Editor's Note: Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a frequent CNN opinion contributor and columnist for the Washington Post and World Politics Review. Follow her on Twitter @fridaghitis. The opinions expressed in this comment are the author's own. Read more opinion at CNNe.com/opinion.
(CNN) - "The world is going to respect us again," Donald Trump promised in 2016 while campaigning for the presidency, "Trust me." The world, he said, is "laughing at us," but that will change "when he is president."
Now the world has had a chance to see the United States under President Trump, and the signs of respect are almost impossible to find.
In fact, evidence that America's enemies have lost respect for the world's only superpower is everywhere, and is becoming more troublesome with each passing day, raising the question of how safe it is. USA at this crucial moment in history.
Who's Afraid of the USA It turns out that those who fear the USA are its friends, concerned about Washington's reliability as an ally. As for the enemies and rivals, they are sending unequivocal signals that they now see Washington as a kitten that occasionally pretends to roar.
That's the predictable result of Trump's more than three years praising the world's worst dictators while mistreating some of America's closest allies.
Is it any wonder, then, that China and Russia are acting with blatant disregard for the United States? After years of listening to Trump defend Russian President Vladimir Putin, take his word for that of his own security experts, and ignore bipartisan warnings about the threat from Russia, it now appears that Putin's thugs have been organizing the death of American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Both Trump and Russia say the story is false, but various news organizations are increasingly publishing information. Such an operation might have been too risky for Moscow under any other US president. But somehow the Kremlin apparently did not expect a strong reaction - a risky gamble - but it appears that the possible drawback has not materialized.
Putin also chose this moment to hold a referendum that will allow him to remain President of Russia indefinitely (as Xi can now do), a measure so at odds with democracy that one can imagine any other US administration forcefully denouncing it. .
Beijing is trampling on the interests of the United States and its friends, as if Washington simply did not exist; as if the most powerful country in the world could be safely ignored.
China has decided to essentially ignore the commitment it made to the people of Hong Kong, to the United Kingdom, and to the rest of the world 23 years ago, when the United Kingdom transferred control of the territory to China under the promise that Beijing would maintain the system. Hong Kong, including many of its democratic freedoms, in place for 50 years.
On July 1, the anniversary of the handover, China made official its decision to crush democratic forces in Hong Kong, putting into effect a new far-reaching and vaguely worded security law.
The people of Hong Kong, in the millions, had protested last year against a much less draconian law, hoping to preserve their freedoms. China did not mind the US expressing support for its cause. He arrested hundreds of people the first day the law went into effect.
Regardless of U.S. tariffs or epithets related to the pandemic, Beijing knows Trump, and therefore sees the U.S. as a paper tiger.
That is why Beijing has been harassing US friends across Asia. Chinese military forces have crossed a disputed border with India, high in the Himalayas, pitting Indian military forces in the worst confrontation in years, which has left dozens dead.
Taiwan, which is self-governing but which China claims as its own territory, has been enduring strong intimidation attempts by Beijing. Taiwanese look to Hong Kong and fear for their own future, and China joins those fears with verbal assaults and military flights over Taiwanese airspace.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is simply not concerned with what Trump may do. The US President, with his weakness for dictators, has spent the past three years expressing admiration, respect and even envy for the Chinese leader who could remain in office for the rest of his life.
According to John Bolton, a former Trump national security adviser, Trump asked Xi to help him win the 2020 election. Trump denies it, but he publicly asked China to investigate Vice President Joe Biden, his Democratic rival. If Trump made other private requests from Xi, he gave China the means to influence American politics in exchange for his silence on that conversation.
Even North Korea's Kim Jong Un is stepping into the game, showing that everyone feels they can threaten the US and its allies without fear of the consequences. The bloodthirsty dictator who co-starred with Trump in one of this administration's cruelest foreign policy melodramas, topped with the exchange of "love letters," appears to be threatening the US with nuclear weapons. The North Korean state news agency has just said that "the only option left" is "to counter nuclear weapons with nuclear weapons."
Faced with the dim prospect of Trump's re-election, the European Union, in its gradual reopening after controlling the pandemic, was not afraid to take the reasonable, if not very courteous, step and ban Americans from entering.
And in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking for ways to overcome international condemnation and annex a part of the West Bank, fearing the door will be closed at the prospect of another Trump mandate in the White House.
Turkey has been launching airstrikes threatening Yazidi civilians in northern Iraq, according to US officials, and may be conducting an ethnic cleansing against Kurds in Syria. But you have nothing to fear from this administration.
While US allies worry about what is happening to the US, their enemies see more room for maneuver than in the past. They are also concerned that the US will have a new administration soon, and now is the time to act: take over Hong Kong, help drive the US out of Afghanistan. And meanwhile, Trump watches his chances for reelection decrease.
He is an explosive combination, an increasingly desperate president, who has shown that he is willing to do almost anything to win votes and a world where rivals are not afraid of the United States. Respect for the United States has clearly not improved. It is a dangerous time.