'Vaporizing': Columnist argues America's greatness is disappearing under Trump

President Donald Trump's actions of the past six weeks have positioned him to forfeit "what could have been the next great American century," argued columnist Catherine Rampell in a new Washington Post opinion piece.

Rampell proffered that three simple steps were all Trump needed to position America "to lose the 21st century," despite his obsession with what he perceives as all that "winning."

The first step in the "losing" strategy, according to Rampell is: "Alienate your friends."

This was on full display last Friday when Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance appeared to ambush Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a once-faithful friend of the United States, by demanding he be more "grateful" for American help with the effort to keep dictator Vladimir Putin from overtaking his country.

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Then, there's border allies Canada and Mexico, that were slapped with 25% tariffs on Tuesday for doing business with the United States. Trump has also destroyed much of the goodwill cultivated overseas through foreign aid programs like USAID, and even some of his allies at home have turned against him for gutting entire government agencies and firing tens of thousands of federal workers.

"All that soft power the United States accumulated over the past century is vaporizing," Rampell wrote. "This means no friends to support us against our adversaries, whether rogue nations or terrorist groups. Ticking off our allies also means ticking off some of our best customers, who will turn to economic competitors. In some cases, these customers are outright boycotting U.S. products."

Step two is "Destroy your business environment."

"Businesses are finding it impossible to write contracts because prices and rules fluctuate with the trade whims of the president. Manufacturers report that tariff uncertainty has already caused spot commodity prices to rise about 20 percent. It is no wonder, then, that business investment and new orders have stalled or outright declined," she wrote.

And the final step that Trump is currently working on is: "Slaughter your golden goose (i.e., science and research)."

Trump has spent the past six weeks "gutting our scientific and research infrastructure," Rampell wrote. This includes upending The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Weather ServiceNational Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the list goes on.

Rampell quotes Petra Moser, an economic historian, as saying, “If these types of policies continue, the U.S. will lose its role as a leader in science. Science overall will lose — the U.S. more so than the rest of the world, because people will stop coming here and go elsewhere.”

As Trump addresses the joint session of Congress Tuesday night, he will have the opportunity to explain his first weeks of actions directly to the American people.

Read The Washington Post opinion piece here.