United States soft power has declined with Donald Trump as president, believes Forum Funds II, a U.S. investment trust.

What is soft power? The ability of a country to influence others without using force or coercion, but through attraction, persuasion and example.

Forum Funds II highlights this transition in recent months: from the United States being the benchmark for soft power and democracy around the world to a model of “America First, Last and Only.”

In this new model, he added, decisions are reduced to a transactional cost-benefit analysis. 

United States soft power

Forum Funds II operates as an open-end investment management company and is domiciled in Delaware. 

Secondary Fact: Delaware has one of the most developed and flexible corporate laws in the United States and its Court of Chancery specializes in corporate law and resolves disputes quickly without a jury.

What is an open-end investment management company? A type of investment fund that allows shares to be bought and sold at any time, unlike closed-end funds, has no fixed number of shares outstanding, and its value is based on daily NAV, among other features.

For Forum Funds, it is unclear whether the United States has any economic allies left. However, it is uncertain environments like the current one that offer opportunities the likes of which have not been seen in years. 

From their perspective, it is perhaps appropriate to blame the Trump administration for rapid market declines, but the reality is more subtle. 

Recent pronouncements may have been just the spark, while elevated valuations and market concentration were the fuel. Forum Funds II believes that the backdrop for an uninterrupted market rise was not favorable. Markets have fallen suddenly in the past for completely different reasons than today, so the fund cannot entirely blame tariffs or geopolitics. Rather, it is simply that investors hate uncertainty, as the saying goes.