The president who promised to make America great again is accelerating its descent into the very instability it was once counted on to offset.
The president who promised to make America great again is accelerating its descent into the very instability it was once counted on to offset.
By Mehmet Enes Beşer
America has occupied a unique position in the world order for decades now—not only as a superpower but also as a financial and institutional safe haven. In crises, capital seeks refuge in the U.S., its Treasury bonds are deemed risk-free assets, and its political system—dysfunctional at times—is presumed to be undergirded by a foundation of checks, balances, and institutional stability.
But Donald Trump’s return to politics, and the prospect of a second term in the White House, is slowly undermining this belief. His whimsical policy style, personalistic rhetoric, and disdain for institutional norms are injecting the kind of volatility into U.S. governance that investors and global observers more typically associate with vulnerable democracies or economically impoverished autocracies in the developing world.
The irony is not hard to spot: the very traits that used to make America great are being undermined by one of its past presidents. Trump policy is no longer the result of deliberation, but an extension of personal grievance or political opportunism. Trade wars are launched by tweet. Allies are publicly embarrassed on a whim. Fiscal discipline is jettisoned for short-term populist gains. Regulatory regimes are gutted, and executive agencies are staffed with loyalists instead of technocrats. The result is a policymaking environment where predictability is in short supply, reversals are routine, and long-term planning is sacrificed to the politics of spectacle.
Economically, this involves grave risks. Markets thrive on clarity, rule of law, and institutional continuity. The world’s reserve currency, the U.S. dollar, is backed not just by the size of the U.S. economy but by the view that the U.S. pays its debts, enforces property rights, and governs with some degree of predictability. When that confidence is undermined—whether by threats to default on the national debt, politicized intrusions into the Federal Reserve, or dysfunctional government shutdowns—America’s safe-haven status begins to fray. Trump’s style compounds those risks.
During his first term, he talked openly about blowing through debt ceilings, demanded loyalty from the Fed chairman, and fired off executive orders with sweeping implications for trade and investment without warning or legal authority. A second term would embolden him more, particularly as his rhetoric has escalated against the so-called “deep state” and with his impulse to consolidate power in the executive branch. Institutions and markets would be under a presidency that not only disregards norms, but actively views them as obstacles to be eliminated. There is also a reputational cost abroad.
The U.S. has been exporting not just goods and capital but standards—of governance, of transparency, of rule of law. Trump’s behavior replays the role of the U.S. from the architect of global rules to an arbitrary and unreliable actor. In a geopolitical landscape that is ever more defined by competition with China and re-emergent non-Western blocs, this perception matters. It erodes Washington’s moral authority, its ability to broker multilateral solutions, and encourages both allies and investors to hedge bets elsewhere—either in the Eurozone, in emerging regional blocs, or even in alternative reserve assets. One should recall that the loss of safe-haven credibility is rarely a cataclysmic collapse.
It is a process step by step. Foreign investors won’t abruptly sell U.S. bonds, but may begin to diversify more aggressively. Central banks may allocate a slightly lesser share of reserves to the dollar. Tech firms and capital markets may require greater regulatory certainty in safer havens. Confidence, once lost, doesn’t vanish overnight—but it never really comes back, either. This is not just about Trump the man, but about the institutional degradation that he enables. A second Trump term ushers in the normalization of uncertainty at an accelerated pace. When the world’s largest economy begins to acquire the traits of an emerging-market autocracy—where rule-making is arbitrary, power is personalized, and policy is ad hoc—it alters the calculus for investors, allies, and adversaries alike.
Conclusion
The United States’ power has never been in its military or economic heft alone, but in the perception that it is a reliable steward of power. It is this perception that underlies its safe-haven status—the reason why, during moments of global turmoil, the world rushes to the dollar, to U.S. Treasuries, and to U.S. institutions. Trump’s style of governance erodes this foundation by inserting the very instability that is supposed to be secured against by the U.S.
In a way, the U.S. is being subjected to a stress test more commonly suffered by democracies with weaker institutional guardrails. The only difference is that the stakes are global. If the world begins to doubt the integrity and predictability of U.S. leadership, it will not be an American problem—it will be a systemic one, seeping into the fabric of global finance and diplomacy.
The irony is bittersweet: the president who promised to make America great again is accelerating its descent into the very instability it was once counted on to offset. Whether the U.S. can reclaim its position as a haven will depend on whether its institutions can withstand not just Trump’s second term, but the cumulative loss of faith that his leadership style demands. The world is waiting, and more importantly, recalibrating.