Exclusive | Mahathir Mohamad on Trump, tariffs – and the end of America’s century

Once the undisputed leader of the post-war order, the United States now appears to resent its own dominance, lashing out at allies and adversaries alike. Donald Trump’s chaotic second term in the White House has been emblematic of this change. His erratic policies – lopsided “reciprocal” tariffs, threats to annex Canada and Greenland, and a strange cocktail of isolationism and imperial ambition – have left even America’s closest partners reeling.

Meanwhile, efforts to erode the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency have only added to the sense of an American empire in retreat.

Few figures alive today have witnessed the rise and fall of empires like Mahathir Mohamad. Born in 1925, in the shadow of the first world war, Mahathir grew up in rural Kedah, a Malaysian state then under Siamese suzerainty. He has lived through Japanese occupation during World War II, the break-up of the British Empire, and the ascendancy of first America, then China.

Now, as he approaches his 100th birthday in July, the two-time prime minister of Malaysia sees a familiar pattern playing out.