Earth versus the United States of America

Will the Trump Administration Deteriorate U.S. International Legitimacy?

- By Alexander Gusmão

Since its earliest years, the raison d'état of the United States was forged in a messianic character rooted in Puritanism. This collective consciousness led Americans first toward territorial expansionism and later toward international hegemony. The U.S. arrogated to itself a leading role in the world on behalf of a supposedly elevated social order, claiming responsibility for spreading progress and democracy wherever needed. Based on the belief that the U.S. was divinely ordained to preserve the rights given to humanity by God—equality, liberty, life, and happiness—and to promote democratic ideals, the world tolerated doctrines such as Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Roosevelt Corollary as acceptable sources of Washington's international legitimacy. European countries, which had long resisted American initiatives in Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific, eventually accepted Washington's supremacy. The two world wars gradually affirmed international consent to U.S. authority—first alongside the Soviet Union in the bipolar era, and later as the sole hegemonic power competing with a once-peripheral China.