I’m Dan Kurtz-Phelan, and this is The Foreign Affairs Interview.
All great powers are predatory towards their rivals.
They're always trying to get the better of them in one way or another.
They certainly don't want to agree to anything that gives a rival an advantage.
They want the better part of any deal.
That's how you deal with potential rivals.
But a predatory hegemon acts that way towards everyone,
towards its adversaries certainly, but also towards its allies.
Donald Trump wields American power like few leaders in US history ever have.
From imposing tariffs to threatening territorial conquest, to ordering military intervention,
he deploys the United States' strength to assert dominance over friends and foes alike.
Stephen Walt, a professor of International Relations at Harvard,
describes this uniquely Trumpian grand strategy as "Predatory Hegemony" in a new essay in Foreign Affairs.
The central aim of predatory hegemony, Walt writes,
is to use Washington's privileged position to extract concessions, tribute,
and displays of deference from both allies and adversaries,
pursuing short-term gains in what it sees as a purely zero-sum world.
Walt argues that this approach may appear to yield immediate wins,
but over time, he warns, it will erode the real sources of American power,
leaving the United States poorer, less secure, and less influential.