How a single sentence from Angela Merkel showed what Trump means to the world

Washington (CNN) On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel uttered a single sentence that speaks to how fundamentally President Donald Trump has reshaped -- and will continue to reshape -- the world, and America's place in it.

"The times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over," Merkel said at a beer hall(!) rally to support her campaign.

While Merkel made no mention of Trump specifically, she made clear that her realization had come "in the last few days" -- a time period which overlapped with a G7 meeting in which Trump blasted America's traditional European allies over NATO obligations and made clear that he was more than willing to go it alone on climate change and trade.

What Trump's words -- and Merkel's reaction -- reveal is something that sharp foreign policy minds have known since the start of Trump's campaign: His true potential for drastic change exists in the foreign policy sphere.

Trump's ubiquitous "Make America Great Again" slogan was interpreted by many of his followers as the idea that we would make America great again by slaying political correctness, by bringing back jobs, by keeping undocumented workers from entering our country, from showing the mainstream media who's boss. It was re-making our daily life right here in the good, old U-S-of-A that people were focused on.

But "Make America Great Again," from the inception of Trump's campaign, always had at least one foot in not only re-imagining America's role in the world community but in reshaping the world community entirely.

Go back and read Trump's announcement speech in June 2015. The first half of it is larded with talk of foreign policy -- all built around the idea that foreign countries are playing the US for the fool.
A few examples:

"When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time."

"When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity."

"The US has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems."

Then there is this simple fact: It is far easier for an empowered chief executive to have major influence over American foreign policy than over domestic policy.

Virtually everything a president can do on the domestic policy front is circumscribed by the Congress. Trump's struggles to quickly pass health care reform or secure funding for his much-promised border wall are just two examples of how difficult it is to affect full-scale change in the domestic sphere.