When the Trumpian era is over, we need to abandon our role as the world’s policeman and go full steam ahead for economic democracy or welfare state. Here’s how to do it. We need to equal the defense budget of the next highest defense spender in the world. China is the world’s second-highest defense spender, with a 2024 estimated military budget of roughly $314 billion. So the US should decrease its defense budget from $1 trillion to $315 billion. It will then still be the highest spender on defense of any country in the world. Next it needs to eliminate most if not all of the foreign military bases. The United States maintains roughly 750 to 800 foreign military base sites in approximately 80 foreign countries and territories, representing the largest global military footprint in history. Not being the world’s policeman means that these bases can be eliminated. This would eliminate one of the biggest bones of contention of Arabic countries especially Iran.
Next we need a massive rewrite of the US Constitution to include economic rights as well as political rights. In his January 11, 1944, State of the Union address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a “Second Bill of Rights” (an Economic Bill of Rights) to ensure security and prosperity for all Americans, arguing that “necessitous men are not free men”. He argued that traditional political rights were insufficient, proposing that all citizens have the right to a job, adequate food/clothing/recreation, a decent home, medical care, and protection from economic fears. What we are proposing is nothing more than what Franklin Roosevelt already has proposed. Let the right yell about the “radical left” and “communism”. Every other western advanced democracy is a welfare state to a large extent already. The US needs to become one as well. Ironically, Trump has paved the way for a change of this nature by absolving the US from its role as world’s policeman even as he is threatening other countries militarily. At this point what our former allies want the least is for the US to be the world’s policeman as Trump has converted that role into being the world’s bully.
Next we need to get rid of nuclear weapons. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev negotiated significant reductions in nuclear weapons, most notably through the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. This landmark agreement eliminated an entire class of land-based, intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Their negotiations, including the 1986 Reykjavik summit, built trust that began de-escalating the Cold War arms race. So it can be done. It was done once. They almost negotiated the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. That needs to be done in a post Trump America. A post Trump America needs to bring back its former allies and others into a more egalitarian role of providing security in the world. This means an expanded role for the United Nations and probably some reform of the UN Security Council. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the UN’s principal crisis-management body, responsible for maintaining international peace and security, located in New York City. It consists of 15 members (5 permanent with veto power—China, France, Russia, UK, US—and 10 elected) and has the power to issue binding resolutions, impose sanctions, and deploy peacekeeping forces. Actually the five permanent nations make sense if they would try to make peace among themselves and not treat each other as enemies. I’ve heard high ranking US officials refer to China as “our enemy.” Why? Has China threatened the United States? No. It is this toxic masculine identity that considers any country that is doing better than the US an enemy. China should be congratulated for its Belt and Road initiative which is building infrastructure in other countries. The US should also expand its role that it formerly had with USAID until Trump destroyed it. Helping less developed countries should be a goal that the US pursues in collaboration , not competition, with China.
Abandoning its role as the world’s policeman and becoming an economic democracy would allow the US to regain its former friends and make some new ones with its erstwhile enemies.
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