America’s Dangerous Pessimism

The Foreign Affairs Interview

Most Americans think their country is in decline. So do their leaders. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have embraced foreign policies premised on the notion that the global order no longer serves American interests.

But these pessimistic assumptions are wrong, Fareed Zakaria argues in a new essay for Foreign Affairs. Moreover, they are leading the country to embrace strategies that will harm much of the world—and the United States most of all. Zakaria is the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, a columnist for The Washington Post, and the author of The Post-American World.

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