He’s going to take over Gaza and oust the Palestinians, sending them to Jordan and Egypt, so that he can build a Middle Eastern “Riviera.” He’s going to wrest Greenland from Denmark and annex it. He’s going to give America back the Panama Canal. He’s going to turn Canada into the 51st state and he’s going to trade rare earth minerals from Ukraine in exchange for US support against Russia.
If we take US President Donald Trump’s outrageous proclamations seriously, what we see is America’s sudden transformation from the world’s ambassador for liberal democracy to an imperialist power determined to have its way over others and to “make America great again.”
Trump appears prepared to seize control of the American state, to force all the branches of power into submission, toss democratic institutions into the fire, turn his back on an America of reconciliation and unity, and replace it with an America driven by transactional relationships and self-interest.
It is too soon to say whether these threats are part of a long-term strategy or whether they are designed to strengthen Trump’s bargaining position vis-a-vis his domestic and international rivals by exaggerating his intentions.
If he does go through with everything he’s promised – such as deporting 15 million migrants from the country or slapping Chinese imports with huge tariffs – not only will American companies find themselves short of hands, but the price of every Chinese product sold in America will go up, making the economically vulnerable citizens who voted for him even poorer.
And if he goes through with harebrained schemes like evicting Palestinians from their homes to create a new Atlantic City in Gaza, all he will accomplish is to turn the entire Middle East and the Western world (with the exception of Israel) against him and to undermine the United States’ international standing.
This is why there are those who are less pessimistic about Trump’s second presidency. They believe that the new president fits the bill for what the US ambassador to Athens in the 1980s, Monty Stearns, used to say about Andreas Papandreou: “Don’t listen to what he says; look at what he does,” he advised the State Department.