America’s global dominance is waning under Trump

It’s whispered in NATO meeting rooms and celebrated in China’s halls of power. It’s lamented in the capital cities of key U.S. allies and welcomed in the Kremlin.

Three years into Donald Trump’s presidency, America’s global influence is waning. In interviews with The Associated Press, diplomats, foreign officials and scholars from numerous countries describe a changing world order in which the United States has less of a central role.

And in many ways, that’s just fine with the White House. Trump campaigned on an ‘‘America First’’ foreign policy and says a strong United States will mean a stronger world.

“The future doesn’t belong to globalists,” Trump told the U.N. General Assembly in September. “The future belongs to patriots.”

Trump insists he’s abandoning globalism for bilateral ties more beneficial to the U.S.. But there’s little sign of that. Instead, once-close allies — France, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mexico, Turkey, Germany and more — have quietly edged away from Washington over the past three years. Sometimes it’s not so quiet. In a Buckingham Palace reception room during the recent NATO summit, a TV camera caught a cluster of European leaders grinning as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to mock Trump.

“You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor,” Trudeau said, apparently speaking about his meeting with Trump, talking to a group that included the leaders of France, Britain and the Netherlands.

Trudeau quickly tried to walk back his words, telling reporters that he and Trump have a “good and constructive relationship.” But the footage brought into the open the increasing divide between the United States and its allies.

This is a major change. For generations, America saw itself as the center of the world. For better or worse, most of the rest of the world has regarded the U.S. as its colossus — respecting it, fearing it, turning to it for answers.