U.S. President Donald Trump holds up a signed resolution during a Board of Peace meeting in Washington on Thursday.Mark Schiefelbein/The Associated Press
You can go halfway around the world to escape Donald Trump and still not succeed.
The man is a world disrupter. But I can say with confidence that, after spending a few weeks here and in New Zealand and meeting people hailing from all over the place – from Indonesia and Mexico to India and Kenya – that the U.S. President has put Brand America in deep, deep trouble.
Mr. Trump has succeeded in making people around the world not only loathe him but his country as well. Those I talked to want nothing to do with the U.S. and are astonished that a country that not so long ago was seen as that bright, shining city upon a hill that former president Ronald Reagan loved to talk about has allowed itself to fall into such disrepute – and at the hands of a corrupt, mendacious grifter, no less. A country that once sold hope to the world now exports a petty, mean-spirited cruelty instead.
Even many Americans are ashamed of America. In our travels, my wife and I encountered people from the U.S. who, upon learning we were from Canada, fell over themselves to apologize for the actions of their President. They lamented what Mr. Trump has done to the reputation of their country globally, not to mention the lasting damage he’s done to it domestically.
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One Vermont businessman told us over dinner one night that he wasn’t sure about what would be left of his country by the next presidential election. While he was hopeful that the Democrats could win back Congress in the midterm elections to slow the horror the President has unleashed, he told us that he fears Mr. Trump might just nationalize the voting system, as he has threatened, and rig the whole thing.
That conversation came a day after Mr. Trump posted a video that portrayed former U.S. president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes in a jungle.
We were also shocked, but heartened, by how many people we encountered who were aware of how Mr. Trump has menaced Canada. Even more so, we couldn’t believe how many had high praise for Prime Minister Mark Carney, from tour guides to servers in restaurants. A Melbourne taxi driver who had recently immigrated from Laos told us that he was impressed by Mr. Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum – and he wasn’t the only one who cited that pivotal and widely heralded moment in Davos.
We also discovered that wearing the Canadian flag grants you much sympathy. Though this shouldn’t be a great surprise: Most people are good, decent folk who recognize evil and malevolence when they see it.
Even though we were so far removed from the fiery cauldron that is life in North America, next door to the suddenly terrifying, unpredictable monster that is the U.S. under Mr. Trump, it was impossible to avoid hearing about the mind-numbing developments in America.
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Every day it was something new, something as abjectly depressing as the day before. For instance, even a few years ago, it was impossible to imagine a U.S. President officially disassociating his country from the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health – a conclusion the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used to justify regulations to limit carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Now that is – poof – gone. With one signature from DJT, American companies can now pollute like they used to.
It’s no wonder the world shakes its head in disbelief. No wonder people from countries around the world are distancing themselves from anything to do with America, including its most high-profile companies. Tesla car sales in Europe, for instance, effectively collapsed last year. Hard not to connect that phenomenon with the company’s owner, Elon Musk, who took a chainsaw to the Washington bureaucracy in the service of Mr. Trump and continues to be the President’s supporter after a brief falling-out.
Mr. Trump is building a wall around the U.S., and many people are happy to stay out, to do business and form new alliances with others. The world appears to be slowly turning its back on America.
One day in a hotel elevator, I had a conversation with an Australian woman who was in Sydney for a business conference. She mistook my accent for American, and asked me which part of the States I was from.
“Oh, I’m from Canada, not the U.S.,” I replied.
She apologized. She said it was probably the worst thing she could’ve said to me – or to anybody, really. And in this worrying new world, she’s right.