The fall of the liberal international order continues.
The empire is changing its direction, but I don't agree that the US is giving up on the idea of hegemony. Rather, I think the US is getting rid of the idea of liberal hegemony - the sort that liberals have popularized for the last three decades and which the White House has more or less played along with, even when their actions contradicted it.
Trump and his allies both believe that liberalism is stupid - "why are we defending drag queens' right to parade!?" - and realize that liberalism is a collar around the US's neck. When you're a liberal, you have to play by certain rules - paying for DEI initiatives, promoting human rights around the world, defending feminism, calling for restraint against ethnic cleansing, playing at diplomacy and morality, political correctness, etc.
These rules, Trump figures, have made the US weak, and he's going to get rid of them. He's going to return the US to being a muscular empire in the old sense of the world, with a white nationalist / supremacist core. This is effectively what's been happening in the last few weeks.
But none of this implies the US is going to become isolationist. Trump hasn't argued for pulling back all the US's forces from around the world or for disengagement in the Middle-East or for cuts to military spending. He's just cutting out the liberal aspects of the US empire. No longer will it pretend to defend liberal democracy.
The biggest losers of this are those US vassals who have built up their values and institutions with the assumption that liberalism is the "end of history" and will always prevail. For instance, Taiwan's DPP and Canada's Liberal Party. They've transformed / brain washed their societies to such an extent, that it will be difficult to deal with a new US led by radical right-wing leaders, as they will essentially be caught between loyalty to their ideology and values, and loyalty to the US empire.
How they adapt will be interesting to watch.
