Taking Trump Seriously

Like it or not, the old progressive liberal order in international relations is dead in the water

With only a week to go before Trump’s Inauguration, we are having to contemplate a sharp change of tone from the incoming President. The detail of this has been well reported (Greenland, Panama Canal and so forth). There is no point in repeating here the details of his ‘demands’ on the world order. What is more interesting is what it means. We can break this down into three elements: a) the introduction of entrepreneurial real estate negotiation tactics into global politics, b) the revival of ‘sphere of influence’ and great power priorities in international relations and c) (as a corollary of the first two) the effective death of the preceding era of international affairs based on an ideologically-centred global liberal order. This is particularly troublesome for Europe whose denial of its own potential ‘great power’ status under the protection of liberal America in order to concentrate on economic development has left it vulnerable internally and externally. It is European liberal ideology that is now most isolated and threatened.

We can pass over the negotiating approach except to say that Trump is simply accepting the fact of American dominance in both the economic and military-industrial sphere. Rather than relying on that power being implicit and used to maintain an increasingly ramshackle global empire based on financial and trade expansion, Trump has made it explicit and re-targeted its use towards MAGA [Make America Great Again]. This is an ideology that has toughened up into strategic viability during his period out of office. In essence, if a country wants protection or to be part of the American economic power house (that is, access to its market), then the price is that it will meet America’s geo-strategic needs. Dependency on the US across this wide front means that most countries that regard themselves as part of the West will have to bend the knee, at least in the short to medium term, and accept the humiliation if necessary. This applies more to Europe than East Asia which has the option of ‘equidistance’ with China to a much greater degree.

What East Asia does in relation to China (the lynchpin of Obama’s strategy) is of far less consequence to Trump because he is not attempting to maintain a global empire even if he can be expected to defend Western outposts like Israel. China is not a problem to him because of Taiwan but because it undermines US home base industry and jobs. We may, in fact, see a direct and surprisingly respectful eventual mutual negotiation of interest between Washington and Beijing based on much the same set of attitudes that you might have found between the Roman and Sassanian Empires in the fifth century. The key then as now was the pragmatic maintenance and control (and avoidance of disruption of) trade routes and the carving out of spheres of influence. Here we get to the nub of the new world emerging – the revival of the classic sphere of influence based on geographical and economic realities as the basis for geo-political competition.

This is the message of the Greenland and Panama Canal statements as well as, earlier, of the statements about tariffs as an instrument of power that may have unnerved Mexico and Canada more immediately but which has shaken Europe and is now shaking East Asia to the core. Trump is effectively demanding that the Americas be recognised as the US (MAGA) sphere of influence with serious potential implications not only for Venezuela and Cuba but (possibly) also for the liberal left regimes in Brazil and Mexico. The Canadian liberal left regime has already collapsed under the pressure (although Mexico will not do so easily). The Press Conference of the Danish and Greenlander Prime Ministers in Copenhagen was, in effect, a humiliation of Denmark whose liberal principles, military weakness and need to pacify Washington resulted in what can only be interpreted as a ‘kow tow’ to the new Emperor even before he was in office. There is no viable European military force capable of holding Greenland against the Pentagon.

Russian and Chinese responses are muted because they find nothing negative in all this. Realist negotiation between the leaders of spheres of influence is pretty well what they have wanted all along – that is, rather than a constantly expanding and morally self-righteous liberalism trying to break their regimes in order to introduce Blackrock or Goldman Sachs into the plunder of their national assets. This does not end tension over boundary-drawing, any more than it did between Rome and Ctesiphon, nor the possibility of border wars (most notably around Israel) but it does create space for talks that accept ‘reality’ in Ukraine and some kind of working ‘stasis’ in (say) Taiwan until a Taiwanese Election changes its national stance towards Beijing. The trend in East Asia is to accept that the US may remain protective but is less interested in it and so to find ways of mitigating the risks of conflict between elephants in which they might get trampled.

The real problems are those being presented to the UK and Europe. The new populism manages to be both pro-American (especially in its support for libertarian economics) and distrustful of the liberal obsession with Russia as villain. Musk (whose activities over recent weeks look unstable on the surface but are actually strategic) has ‘tweeted’ (or X’d) the phrase Make Europe Great Again. The vision is one of Europeans creating a strong ‘sphere of influence’ of their own with a clear cultural identity (dangerously verging into white nationalist territory) and clear borders, able to defend itself and partnered with the US as a revised version of ‘Western values’ – libertarian, Judaeo-Christian, ‘manly’. Naturally, a fragmented Europe with a dysfunctional constitution and a multiplicity of language and political cultures is a long way off from such a vision so Musk’s interventions are, in fact, just disruptive at the moment and likely to fragment the continent further.

The United Kingdom may be in the worst position of all because it has recently elected as Prime Minister someone as closely associated with the global liberal order as was Justin Trudeau and whose domestic unpopularity is reaching similar levels of public disdain. Without correction from the incoming President, Musk has effectively demanded the fall of the Leader of what was once the US’ closest ally. The Special Relationship is dead. This goes far beyond Starmer because the liberal plotting against Trump was a much deeper State phenomenon and noticed as such by the incoming Administration. The consequent confusion in British Government circles, with competing strategies for resolving the situation, is unnerving to say the least because the Government’s long term survival (it is secure for four years or so) depends on economic growth. Such growth can only come from one of several competing strategies with different parts of the State advocating different solutions.

The UK is worth dwelling on because its tensions and problems are an extreme version of what may soon apply to any ostensible American ally (we have already noted little Denmark caving in quickly to clever manipulation of the Greenland situation by a team that technically has no power for another week or so). There are three strategies for London – hope to put in place a free trade arrangement with the US although this would be tantamount to handing over the UK economy even further to US corporate interests and is the strategy of Starmer’s enemies on the Right; try to re-engage with a European Union that is itself in disarray and with similar growth instabilities and so risk tearing the country apart in a revival of Brexit squabbles; or try to kick-start post-Brexit global trading ambitions that would allow UK interests to access major markets like China although it would be doing so after half a decade of negative talk about China and in the context of a global revival of anti-imperialist discourse.

Each option is ideological with a whole range of special interests lined up behind them. There are sub-variations of each and a fourth option of investment in technological prowess regardless of particular trading priorities. Politicians are attempting to dabble in all four as if they were not ultimately mutually exclusive or dependent. The Atlanticist model is just the old liberal internationalist model without the nice bits, shifting the emphasis from a global and universalist order (accepting defeat in effect) in return for a much more right wing and mythical creation of something called the ‘West’ in which most populations are not in fact invested. The Europeanist model assumes that the Europe of 2025 is the same Europe as that of 2015 which is patently not so. British aspirations soon begin to get caught up in liberal elite defensiveness within the EU bureaucracy. The global trade option should be the best option but things have changed there too – expecting to get much traction while continuing to push liberal universalist claims on trading partners is not going to get London very far.

Typical of the confusion is the lacklustre and inexperienced British Chancellor abandoning the country during a market crisis to try to cut a deal with China, walking away with a paltry £600m (over five years!) promise of deals and her pro-Atlanticist colleagues grandstanding with an aircraft carrier close to Chinese waters. The lack of disciplione and co-ordination – or authority – at the centre is staggering but this reflects the fact that right up to a week ago it is probable that most allies still considered that Trump the campaigner who shoots from the hip would become Trump the pragmatist in office and amenable to allied influence. This is now clearly nonsense. Trump has been hardened by his experience of disloyalty in office and lawfare out of it. He has been transformed by struggle from being an amateur with half his eye on business into a professional surrounded by equally hard ideological supporters who can point to overseas evidence of such leaders as Milei in Argentina being in the ‘vanguard of history’.

Europe is by no means in the same negative situation than the UK. Although ideologically opposed to Trump, it cannot be said to have worked against him. Its problems are internal and not actually generated by Washington (excluding perhaps its becoming embroiled in an absurd war between Slavs to its East). Some countries (such as Poland which is becoming a major power in its own right) can adapt easily to the new situation regardless of whether liberals or populists are in charge. Others are brokers for sphere of influence ideology such as Orban in Hungary. Others are progressing regardless such as Spain and Italy. But the old core of Europe (France and Germany) is now or will soon be embroiled in the culture wars between Trump-supported (Musk is the proxy here) populism and traditional liberalism where the ultimate beneficiary is likely to be a more economically libertarian centre-right.

Prediction is a mug’s game. Trump constantly surprises. However, the US-inspired new order of international liberalism is pretty well dead both because ‘international populism’ has between 4 and 12 years to embed itself and because the so-called ‘Left’ (actually progressive liberalism) is not only fragmenting but has demonstrated a consistent pattern of political ineptitude. Capital, with its usual consummate cynicism, managed progressivism in its own interest for as long as was necessary but is now busy abandoning its ideological ally and adapting to the emerging libertarian ideology wherever it can. The obvious type case of this is Facebook’s dropping liberal content moderation and its high status liberal director of policy and public affairs for the Musk model of community notes and a conservative public affairs chief. This unravelling of liberalism is taking place in board rooms across the West.

Finally, we should take the LA fires as another type case – its timing could not be more apt. The propaganda about water being insufficient because eco-liberals wanted to protect a species of fish and the local fire chief being appointed to implement a diversity agenda rather than maintain an efficient well funded fire service may or may not be true but the claims stick and, grossly unfairly, the sight of rich peoples’ homes going up in smoke because of their own political failures strike the same secret chord in some hearts that watching planes hit the twin towers did in the emerging world. This gets corrected on the very real human tragedy (it is not just a few ‘Zionists’ who have lost their homes) but the symbolism of California being unable to cope with a natural and predictable phenomenon and Kamala Harris’ home being in the fire zone is a horrible symbolic coda to an era in a world fixated on imagery rather than ’reality’.