When Muslim hijackers crashed planes into World Trade Centre towers, on September 11, 2001, Americans wondered: Why do they hate us? This tragic incident didn’t elicit unequivocal condemnation outside the United States. French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique’s editor wrote, “What’s happening to [Americans] is too bad but they had it coming.” Argentina’s human rights activist Hebe de Bonafini admitted: “When the attack happened, I felt happiness.” Chilean novelist Ariel Dorfman reminded that also on September 11, in 1973, his country’s government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a US-sponsored coup.

These contrarian voices sprang from the awareness that behind the mask of liberalism, the American State conformed to the stereotype of the “ugly American,” wantonly imposing its will on nation-states. But President Donald Trump has gone a step further—he has ripped off that mask and revels in making the US appear uglier, and scarier, than before—and providing new reasons to the world to hate his country.