Thanks to the rapid and belligerent posturing of the Trump regime in the US, we are witnessing the total rearrangement of power. Mark Carney’s trip to Beijing this week isn’t just a run of the mill diplomatic visit. It was Canada signaling to the US that the old alliances are finished.

Even if Trump doesn’t invade Greenland, the trust is forever broken between the US and the rest of the Western countries. Some leaders, like Keir Starmer, will probably not admit this. But the people of these nations know. They have quietly changed their plans for ever visiting a police state that routinely brutalizes foreigners and citizens alike. And a new leader of the US won’t alter this.

As Trump begins to battle his own people through ICE’s sustained and brutal reign of terror, he has threatened dozens of countries with military strikes and invasions, accelerating the factors that have led most empires to their downfall: domestic strife, foreign forays, severed allyships and an economy which is no longer providing for the basic needs of its citizenry. This is a recipe for collapse.

The American Empire has been hobbling toward its demise for decades. The steady hollowing out of its institutions by an oligarchy drunk on cupidity, the rampant corruption of its politicians from both sides of the aisle, the rise of white, Christian nationalist fascism, the gutting of education for all but the rich, a people fed a diet of hyper-processed food while enjoying no universal healthcare to counter its dire affects, a culture riven by pettiness, distracted by consumerism and mesmerized by the ultra-wealthy, economic cruelty so absurd it boggles the mind, endless wars for capital and the channeling of billions of dollars to fund a genocide. It was destined to arrive at the place it is now. And in its chaos and decay, China rises.

There is a hope that ordinary Americans will rise up. Many are. But no matter what happens now, the Trump regime has already set in motion a cascade of change that will make our world look drastically different for decades to come.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026