alt Hacker NewsThis isn't the Trump/MAGA foreign policy, american exceptionalism is a century old and only gotten stronger. If anything MAGA is the full blown expression of this phenomenon.
The difference was that in the past US understood that you "rule" better when you surround yourself with enemies.
Now the policy is to dictate conditions left and right.
From the 2nd half of the 20th century until Trump there was the view that the US lead a large group of "western" democracies (in the sense that Japan is "western") in a loose coalition that was NOT zero sum. The US provided a lot of benefits to others, this collaboration produced an overall surplus[1], which the US got a large share of.
The new view seems to be based on a zero sum, transactional view of international affairs. In this mode every interaction must clearly benefit the US more than any other participant. We have to clearly "win" every time.
[1] and this is not even counting 2nd order "surplus" from things like no longer having to fight world wars.