Standing Alone
by: Barbara Finnicum
Summary: Barbara Finnicum argues that Donald Trump is dangerously dismantling decades of alliance-based security by treating the United States as if it can bully the world into compliance. She warns that insulting allies and threatening nations like Canada, Denmark, and NATO invites strategic consequences, emboldening adversaries such as Russia and reopening Cold War vulnerabilities. Finnicum contends Trump surrounds himself with yes-men, confuses coercion with diplomacy, and hides resource-driven ambitions—especially oil—behind excuses like fentanyl. She questions whether his market-moving threats amount to insider trading and fears America’s growing isolation will leave ordinary citizens paying the cost once alliances are gone.
I need someone to explain something to me. Does Donald Trump not understand that America is not an island?
I've been paying attention long enough to watch a lot of presidents come and go. Some I voted for, some I didn't, some made me proud and some made me cringe. But I never—not once before—watched a president deliberately turn the entire world against us. Every ally we have, he's insulted. Every neighbor, he's threatened. Canada. Mexico. Denmark. NATO. The European Union. One by one, he's slamming doors that took generations to open.
And here's what keeps me up at night. While he's busy playing king, other countries are paying attention. They're not just watching. They're planning.
I still believe Putin met him in Alaska for a reason. Not to negotiate. Not to talk policy. To show him something. To remind him how close Russia sits to American soil. Fifty-five miles across the Bering Strait. That's it. That's all that separates them from here. You think that meeting location was an accident? Putin doesn't do accidents.
And Cuba? Ninety miles from Florida. I'm old enough to remember the missile crisis. The fear in my parents' faces. My father talking about fallout shelters. Understanding, for the first time, that the world could end. You think Havana wouldn't roll out the red carpet for Russian military hardware if we push everyone else away? Castro is gone, but the geography hasn't changed. History doesn't just rhyme. Sometimes it repeats word for word, and we're too arrogant to notice.
Denmark's prime minister has already said it out loud. If Trump tries to take Greenland by force, it would be the end of NATO. The end of the security that's held since the Second World War. These aren't empty words from politicians trying to score points. This is a sovereign nation warning us that we're about to destroy everything we built together. Seven European leaders—France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Poland, Spain—issued a joint statement reminding Trump that Greenland belongs to its people. When your oldest allies start talking about life without you, something has gone terribly wrong.
Here's what gets me. He surrounds himself with people who tell him yes. That's their only qualification. Yes, Mr. President. Whatever you say, Mr. President. You're right, Mr. President. He didn't pick them for their expertise or their judgment. He picked them because they agree with him. It works fine in a cabinet meeting where everyone's afraid of getting fired. It doesn't work with foreign leaders who didn't vote for him, don't fear him, and don't owe him a thing.
He seems to think the whole world operates like one of his businesses. Threaten people. Bully them. Make them fall in line. But Canada isn't a contractor he can stiff. Denmark isn't a vendor he can sue into silence. These are countries with their own governments, their own militaries, their own interests. And they're getting tired of being treated like employees.
He was elected president of the United States. That's it. Not emperor. Not ruler of the Western Hemisphere. Not king of the Arctic. The rest of the world didn't get a ballot, and they don't have to pretend they did.
And this fentanyl excuse he keeps using? Please. Don't insult my intelligence. He doesn't care if people are dying from drug overdoses. He never did. This is the same man who gutted the Affordable Care Act, who packed the courts with corporate judges, who's never once shown genuine concern for working people struggling with addiction. He's not losing sleep over deaths in small towns. He's using those deaths as cover.
It was always about the oil. Look at every country he's threatened. Greenland. Canada. Mexico. Venezuela. What do they have in common? Energy reserves. Resources. Money in the ground. The fentanyl crisis is a convenient excuse. Underneath it, same old greed wearing a new mask.
Here's what I really want to know, and I want someone in power to answer me. What stocks does Donald Trump own? What's in his portfolio right now? When he announces a tariff that tanks one industry and boosts another, who benefits? When he threatens to invade a country and defense stocks jump, whose accounts get fatter? Because if you or I traded on information that only we knew, we'd go to prison. When he does it from the Oval Office, nobody even asks the question.
Is it insider trading when you're the only one who knows what you're going to do? I think we all know the answer.
I'm tired. I'm scared. I'm watching my country burn bridges with everyone who ever stood beside us, and for what? So one man can feel powerful? So he can prove he answers to no one?
America is not an island. We never were. We won two world wars because we had allies. We survived the Cold War because we had allies. We built the modern world because other nations believed we were worth believing in.
He's making sure we'll be standing alone when it matters most. And when that day comes, I don't think he'll care. He'll be long gone, counting his money somewhere warm.
The rest of us will be left holding the bill.
