The absence of the American president at the World Cup final in Qatar was not a scheduling glitch. It was a deliberate, almost contemptuous snub. Donald Trump, a man who turns everything into a ratings war, calculated that a football match — even one watched by a billion people — was not worth his time. Why? Because he understands, in his bone-headed, transactional way, that American soft power is no longer a thing we deploy; it is a thing we hoard.
To the Victorian imperialist, soft power was the civilising mission: cricket in India, tea in England, the spread of the English language as a tool of commerce and culture. Today, America still exports Hollywood, hip-hop, and iPhones. But the presidency no longer bothers to show up. This is not a question of personality: Barack Obama attended the opening of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. George W. Bush went to the 2006 final in Germany. Even the hapless Gerald Ford showed up to the 1975 World Series. The pattern is clear: presidents once understood that global sporting events are the modern equivalent of the imperial durbar. They are where you project power without firing a shot.
Trump’s absence is a symptom of a deeper rot: the belief that America has nothing to gain from the world, only something to lose. He sees international gatherings not as opportunities for influence but as stages for humiliation. His instinct is to look inwards, to tweet about the ‘greatness’ of America while refusing to engage with the institutions that once made it great. The World Cup is the ultimate symbol of globalisation: a tournament that unites nations in a shared, if temporary, madness. To skip it is to say, ‘I do not need your validation. I am already great.’ But greatness, as any student of history knows, requires constant maintenance. The British Empire learned this the hard way. After the Second World War, it could no longer afford its global role. It retreated, first from India, then from Africa, finally from Hong Kong. The retreat was dignified in some places, chaotic in others. But the message was the same: soft power is not a birthright. It must be exercised or it atrophies.
There is an intellectual decadence here: a failure to understand that influence is not a zero-sum game. To attend the World Cup is not to ‘give’ Qatar legitimacy; it is to remind the world that the United States remains a player. Instead, we get a president who derides the idea of ‘globalism’ and champions ‘sovereignty’. But sovereignty without engagement is just isolation. The Romans understood that their power lay not only in legions but in the spread of Roman law, language, and baths. When they stopped caring about the provinces, the provinces stopped caring about Rome.
You might argue that Trump is merely following his base, which sees international entanglements as a drain. But a leader should lead, not follow the crowd to the exits. The decision to skip the World Cup is a small thing, yes. But small things accumulate. A decade from now, when American diplomats plead for cooperation on trade or climate, they will find that the personal relationships that smooth such negotiations have not been cultivated. The American president could not be bothered to show up for football. Why would anyone show up for America?
This is not about Trump alone. It is about a nation losing the appetite for the choreography of power. Soft power is tedious. It requires shaking hands, smiling for photos, enduring bad food and worse speeches. But it works. The British knew that a royal visit to a colony could quell a rebellion. The Americans knew that a president tossing out the first pitch could make baseball seem like the national pastime of the free world. Now, we have a leader who cannot even be bothered to watch a game. He is busy, he says. But so were Caesar, Churchill, and Lincoln. They still found time to appear before the tribes. Because they knew that presence is power. Absence is irrelevance.
