The soft power that people talk about yielded instantly when used. Trump’s foreign policy has been fairly scatter shot and foolish but it has only revealed that soft power is only soft. When you attempt to exercise it you find nothing there.

The other world powers are exercising their will directly through power as power: no amount of Hollywood or America Is The Good Guy belief ever bought America a trade deal or sanction power.

The only power that America has is her Navy and the nuclear weapons under the seas. Power that cannot be summoned is not power. The illusion that it is suited American allies and her wider array of beneficiaries because it allowed them to call upon the world hegemon for aid. But America is not that sole superpower anymore so it is useful to her to know the illusion for what it is: an illusion.

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gpm an hour ago | parent [-]

Yeah... that's just not the case. The US routinely successfully exercised its soft power prior to Trump 2.0. For example it's why this news article even exists - the US (under Biden) exercised its soft power to get Canada to effectively ban Chinese EVs - otherwise they would already be here.

	▲	arjie an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The news article is the news article but the reality is Canada operated under the threat of tariffs and now they have unconditional tariffs. Threatening someone with something lets you extract concessions. Using the threat removes the ability and makes it just math. China’s tariffs are more damaging than the US’s and are releasable so Canada makes deals with them. It’s more a story of hard power than soft power since economic damage ultimately led the way.