
That Donald Trump, coming over here and tearing up the post-war international order, putting a question mark over the United States' support for Europe and chumming up to Vladimir Putin. His second coming has continued as it started: unsettling friends and upsetting certainties while turning everything the new administration touches into chaos. Who can disagree with Keir Starmer that, from the standpoint of great power politics, that this is a "once in a generation moment"?
The calling of an emergency European summit sans the US in response to the Trump "peace plan", that freezes Europe and Ukraine out while he and Putin draw new lines on the map is the biggest breach in the Western alliance since the Suez crisis. Then, in no uncertain terms, the Americans said the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt was a no and that overseas military adventures without Uncle Sam's blessing were over. With talks between the US and Russia to start as early as Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, it appears now that Trump wants to break with seven decades of foreign policy common sense and let Europe do its own thing. Suddenly, the talk is about Europe ramping up military spending and huge numbers of soldiers being shipped to Ukraine to act as peace keepers to police the eventual peace. Starmer was quick to volunteer British troops for any such force, with estimates for the combined mission topping out at 100,000 soldiers. But also Starmer as the "bridge" between an aggressive US and an appalled EU/rest of NATO has carried on talking up the need for US security guarantees to back an armistice and a permanent end to the war. Which will probably come to pass, seeing as Trump has made no bones about his desire for Ukrainian mineral stocks. Though it is worth noting the bulk of these materials are in the eastern Russian-occupied zone of the country.
For liberal internationalists, the supporters of the fictional "rules-based order" it's enough to drive them into despair. The rights of a small nation trampled on and disregarded as the big players sit down to haggle over its fate is a grotesque spectacle. But what Trump is demonstrating is the naked truth of global politics. The US is the (declining) hegemon, but is dispensing with the usual protocols and politesse about "allies" and "partners". But what is the game plan here? Not normally known for his political insights, on Sunday's Laura Kuenssberg Reform's Richard Tice said this was the hardball way of ensuring Europeans meet a long-held Trumpist aim: a collective increase military spending so the continent's security is no longer bankrolled from the Oval Office. This take is fine as far as it goes. It would allow for more tax cuts at home, which Trump can then crow about. But it only goes part of the way.
As forecast before the election, Trumpism wanted to shake down the state for the benefit of the billionaires. Not just so capital can pocket more tax cuts and enjoy a freshly enfeebled regulatory environment, but to ensure the balance in class relations is tilted further in their favour. Cutting the state reduces the checks and encumbrances placed on capital by generations of workplace, court room, and legislative struggles. The prize here is the sovereignty of unfettered class rule - a project identical in intent, but much larger in scale than the obsessions of the Conservative Party in this country.
Trump's rude antics overseas are an extension of the domestic project. Never mind the international order he's seemingly intent on smashing up was constructed by the US for America's benefit, Trumpism here is the extrication of the US from obligations to allies (if they're not deemed in the White House's immediate interests), and a decisive move away from soft power operations so the US can bestride the world as a military colossus. The peace-through-strength impulse of Trumpism is really strength-through-fear, of the presidency openly and clearly declaring that it alone is sovereign and nothing can stop US capital from getting its way. This is not a new isolationism, as the talking heads on respectable podcasts keep saying, but a shift in the US's imperial orientation to the world. An overly aggressive posture rather than diplomacy, a readiness to rely on threats and cajoling if not force to get its way. The limits of such an approach are not infinite, but they are distressing for anyone unused to seeing international power politics for what they really are.
In other words, Trumpism - despite its chaotic outbursts, upending of custom, and seemingly self-defeating decisions - is not an expression of insanity. Its actions over Ukraine and the rapprochement with Russia are the open politics of the American oligarchy. Once again, it comes back to interests. Class interests.
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