Pete Buttigieg Warns Trump’s Presidency Has Weakened America’s Global Standing

Pete Buttigieg, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, has accused Donald Trump’s presidency of severely damaging America’s standing on the global stage.

Buttigieg made these remarks during an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. CBS aired a clip of Buttigieg as a freshman at Harvard University, where he questioned a panel about whether the 9/11 terrorist attacks would alter America’s perception of its role in the world.

Colbert then posed the same question to Buttigieg: How does he view America’s role in the world today?

“Diminished, sadly. When I was a student, it was just understood that the U.S. was the leading nation in the world—not just the biggest, not just the richest, not just the most powerful, but the country that people look to because of our values as well as our strength.”

He further emphasized the decline in global trust toward the U.S. under Trump’s leadership.

“And now under Donald Trump, there are by some measures more people around the world who trust China to do the right thing than the United States.”

Buttigieg stressed that this erosion of trust should concern all Americans, regardless of political affiliation.

“That should bother every patriotic American because the reality is when people do not trust the United States, that affects us. You don’t have to be a foreign policy buff to be concerned about that or to be affected by that. That affects everything from our security as a country to the prices we pay at the store.”

He also warned that restoring America’s credibility and trust will require significant effort and time.

“It will take a generation to establish the credibility and trust that the U.S. had, it almost seemed by right back when I was a student showing up for freshman year.”