Bulgaria’s government has announced plans to join the eurozone early next year. This is a contentious decision, as many Bulgarians do not want to abandon their currency, the lev, in favor of control of their economy to Brussels-based bureaucrats. Polling shows that at least half would vote against; protestors have drawn international media attention and are demanding a nationwide referendum on the matter. The government, clearly fearing a loss, has so far refused to consider one. To solve the crisis and protect Bulgaria’s independence, the populist-right Revival party has suggested that America use its diplomatic influence in Sofia to urge the government to halt the move to the euro and instead to fix the lev’s exchange rate to the U.S. dollar. In doing so, Bulgaria would keep its currency board and its central bank’s independence, which it now enjoys.

It would be easy for America to do this; our diplomatic influence in southeastern Europe is strong. The question is not whether the U.S. could do it, but why it would bother to flex its muscle, particularly at a time when it is preparing to draw down its military in Europe and focus on Asia within the confines of a new multipolar order.

But there are reasons why the Trump administration should consider taking up Revival’s proposal—and the genesis for those reasons lies in America’s own history in dealing with multipolarity.

Before the First World War, when America was seeking to increase its influence without resorting to constant military force in the then-multipolar world, President William Taft aggressively pursued a strategy known as dollar diplomacy. In his own words, dollar diplomacy substituted “money for bullets.” Using America’s economic might, Taft desired to selectively strike deals with other countries, offering various types of economic aid or relationships, in exchange for benefits to the United States.

As America belatedly reorients itself away from bipolar ways of thinking, it should consider taking Taft’s approach. And, for several reasons, Bulgaria is a good place to start.

The first is influence. The American New Right has grown increasingly, and correctly, skeptical of America’s participation in Cold War–era military blocs like NATO, which focus on the wrong side of the globe and are full of members not willing to pull their own weight. But a multipolar world will be constantly in flux. It would behoove the United States to find a way to keep some form of influence in an area like southeastern Europe, even while it reduces its military footprint there. The shift to Asia is critical, but the United States should not abandon attempts to gain influence elsewhere if it can come easily and cheaply, with few strings attached—as by dollar diplomacy. Allowing Bulgaria to anchor the dollar to the lev and thereby blocking the expansion of the eurozone to Bulgaria would not injure the United States economically in any way; America would not be tied down in some sort of complex trade agreement, nor would it require further action from Washington. But it would grant America significant influence over Bulgaria’s foreign policy, a useful chit in a key region.

It would also be injurious to Brussels’s influence, the second reason the Trump administration should consider the move. Once Bulgaria enters the eurozone, the European Union will dramatically increase its influence over Sofia (it is no coincidence that Poland, one of the EU’s most independent—and economically successful—members, is not in the eurozone and has no real plans to join). Adding Bulgaria to the eurozone is a major goal for the EU establishment.

The Trump administration is clearly not interested in dealing with EU-level officials, instead preferring to deal with national leaders. By this time in Trump’s first term, he had already participated in a U.S.-EU summit with Jean Claude Juncker, then the president of the European Commission. This time around, there is no U.S.-EU summit on the horizon.

This reorientation is based on the national interest: it would not be beneficial for America if the European Union were, as a bloc, able to unify enough to challenge the United States. But while making it clear that the administration views EU-level officials as less significant than national-level officials is a start, it will not actually weaken their influence within the bloc. Blocking the expansion of the euro, however, would underscore Brussels’ weakness, give fuel to their internal opponents, and underscore how much more influential the United States is in Europe than the Union itself.

It would also, as a third reason, potentially ease tensions with Russia. It is no secret that efforts to end the Russo–Ukrainian War are not proceeding smoothly, due to intransigence on both sides. While Trump may need to consider walking away from peace efforts entirely, the United States should not walk away from attempting to repair relations with Russia. (If there will be three poles in multipolarity—American, Russian, and Chinese—it does not help the United States to be at permanent odds with both the others.) And, ironically, linking the dollar to the lev could help with that. Brussels is transparently not interested in cooling down relations with Russia. In late May, the bloc passed its 17th package of sanctions on Russia and already is preparing the 18th. Aggressively expanding the eurozone to Bulgaria, historically close to Russia’s orbit, is sure to make it even harder to bring relations to any sense of normalcy. But if America blocks the euro expansion—while at the same time drawing down its own troops in the region—it can help Trump to seem conciliatory toward Moscow without being weak.

Finally, by acting, the Trump administration could indirectly give aid to the Bulgarian populist-right Revival party at a time where the American right is increasingly seeking to form ties with nationalists in Europe. Revival, cognizant of Bulgaria’s delicate geographic positioning, would probably prefer Bulgaria be a bridge instead of a battleground. It would be in America’s interests for a party with those intentions to be in charge of a NATO border state, instead of one interested in following Brussels’ dictates.

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Taft’s dollar diplomacy did not naturally fade away. It was actively killed off by his successor, Woodrow Wilson. Wilson replaced it with what historians today describe as “moral diplomacy,” his desire to only make deals with nations which thought like America and, by extension, to create more nations which think like America via the creation of organizations like the League of Nations. That disastrous shift paved the way for the institutionalization of democracy-promotion in American foreign policy and the post–Cold War neoconservatism that is only now being wound down.

But as America slowly closes the book on Wilsonianism, it will need to find ways to maintain levels of influence around the world in the multipolar era without needing to maintain a hard-power presence everywhere. A return to the older ways could start in Bulgaria.