Anyone who believes "turnabout is fair play" should probably refrain from criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign policy.

After all, it could be argued Trump's "isolationist", "protectionist", "America First" agenda, is basically his way of turning the tables on global anti-Americanism, allowing him to treat the rest of the world, the way the rest of the world has always treated America.

And yes, global anti-Americanism, in one form or another, has been a world-wide phenomenon for the past 70 years.

Throughout that time, intellectuals, politicians and journalists routinely castigated, denounced and openly derided the United States as a malevolent force, a force that needed to be strenuously resisted lest the entire planet suffer the horrific fate of "Americanization".

Nor was it difficult for anti-American theorists to identity America's allegedly pernicious influence; they saw it everywhere.

If you drank Coca Cola, that made you a victim of American economic domination; if you enjoyed Hollywood movies, that made you a stooge of American cultural imperialism, if you were protected by the US military, that made you a vassal of American militarism.

Even in Canada, America's closest friend and ally, politicians were more than happy to jump on the anti-American bandwagon.

As a matter of fact, from the 1960s onwards, our leaders, egged on by left-wing intellectuals, enacted regulations to keep American investment out of Canada; they cozied up to America's enemies, such as Fidel Castro; and they enacted laws to try and force feed Canadian cultural content.

And for a long time conventional political wisdom in this country held that freer trade with the United States should be shunned, since it was feared economic integration would turn Canada into a subservient American colony.

In fact, when the NAFTA deal was negotiated with the US in the late 1980s, both the Liberals and New Democrats vehemently opposed it; the Liberal leader back then, John Turner, even called his opposition to liberalized trade with the USA, the "fight of his life."

Of course, one big reason anti-Americanism was such a prevalent ideology in Canada and elsewhere, is that riling up nationalistic and tribal feelings against foreigners has always been good politics.

It's the old political game of "Us" vs. "Them".

What's different now is that Americans currently have a president in Trump who is more than willing to play that game himself.

But since he obviously can't push anti-Americanism, he's pushing what might be called "anti-worldism."

To put it simply, Trump is preaching that for far too long American leaders have, through their military, trade and economic policies, put the interests of foreigners ahead of the interest of Americans.

It's a message that resonates in America, for the same tribalistic reasons anti-Americanism resonates.

Indeed, the two tribalisms are likely connected.

Maybe Americans warmed up to Trump's chest-beating pro-Americanism because they were getting fed up with the rest of the world's incessant chest-beating anti-Americanism.

It's easy to see why this might be the case.

America had saved Europe in two world wars, it had rebuilt its one-time enemies into prosperous democracies, it had shielded the West for decades from Soviet aggression and all it got in return, was a seemingly ungrateful world's scorn.

So no wonder, many Americans are ready to say, "To heck with the world."

Mind you, Trump's nationalistic stance has only generated more anti-Americanism, though, interestingly, it has now morphed into a new type.

Whereas once America was denounced for intervening too much around the world, now it's denounced for not intervening enough; whereas once America was derided for its supposedly paranoid fear of communism, now its criticized for reaching out to North Korea; whereas once America's push for globalization was seen as a conduit for capitalistic domination, now its protectionist stance is viewed as undermining global prosperity.

So I guess America just can't win.

And sadly, that means the rest of the world just might lose.

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney, Loonie Politics