Present at the Destruction: American Foreign Policy and the Abandonment of Diplomatic Engagement
BY DIEM JENNINGS
Diem Jennings: 2026 Essay Contest Winner
On Feb. 21, 2026, President Trump took to Truth Social, announcing that a U.S. hospital ship was “on the way!!!” to Greenland, promising that the vessel would “take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there” (Muller-Heyndyk). The announcement came after months of escalating tension. Since December 2025, Trump had insisted that the United States acquire the territory, appointing Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as special envoy to make Greenland a part of the U.S. and refusing to rule out military force to secure it. His announcement carried the hallmarks of American soft power: humanitarian assistance extended to a distant country, a gesture of goodwill from a global leader. The only problem was that Greenland had not required assistance. Denmark, which handles Greenland’s foreign affairs, had not agreed to accept it. And even more bizarrely, the U.S. military – which would actually have to deploy the vessel – had not been notified of any such mission.
The Danish prime minister’s response was a simple “No thanks.” American diplomacy, she later observed, had effectively been reduced to “random outbursts on social media” (Muller-Heyndyk). The Greenland crisis is symptomatic of a broader pattern: America’s recent tendencies to self-sabotage its relations with other countries. This paper argues that the dismantling of U.S. soft power institutions and the reduction of the Foreign Service are already undermining American global leadership by shrinking diplomatic capacity, weakening alliance credibility, creating strategic vacuums for competitors, and increasing long-term economic and security risks. The United States cannot maintain global leadership with fewer diplomats and fewer tools – and the damage, while potentially reversible, will compound with every year this trajectory continues.
For nearly a century, since the passage of the Rogers Act, the U.S. Foreign Service has served as the professional backbone of American global leadership. The act created a merit-based diplomatic corps, described as “flexible and democratic” and designed to advance American interests through expertise rather than patronage (“The Rogers Act”). Throughout the Cold War, through the Marshall Plan, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Foreign Service officers staffed embassies, cultivated alliances, and provided the essential labor of keeping the United States engaged with the world. Today’s approach could not be more different. Over the past year, the United States has effectively eliminated its capacity to build and strengthen relationships abroad. The numbers tell a story that needs no embellishment. A December 2025 survey by the American Foreign Service Association found that 98 percent of Foreign Service employees reported lower morale following recent departmental restructuring. Eighty-six percent said that workplace changes had directly affected their ability to advance U.S. diplomatic priorities (“At The Breaking Point”). Writing in The Foreign Service Journal in January 2026, Rohit Nepal, serving as the AFSA’s State Department vice president, described the past year as “the darkest in [his] 23 years as a Foreign Service officer.” (“Breaking State?”). When career diplomats fear their own government more than foreign adversaries, when expertise is purged for loyalty, and when institutions built over a century are dismantled in months, the capacity for diplomacy has already collapsed.
The Greenland crisis, while emblematic, is only the tip of the iceberg. For the past century, American power rested on an effective combination: military and economic capacity paired with a powerful moral and cultural appeal. The United States offered itself as the embodiment of ideas that others wanted to claim as their own – constitutional government, individual rights, social mobility, and a bastion of innovation and progress. This soft power was a real form of strength, woven into people’s everyday lives. It lowered the cost of leadership, turned allies into partners, and allowed American influence to register as “aspiration rather than submission” (Mudd). Today, that reservoir of goodwill has been drained across every region of the globe.
In Latin America, the United States has revived the very imperialism it once positioned itself against. The January 2026 military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro – conducted without UN authorization – confirmed that the United States now views international law as optional. As Mathias Risse observed in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr-Ryan Center commentary, “To many observers – most of whom will not want to go on record about it – Maduro’s abduction looks like an act of open colonial enforcement” (Risse). More importantly, Latin American nations took notice. For decades, the U.S. presented itself as a different kind of power, one that respected sovereignty even as it projected influence. That pretense is now gone, and with it, the goodwill that once smoothed relations across the hemisphere.
The damage extends beyond military intervention to the realm of trade – the very economic architecture that once bound the hemisphere together. In February 2026, the Trump administration announced a 15 percent global tariff on imports from all countries, following a Supreme Court ruling that struck down its previous emergency-based tariffs as unconstitutional. In response, these nations are looking elsewhere. The European Union-Mercosur trade agreement, signed in January 2026 after a quarter-century of negotiations, represents a direct hedge against U.S. unpredictability. China has now been Brazil’s largest trading partner for 17 consecutive years. Peru’s exports to China grew by more than 30 percent in 2025. And in Colombia, China has surpassed the U.S. as the primary source of imports (Quan).
When one great power withdraws from a region, reduces its diplomatic presence, or signals disinterest, other powers move in. China’s Belt and Road Initiative represents the most systematic effort to fill the space the United States is vacating. Now entering its second decade, the BRI has constructed a network of infrastructure investment, economic dependency, and political influence spanning Asia, Africa, and Europe. Between January and July 2025 alone, Chinese economic engagement under the BRI reached $124 billion – already surpassing the full-year total for 2024 (Wang). In December 2025, China unveiled new financial measures for the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, now connecting 583 ports across 127 countries. The United States seems to be moving backwards in global engagement, compared to the rest of the world.
None of this is irreversible. Institutions can be rebuilt, and trust can be restored. But this change will only come from deliberate, sustained effort. Recovery requires rebuilding Foreign Service staffing to historic levels; restoring morale through consistent, reliable leadership; and recommitting to genuine alliance consultation. This process also requires humility, acknowledging the damage and explicitly requesting allied partnership in repair.
Currently, the United States stands at a crossroads between recovery and further decline. On Jan. 7, 2026, the Trump administration formally withdrew the United States from 66 international organizations, describing them as “wasteful, ineffective, or harmful” and part of a globalist project contrary to American interests (U.S. Department of State). However, withdrawing from the world does not make the world disappear. The question now is not whether America can recover its global leadership. The question is whether it will – and whether a generation that has watched the dismantling from afar is ready to step forward and do the rebuilding.
Works Cited
“At the Breaking Point: The State of the U.S. Foreign Service in 2025.” American Foreign Service Association, 3 Dec. 2025, afsa.org/at-the-breaking-point. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
Mudd, Sasha. “Trump Has Destroyed American Soft Power.” Prospect Magazine, 15 Jan. 2026, www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/united-states/72128/trump-has-destroyed-american-soft-power. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
Muller-Heyndyk, Rachel. “Greenland Says ‘No Thanks’ to Trump US Hospital Boat.” BBC, 22 Feb. 2026, www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7jnvdzpr7o. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
Wang, Christoph Nedophil. “China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Investment Report 2025 H1.” Green Finance and Development Center, 17 July 2025, greenfdc.org/china-belt-and-road-initiative-bri-investment-report-2025-h1/. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
Nepal, Rohit. “Breaking State?” The Foreign Service Journal, Jan. 2026, afsa.org/breaking-state. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
Quan, Xiang. “Colombia’s Economic Relations with China: The Role of Economics and Politics in Trade, Investment, and Economic Agreements.” Global Policy, vol. 15, no. S3, June 2024, pp. 143-59, https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13333. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
Risse, Mathias. “Could This Truly Be the End of Universalism? Starting 2026 with Reflections on Gaza, the Maduro Abduction, and Some of the World’s Neglected Conflicts (Sudan, Tigray, Yemen, Myanmar, and the Uyghurs).” Harvard Kennedy School Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, 11 Jan. 2026, www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr-ryan/our-work/carr-ryan-commentary/could-truly-be-end-universalism-starting-2026. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
“The Rogers Act.” Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/rogers. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
Rubio, Marco. “Withdrawal from Wasteful, Ineffective, or Harmful International Organizations.” U.S. Department of State, 7 Jan. 2026, www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/01/withdrawal-from-wasteful-in-effective-or-harmful-international-organizations. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.