nation”
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