Trump and a world order at breaking point as old rules begin to fail

Hopefully, President Donald Trump knows what he is up to, with a clear exit plan for the global community. For, it is difficult to tell if the American President is fully in control. Control of himself and control of the situations he is creating, at home and away. 

At one level, he echoes the James Monroe years (1817-1825). Yet, does he lack the Monroe simplicity and certitude? At another level, he swings back to the Cold War Years (1947-1991), but without the diplomatic glue that held together the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Finally, he invites the global community to reflect on the sobriety and influence of President Woodrow Wilson in the age of World War I (1914-1918). 

Is President Trump a bull in a delicate global China shop? In critical moments, he can be decidedly reckless, clumsy and unrepentantly so. His rhetoric is aggressive, both in legacy media and in social media. He sends shockwaves among adversaries, and risks eroding trust among allies. His register is permanently combative; his tone blustery against friend and foe, alike. Even traditionally sacrosanct entities like the Papacy have come up for beating and humiliation. 

This is how Trump is making America great again. His “America Great Again” doctrine quickly morphs into a gusty “America Alone” policy. Nobody else matters. Not allies, not the global community of nations, not the multilateral ethical and moral pillars; nothing. The 47th President of the United States of America, valorises everything towards “making America great,” and great alone.

In his first term, he took on Chancellor Angela Markel, openly criticising Germany’s military spending and energy policies. Canada under Justin Trudeau came under verbal assault over trade negotiations. In more recent times, Trump has gone into strange space. He has taken on Pope Leo XIV, because the Pope has cautioned against his drastic immigration policies, and on the joint attack with Israel against Iran. The Church is especially concerned about the loss of civilian lives in Iran.

There is no holy ground, or anything sacrosanct, in the Trump doctrine. He has described Pope Leo as “too liberal,” and as “terrible on foreign policy . . . too weak on crime.” But Trump’s circulation in social media of an image of himself looking like Jesus Christ has especially offended the Church.  The AI generated image gives the optic that the President and Christ are equals. The Pope is their junior. He then styles his attacks against the Pope as “personal differences” that have nothing to do with the Church. 

Rome, however, sees this assault against the Pontifex Maximus as scorn against Christ. The Pope occupies the seat of St Peter, which is symbolically the seat of Christ. It is in this capacity that Pope Leo has questioned the moral underpinnings of the war in Iran. The Pope is apprehensive about President Trump’s remarks that he is going to annihilate the whole Iranian population, and that “the whole civilisation will die, never to be brought back again.”

Uncharacteristically, Trump this week caved in to Christian pressure against his remarks. He deleted the offending social media post. He, however, went on to casually refer to the Pope as “a great guy” with whom he has “no beef.” 

Neo-imperial fantasy

The question may be asked, can any one individual be so scornful? Can he, or even any one nation in the global community today, subdue the rest of the world? Can Trump make America great by putting the rest of the world under his thumb? The short answer is a plain no. The thought is absurd. At its very best, it amounts to little more than neo-imperial fantasy.  It would be expected that President Trump would know this? 

But if not, it would still not be too much to expect the notables around him in the White House to know. But beyond knowledge, would they find the wisdom and courage to advise the most powerful office bearer in the world that he could be taking their country, and the world with it, down the cliff? 

For what are the facts? President Trump’s “Great Again Doctrine” is an aggressive policy. Encapsulated in it are self-immolation possibilities. While sober Americans wonder where it will leave their country, every nation must also wonder what Trump means for the global community, and for individual nations. Changed global realities in the post-World War II universe make Trump’s maximalist dreams quixotic and destructive all-around. 

Yes, he has so far contested in the secular world with a minimum of hiccups. Yet, it remains a landscape riddled with challenges and even impossibilities. Trade contestations against China, Europe and Canada may work, provided there is a clear strategic agenda. His tariffs and trade wars may seek reshoring of industry to restore American domestic manufacturing and its advantages.

Yet, do they also come with the risk of tying his global adversaries together? An economic war against everyone will ultimately end up in weak, if not collapsed, supply chains. Financial systems are also likely to become weak, followed by domestic instability within the US itself. Already, the tiff with Iran is revealing the soft underbelly. 

The situation in the Strait of Hormuz shows that even seemingly “small” and “weak” states can exploit strategic advantages. With broader backing, they can frustrate larger powers often cast as global bullies. In such a balance, the rest of the world can isolate the bully and continue with global affairs.

To stem this possibility, Trump has attempted to arm-twist his NATO allies, whom in different times he ridicules, and even bullies. He has recently cast snide remarks at the British Prime Minister, when he said last month that Keir Starmer is “no Churchill.” He was basically expressing his frustration and disappointment that the UK refused to be enjoined in the strikes against Iran. But it was not just that, the UK denied the United States use of its military bases, for use to launch the initial attacks against Iran.  

Terrible dilemma

Elsewhere, in the American hemisphere, when in January Trump’s men invaded Venezuela and captured President Nicholas Maduro, Europe’s response was less than enthusiastic. It was divided, cautious, and even muted. The European Union, according to The Guardian, on January 7, did not wish to “embarrass an ally” and, accordingly, EU executives kept quiet about the whole affair. The caution was essentially a factor of Europe being perched on the horns of a terrible dilemma. 

Here was the US entering a sovereign state and capturing its elected leader, setting aside the legitimacy of the vote. Yet at the same time, the EU has spent years condemning Russia for similar actions in Ukraine. How then does Europe denounce Russian conduct while remaining silent on the US–Venezuela episode?

In this case, strategic silence appears the preferred option—one that has not gone down well with President Trump.

The EU remains in a quandary over Trump’s actions in Cuba, Nigeria and Colombia, with uncertainty over who may be next. A powerful ally is testing the limits of international law. What should Europe do, support, condemn, or stay silent? Should it act in line with NATO obligations or watch from the sidelines? This dilemma, in itself, weakens America’s position.

The weakness is compounded by nuclear deterrence. Since the 1950s, the spread of nuclear weapons has acted as a brake on full-scale war, based on the logic of mutually assured destruction. China and Russia, both adversarial to the United States, possess such capabilities. In this reality, any total war involving nuclear arms would deliver no victor—only the destruction of the world as we know it.

But if Trump is trying to make America great again, how does he compare with James Monroe and Woodrow Wilson, two great American statesmen in historic global moments? Monroe is remembered for the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. This doctrine, like Trump’s, was about making America great.

He focused on securing the Americas from European incursions and control, especially in trade and colonial influence.
He was not about raiding, conquering, or dominating other peoples. Apart from hemispheric control and exclusion of Europeans, he exercised restraint everywhere else. 

Echoes of 1939

For his part, Wilson is remembered for bringing the world together under a framework of global peace after World War I. Despite another subsequent six years of war (1939-1945), the world owes much of the peace it enjoys under today’s international system to Woodrow Wilson.

While the United States Congress rejected the League of Nations, the new system owed its birth to this great American intellectual and statesman. Later, the UN was born in 1946, in the footsteps of Wilson’s League of Nations. 

It was a great pity that the League of Nations had gone into paralysis after the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Its primary political and peacekeeping functions all but collapsed in the period 1939-1945. However, some of its technical arms survived on a limited scale. They passed the baton to the UN in 1946. Does the UN today face the same risks the League did in the period leading to the tragic happenings of 1939-1945? 

How did the powerful behave before the outbreak of World War II, and how do we mirror those happenings? There are recognizable echoes, despite different structural conditions. States that were unhappy with the global order after the First World War began challenging the order. Germany began militarizing her presence on the global stage. Japan tested her military muscles against China (1937-1945). Italy invaded Ethiopia (1935-1936). 

It was as if they wanted to see how the rest of the world would respond. Do we see the United States, Israel and Russia testing the established global order today? Are they testing the world to see how it will respond? Does the world have cause to worry that these militaristic adventures could blossom into a full-scale global confrontation in the times ahead?

Then there was the policy of appeasement. The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was the chief architect of this policy. Basically, Britain (and France, for that matter), were keen to avoid another war, after World War I. Accordingly, they strived to appease Adolf Hitler by recognizing Germany’s rearming, and acquisition of more territory in Europe.

Yet, this policy was a big flop. The die was cast when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. Is the global community today appeasing the United States, Russia and Israel in the same manner? The euphemism of “risk management under unclear nuclear conditions” has often been used. Yet, you cannot help recognizing in this the same kind of passivity that Britain and France embraced in the 1930s. 

Moreover, as was the case in the lead up to World War II, multilateral enforcement of UN resolutions is weak today. Like the League of Nations in the pre-1939 season, the UN can only lament and call for restraint, when the powerful stomp the ground.

There is selective and uneven enforcement of global rules. Is this a recipe for disaster in the seasons ahead? In the unfolding new order are Africans pawns, once again?