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If they get a Mamdani-like president in 2 years, I bet you that will change and people will forget aaaaaall about the misdeeds of the U.S. "oh, they were always good". It would be terrible for the rest of the world.
No, and we haven't forgotten the Bush presidency either 2001-2009, and his comment about being either with or against USA, when he started a war based on false intelligence. Maybe electing him once could be forgiven, but that he was elected for a 2nd term, was already a very strong warning, that the American population cannot be trusted.
Obama restored a lot of that trust, because he was the first president of color, which gave hope that the American population was ready to move on from the policies of Bush, and Obama was very liked in Europe, and he was an amazing politician.
But even under Obama we had problems, where Obama claimed USA had found a good balance in their level of secret intelligence, the balance being control of the secret services by a secret group of politicians, and regulated by secret courts, and only respecting civil rights of Americans. He also conducted illegal drone strikes that are estimated to have cost 70000 innocent civilian lives.
But despite such insane examples of American exceptionalism, Obama was very liked in Europe.
Enter Trump! Trump tore apart the agreement with Iran, he threaten that USA might leave NATO, claiming that NATO was a relic that wasn't needed anymore, he constantly criticized allies for not lifting their part of the burden, completely failing to understand the nature of the alliances USA had. The election of Trump more than anything else, showed allied countries that USA was unreliable.
Enter Biden, and yes the pendulum swung the other direction, but far from all the way. Relations became way more civil, but relations were not strengthened much, what was ruined by Trump was not repaired, and Biden failed to patch up many of the destructive things Trump had destroyed, like for instance the nuclear agreement with Iran.
Biden also failed in helping Ukraine nearly as much as the financial aid would indicate, putting strong limitations on Ukraine to not attack oil industries, and even preventing Ukraine from attacking into Russia at all! Making it near impossible for Ukraine to defend themselves efficiently. Biden helped Ukraine defend themselves, but at the same time helped Russia to not lose too.
Enter Trump 2nd term, and we now have a shitshow where USA is actively worse than China regarding EU interests.
I already listed 11 points where USA is working against European interests.
And mind you this list exist despite what Americans call checks and balances!!!!
We have now been shown with certainty, that the American population cannot be trusted, and that the American democracy cannot be trusted to prevent an insane president from utterly destroying everything it is in the power of USA to destroy.
There are zero guarantees that another American president would be stopped from repeating what Trump has done, or maybe going even further!!
The move by the world to achieve independence from USA is not something that is being considered, it is something that has already started, and it is all encompassing, from trade and defense to technologies where USA is currently dominating.
This will not be stopped, even if the next president of USA is as popular as Obama was.
America first has truly become America alone, exactly as Hillary Clinton predicted.
Not really.
We already had the "now everything will get better" moment when Obama replaced Bush Jr. and brought promises of change and the USA becoming a better country. He was a lame duck for many reasons but he did make an effort to short up the country's reputation.
Bush had demonstrated that the USA were perfectly capable of suddenly tearing up agreements that had been stable for decades. Obama's case was that this was a one-time slip-up, that the USA were still a reliable and trustworthy partner. It was a hard case to make on an international stage where treaties are expected to remain stable for decades if not centuries but he made that point by leaning on the States' accumulated goodwill as a trade partner.
Then Trump I shat all over that and made clear that no, American policy could pivot on a dime and having to renegotiate everything every four years was just the cost of doing business with the USA these days. And you better did business with the USA on their terms or they'd get mad.
Biden tried to do an Obama but a) was even more of a lame duck and b) tried to argue a point that had become thoroughly implausible at this point.
Trump II now shows us that four years was actually restrained by American standards and that American policy can now change whenever and however he wants it to, continuity and common sense be damned. L'Etat c'est lui. On a stage where a decade is a short time he changes the country's tenor on a weekly basis.
The EU's reaction? Trade deals with just about everyone else. Mercosur. Canada. Japan. The UK. Singapore. Vietnam. New Zealand. Ukraine. Moldova. Georgia. Kenya. Plus several others in early stages. Which European trade deals are staling out? The ones with the USA and China.
The world is pivoting away from the USA because it lost its trust in America as a trade partner and it's going to take decades of concentrated and stable good-faith effort to regain that trust. The States won't just have to make a case for keeping them as a preferred partner but for making them a preferred partner again. The hurdle is higher now.