Josh Rogin: Pretty Much Every Country in the World Is Trying to Find Ways to Reduce Their Dependence on the U.S.

EXCERPT:

ROGIN: "I mean, Donald Trump, you know, welcomed Putin to Alaska just a short while ago. So, he‘s not against countries meeting with Putin because he did it himself. But what we can see is that all of these other countries are now recalculating whether or not they can rely on the United States, and they have to come to the conclusion, based on everything they‘ve seen, that the United States is less reliable than it used to be, and so they‘re finding ways to work with each other through trade, diplomacy, military sales, all of the things that we used to do. And this reordering of the international system is not exactly what the United States would have wanted. You know, we have our power and our influence through our trade relationships, our diplomatic relationships and our economic relationships, and our national security relationships. And pretty much every country in the world is trying to find ways to reduce their dependence on us because of what we‘re doing to them. And this meeting in Shanghai is just a very clear illustration of that."