Trump inauguration: from now on, it will be every nation for themselves
The leader of the free world had nothing to say about allies in his speech. The only countries mentioned by name were upbraided.

“During every single day of the Trump administration I will, very simply, put America first”. That is the promise on which Donald Trump campaigned and won re-election, and what the majority of Americans voted for in 2024.
His speech at his second inauguration spelt it out. The new President could not be clearer. He considers the US to be the “exceptional” nation. Over his next four years in the White House, “the United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands out territory, builds out cities and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons” – including the planet Mars.
Some other countries are a bit slow on the uptake. The president had nothing to say about allies or America’s historic claim to be “the leader of the free world”. Yet the British Prime Minister rushed out a video statement sending “warmest congratulations”. Sir Keir Starmer clung to the UK’s “uniquely close bond” and predicted that “the special relationship between the US and the UK will continue to flourish for many years to come.”
Dream on. The US and the UK have many cultural and economic ties, partly from speaking the same language. Trump had a Scottish grandmother, he likes hobnobbing with the Royal family and he owns several Scottish golf courses, but none of that, and least of all his good manners hosting a dinner for Starmer and David Lammy, are a basis to expect any “special” favours from this avowedly transactional president.
His worldview could not be clearer. The only countries mentioned by name in his speech were upbraided. “China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And we are taking it back”, he declared. The Gulf of Mexico will be renamed the Gulf of America unilaterally. And any migrants passing through from South and Central America will be sent back to Mexico. Denmark will be relieved that he did not mention Greenland explicitly, although Trump’s America still wants a deal over who controls it.
Trump tore into the record of his predecessors, promising to reverse “decline” under Biden. President William McKinley came in for the warmest praise. McKinley took control of Hawaii and expanded the US by purchasing the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico. In an anti-woke gesture, Trump will rename North America’s highest peak, in an Alaskan national park, “Mount McKinley”. In 2015, President Obama directed that it should be known by its native American name, Denali.
President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist in 1901. Trump said yesterday “McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent. He was a natural businessman who gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did”. In fact, Roosevelt’s signature achievement was using anti-trust laws to dismantle the so-called “Gilded Age” dominated by “robber barons”.
In his outgoing address, President Biden warned against the rise of an equivalent new “oligarchy”. Trump shows no inclination to take on the tech bro billionaires, including Musk and Zuckerberg, who he invited to his big day. He wants to go one better than the “Gilded Age”, instead, opening his speech with the words “the golden age of America begins right now.”
At his rally on the eve of the inauguration, Trump introduced a video contrasting his Full Metal Jacket-style military, complete with barking sergeant majors, with images of drag queens and dancers which he suggested is what US fighting forces have become under Democratic presidents. In his speech, he promised: “We will build the strongest military we have ever seen”.
He hoped however that “my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier”. The US may measure success by winning battles and wars but “perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”
Trump was playing into the long-standing isolationist strain in American thought, which believes that America got involved against its own interests in two world wars and made sacrifices to save others. Now he proposed self-interest only: “We will win like never before… America will reclaim its right place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on Earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the world”. Any benefits for the rest of the world will come from reflected glory: “We will be a nation like no other, full of compassion, courage and exceptionalism. Our power will stop all wars…”.
The US entered the two world wars late and arguably only to preserve its global dominance. It was also supported by allies in wars it instigated in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. It seems unlikely that the UK prime minister’s invocation in his congratulatory message that “together we have defeated the world from tyranny” will strike a chord with the return of the America First mindset.
President Trump’s main task was to tell his “fellow citizens” what he intends to do for them. There will be direct consequences for the rest of the world, but there will also be indirect consequences depending on how successful his administration is at home. The United States is the laboratory where he intends to wind back the progressive agenda.
Because of its enormous resources, the US is less interdependent and more able to go its own way. The tariffs Trump plans will not lead to “massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources”, as he promised. The costs will be paid by American importers and consumers. But, over time, they could drive Americans to buy American and stimulate manufacturing and the domestic economy. Smaller exporting nations, such as the UK, are likely to lose out more.
Trump celebrated the growing electoral coalition that propelled him to outright victory in 2024: “Young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban, rural”. Trump has never been a notably observant Christian, but he carefully laced religion into his words, appealing to evangelicals by claiming “I was saved by God to make America great again” after “an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear”.
The most important test for the American public, who are feeling the pinch of inflation, will be whether Trump is right that “we will be a rich nation again” - through energy exports as he eases restraints to “drill, baby, drill!” for “the liquid gold under our feet”.
Politicians across the spectrum in other democracies will take note if he maintains majority support while promoting hardline policies on immigration, and against social engineering on race and gender and “the green new deal”.
It remains to be seen whether the last US election will turn out to be “the greatest and most consequential in history”, as the new president is already claiming. Trump’s bold promise to make America great again may stutter or be knocked off course by major events.
There is one vital consequence already. The world’s most powerful politician has called time on the “international rules-based order” – from now on it will be every nation for themselves. The UK will not prosper by needily insisting that we are “special” to the US. What matters to President Trump is America first.