There's Method Behind Trump Madness But He's Set Up China For Wins

Latest stories

Japan's hypersonic arsenal getting up to speed Why Trump and Ishiba aren't 'bromance' material

US tried 'America First' tariffs in 1930s – guess what happened next?

Collaboration in forums and institutions is being dumped, unceremoniously: Although the Paris accord and World Health Organization were predictable victims, the replacement of collaboration by imperialism was not.

So far, it is an imperialism of words, though the sudden swing of policy this week on Gaza comes close to action.

The world has been left speculating whether President Trump can really be serious when he says he wants Gaza to become US territory, given his previous resistance to spending American money or risking American lives on conflicts overseas. Yet the real implication is something more immediate: Almost certainly, this wild move will act as a cover for Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu to break the ceasefire and resume his war against Hamas.

That may have been Trump's intention, or it may just be a consequence.

Regardless of the explanation, he has thrown aside any idea of a collaborative effort with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to rebuild and govern Gaza, for those states all demand negotiations for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state to go alongside the ceasefire and reconstruction.

The fact that he has countered that demand with his own demand that the 2.1 million Palestinians who were living in Gaza be taken in by Egypt, Jordan and other Arab states means that he has no interest in serious negotiations. Soon, citing evidence that Hamas militias have moved back into Gaza, the Israeli forces are likely to invade again.

A second pattern that emerges from Gaza but also from his threats of import tariffs on Canada and Mexico is that it is wrong to call Trump a“negotiator,” as Giorgia Meloni has done. If he were a negotiator, he would genuinely want to make deals with other countries, just as he did during his first term when his administration made a new trade arrangement with America's two giant neighbours.

Instead, what we have seen is a man who wants“wins,” not deals, and uses his threats not to achieve a sustainable outcome but rather to emphasize and display his own power.

That is why he has followed his pressure for a Gaza ceasefire so swiftly with his destabilizing claim to Gaza as potential US territory. And it is why he was willing to suspend his tariff threats against Canada and Mexico as soon as both governments offered concessions, even though the concessions they offered were trivial.

To Trump, if it can be made to look like a win, it is a win regardless of the truth.

The third pattern is related to this desire to display power. Trump and the zealots around him know that he is currently at the peak of his political power, having won November's election and having turned the Republican Party in Congress into a largely supine group.

Soon, some things are bound to go wrong, reducing his popularity and, crucially, giving Republicans a motive to diverge from him to save their seats in the mid-term congressional elections due in November 2026.

He and the zealots in his team know they must move fast if they want to achieve anything. More crucially, they are also trying to exploit his current political power to increase the practical power of the presidency, to guard against the revival of congressional opposition.