The posture of the fortified self

“This is how this worldview works in real life: you end up alone, without real friends. At the level of a country, you end up surrounded by people who don’t trust you or your promises. They only listen to you so they can maneuver around you, because they assume your words are unreliable. And when you finally need others, the world has already seen the emptiness underneath the posture. That is what ‘me-first’ individualism ultimately buys the United States.”

The core of your message was trust as stored relational capital. A person or country can keep maximizing immediate advantage, but if every promise is conditional on convenience, everyone else eventually adapts by withholding trust.