US President Donald Trump has toppled Venezuela’s leader, vowed to control its vast oil reserves and threatened other Latin American countries with similar military action. He has talked openly about annexing Greenland, even by force. And, beyond the western hemisphere, he has warned Iran that the US could strike it again.
Ushering in the new year with a flurry of aggressive moves and fiery rhetoric just days before the first anniversary of his inauguration, Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the rules-based global order that the US helped build from the ashes of World War II.
That has left much of the world reeling, with friends and foes alike struggling to adjust to seemingly altered geopolitical realities. Many are uncertain of what Trump would do next and whether the latest changes would be long-lasting or could be undone by a more traditional future US president.
Illustration: Mountain People
“Everyone expected Trump to return to office with bluster,” said Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser in the administration of former US president Barack Obama and now head of the Global Situation Room consultancy. “But this bulldozing of the pillars that have long undergirded international stability and security is taking place at an alarming and disruptive pace.”
SPHERES OF INFLUENCE
While much is still unclear, Trump in a matter of months has demonstrated a taste for exercising raw US power, as he did with the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites in June last year and the Jan. 3 attack on Venezuela.
He has signaled that he might intervene again, especially in the western hemisphere, where he has vowed to restore US dominance, despite having campaigned on an “America First” agenda of avoiding new military entanglements.
This assessment of Trump’s shake-up of the global system draws on interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials, foreign diplomats and independent analysts in Washington and capitals around the world.
On the global stage, Trump is resuscitating what much of the international community had long spurned as an outdated worldview — spheres of influence carved out by the big powers.
The inspiration is the 19th century Monroe Doctrine that prioritized US supremacy in the western hemisphere and which Trump has embraced and reworked into the “Donroe Doctrine.”
Experts said that while the revival of this playbook might have unnerved some US allies, it could also serve the interests of Russia, locked in a war in Ukraine, and China, which has long had its sights set on Taiwan.
Following the US attack on Venezuela — and Trump’s transparent play for the OPEC state’s vital resources — some of the US’ staunchest allies have shown increasing concern about the undoing of the world order.
At stake is an international system that has taken shape over the past eight decades largely under US primacy and although subject to occasional reversals had helped stave off worldwide conflict. It has come to be based on free trade, rule of law and respect for territorial integrity.
A White House official said the policies Trump is pursuing, including heavy focus on the Americas, the display of military might, a border crackdown and sweeping use of tariffs, were what he was elected to do and “we are seeing world leaders respond accordingly.”
Influential White House adviser Stephen Miller appeared to summarize the administration’s worldview when he told CNN on Jan. 5: “We live in a world, in the real world ... that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”
Europeans, already shaken by doubts about Trump’s willingness to defend Ukraine against Russia, have spoken out more openly in recent days, especially over his fixation with Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, a fellow NATO member.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week accused the US of a “breakdown of values” and urged the world not to let the international order disintegrate into a “den of robbers.”
Trump said the US needs to own Greenland to prevent Russia or China from occupying it, although Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that a US move to take Greenland would mean the end of the transatlantic alliance.
Amid the growing unease, some European leaders have suggested NATO should deploy forces in the Arctic to address US security concerns.
SAFEGUARDING INTERESTS
Even before the latest developments, some US allies had begun taking steps to safeguard against Trump’s sometimes erratic policies, including growing European efforts to boost its defense industry.
Trump also has stirred anxiety among Washington’s Asian partners.
Itsunori Onodera, an influential Japanese ruling party lawmaker and former Japanese minister of defense, wrote on X that the US operation in Venezuela was a clear example of “changing the status quo by force.”
Trump’s berating of European allies and seeming tilt toward Russia last spring prompted a contingent of senior Japanese lawmakers to consider that the only nation to have been attacked with atomic bombs might have to develop one of its own.
In South Korea, Rebuilding Korea Party lawmaker Kim Joon-hyung said Trump’s actions in Venezuela “opens a Pandora’s box where the strong can use force against the weak.”
In contrast, former Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said he did not see Trump’s Venezuela action as an “earth-shattering development” for the world order, although he questioned whether the US’ increased focus on the Western Hemisphere was a message that “Europe, you’re on your own.”
Most friendly governments have had a largely muted response on Venezuela, reluctant to antagonize the US president.
“Publicly scolding Trump is not going to help achieve our aims,” a British official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Leftist-governed Mexico was quick to criticize the US ouster of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian socialist former leader, but with so much at stake in relations with its northern neighbor, a senior Mexican official said it “will not go beyond publicly condemning the use of force.”
Trump, who has threatened unilateral military action targeting drug cartels inside Mexico and Colombia, told the New York Times in an interview last week that his authority as commander-in-chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” not by international law.
NEW IMPERIALISM?
While critics accuse Trump of a new imperialism in Latin America, his defenders say it is long overdue, especially given China’s economic and diplomatic inroads in the region.
The White House official said Trump was “rightfully restoring American influence,” especially by taking out Maduro, who he had accused of “poisoning” Americans with a flow of illegal drugs and sending Venezuelan migrants to the US.
“While the administration’s actions in Venezuela have shocked the world and sent a strong message to US rivals in Beijing, Moscow, Havana and Tehran, they are likely only the starting point for a longer-term and more comprehensive reappraisal of US core interests in the hemisphere,” Alexander Gray, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former foreign policy adviser in Trump’s first term, wrote on the think tank’s Web site.
US RISKS
Key regional players such as Brazil could be pushed even closer to China as they hedge their bets against Trump’s pressure, some analysts said.
Most unsettling for US allies has been Trump’s focus on Venezuela’s oil as a driving force behind the removal of Maduro. Washington has left the deposed president’s loyalists in power for now, while strong-arming them to grant US companies privileged access.
Experts warn that use of US power without any reference to international norms could embolden China and Russia to intensify coercive moves against their own neighbors.
The White House official countered that, saying the US’ adversaries had “undoubtedly taken note of the president’s strength.”
Fudan University international affairs expert Zhao Minghao (趙明昊) said the US had “hyped up the notion of a ‘China threat’ in Latin America.” Soon after taking office, Trump spoke of taking back the Panama Canal and pressed the Panamanian government to reconsider Chinese-run facilities near the strategic waterway.
Zhao also said Trump appeared supportive of major powers’ spheres of influence, an approach that many believe carries appeal for Beijing.
The prevailing view in Russia is that the US attack on Venezuela, including taking Maduro to New York to face “narco-trafficking” charges, was a pure power play.
“That Trump just ‘stole’ the president of another country shows that there is basically no international law — there is only the law of force,” former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov said. “But Russia has known that for a long time.”
Trump’s appetite for further foreign military action might continue for targets well beyond the western hemisphere.
Even amid the fallout over Venezuela, he has threatened to intervene on behalf of protesters in Iran, where Muslim clerical rulers are facing one of the stiffest challenges to their control since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Trump on Sunday told reporters on Air Force One he was weighing possible responses, including military options.
“We may have to act because of what is happening,” he said.
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