Opinion | Trump’s State of the Union report underlines shift to ‘world minus one’

In his address to Congress, Trump emphasised that America ‘is back’. However, the US’ financial position tells a different story, one with global implications

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US President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol in Washington on February 24. Photo: The New York Times via AP

Published: 8:30pm, 27 Feb 2026

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address was a long and rambling preparation for the congressional midterm elections in November.

If, as Trump claims, America “is back, bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before”, what does it mean for the rest of the world?

Is the global economy as a whole bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever? Or are we in what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued in his stunning speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month: “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics … is submitted to no limits, no constraints”.

Who is writing fiction and who is increasingly recognising harsh reality?

Those used to Trumpian language and behaviour accept the truth of Carney’s quote from former Czech president Vaclav Havel, that everyone is “living within a lie”. Everyone is entitled to live with their own lies, but Trump’s words and actions have brutally awakened many to accept that living within a lie is to accept one’s fate as vassal or serf.

Those who wake up will have to strengthen themselves, seek new allies or partners, diversify and help co-create a new order. Even the meek Europeans have finally woken up to accept the dictum that “there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests”.

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}In his address to Congress, Trump emphasised that America ‘is back’. However, the US’ financial position tells a different story, one with global implications

In his address to Congress, Trump emphasised that America ‘is back’. However, the US’ financial position tells a different story, one with global implications