Two models of expansionism: China’s stealth vs. Trump’s overt militarismPhoto: Kiichiro Sato, Associated Press fileBy Brahma Chellaney, The HillOnce admired more than feared, the U.S. is now viewed as more interventionist and less trustworthy than its main rival, China, across much of the world, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey. The findings point to one of the most consequential shifts in global public opinion since Pew began tracking international attitudes more than two decades ago. For the first time, China is viewed more favorably than the U.S. in most of the countries surveyed. The result is less a triumph for Beijing than a sobering verdict on Washington.At first glance, the result appears counterintuitive. China continues to intimidate its neighbors, encroach on their lands and waters, use economic coercion abroad, incarcerate around one million Muslims in Xinjiang and pursue a systematic campaign to erase Tibetan identity.Yet China’s expansionism is typically advanced by stealth — and incrementally. For example, China has turned its contrived historical claims to the South China Sea into reality by incrementally redrawing the maritime borders and quietly militarizing this critical corridor, through which one-third of global maritime trade passes. Its stealthy land grabs in the Himalayas in 2020 triggered deadly clashes and a prolonged military standoff with India that has not yet been fully resolved. Beijing seldom advertises its coercion; it prefers to conceal or blur it.The Trump administration, in contrast, has made American expansionism explicit and unapologetic.From military interventions in Iran and Venezuela and trade wars to open talk of acquiring Greenland and reclaiming the Panama Canal, President Trump has embraced a language of power politics that previous administrations generally sought to cloak in the rhetoric of international order.The undisguised, in-your-face coercion has inflicted a heavier reputational cost on the U.S. than China’s stealthy, more gradual expansionism has imposed on Beijing. According to the Pew survey, a median of 75 percent of global respondents view the U.S. as highly interventionist, compared to 45 percent for China. Nothing better illustrates a collapse of America’s international brand than the finding that citizens even in Washington’s closest allies like Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Australia now view China more favorably than the U.S.America’s greatest asset was never simply its unmatched hard power. It was its soft power, the ability to attract rather than compel. It created a reservoir of international goodwill that multiplied American power. But that strategic advantage is now being depleted, as Trump pursues aggressive unilateralism marked by the takeover of Venezuela (turning it into what some see as a U.S. colony), the war on another energy-rich country, Iran, escalating trade coercion, and rhetoric that openly celebrates territorial expansion and the virtues of empire.George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq remains one of the most controversial decisions in modern American foreign policy. Yet even Bush spent months seeking UN Security Council authorization and assembling what became known as the “coalition of the willing.” He built his case around Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, claims that were later discredited.Bush manufactured legitimacy for a reason: he understood that legitimacy mattered very much because American leadership depended not only on naked power but also on persuading others that its use of power was justified.Trump, in contrast, increasingly treats legitimacy as unnecessary, as if legitimacy were an abstract moral luxury.In reality, legitimacy is a vital strategic resource that lowers the cost of diplomacy, strengthens alliances, attracts investment, encourages cooperation and gives other countries reasons to align voluntarily with American leadership. Once lost, it cannot be restored quickly through military deployments or larger defense budgets.Yet today, America faces its greatest strategic loss — the erosion of the legitimacy that transformed U.S. power into global leadership.Whether in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, the Strait of Hormuz or the Panama Canal, the Trump administration increasingly treats American power itself as sufficient justification for unilateral action. International law, allied opinion and multilateral institutions are no longer presented as sources of legitimacy but as constraints to be brushed aside.That marks a profound departure from the postwar U.S. tradition, in which successive administrations, even when acting controversially, generally sought to cloak the use of force in the language of international law, collective security or self-defense.Trump’s nostalgic praise for the age of empire and use of military force in seven countries since his return clearly underscore a worldview in which U.S. power itself confers legitimacy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s praise for the imperial expansion of earlier Western powers has further reinforced the administration’s conception of international politics rooted less in post-1945 rules than in 19th-century great-power competition.The cumulative impression abroad is that under Trump, Washington appears increasingly willing to substitute raw power for internationally accepted rules. This may help explain why America’s global standing has deteriorated.The latest Pew survey is an early warning that the world’s confidence in American leadership is eroding. Military superiority and economic strength remain formidable pillars of U.S. power. But America’s most enduring competitive advantage has always been something less tangible: the ability to persuade others that its leadership served purposes larger than itself.If that advantage continues to erode, no arsenal, however vast, will compensate for what has been lost. America can rebuild its credibility, but only by once again binding its extraordinary power to principles that others recognize as legitimate.Unless it reverses course, the world will increasingly regard American power as a problem to be managed rather than a leadership to be embraced. That would constitute a strategic defeat that no military victory in Iran, and no tactical success against a globally ascendant China, could ever reverse.Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.“