How to explain Trump’s seemingly erratic moves, especially on foreign policy? Is there a common theme? Here I represent three different views on the mind and motives of Donald J. Trump.
The Trump Doctrine
Nesrine
Malik argues in an opinion piece in today’s (February 24, 2025) Guardian that “a Trump doctrine is emerging [with] clear
features, contours and a sort of unified theory of conflict.” Later she
writes “Trump is functioning in a
different value system…”
First Trump’s
dealings are all transactional. There is no history prior to Trump and there is
no right or wrong. Everything is “the art of the deal”. Trump is always
thinking “what is in this for Trump (and only incidentally for the United States)?”
The second feature
of Trump doctrine is what Malik calls “financialisation”. For Trump it’s all
about money. He sees trade imbalances as other countries taking advantage of
the US. He wants something back for anything America spends on other countries,
hence his cutting of funds to USAID, negotiating with Ukraine for a share of their
rare earth minerals, or turning Gaza into a resort.
The third
feature is power and results. For Trump,
winning is the only thing that counts. He sees Ukraine resistance as a hopeless
cause so wants to pull out of the effort. Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
has as much as said that he will ignore the Geneva Conventions rules for
warfare, including allowing torture, to ensure America wins.
Distractions
Gwynne Dyer
in this week’s column presents a different view of Trump’s actions. Most, Dyer
argues, are distractions from the real goal of consolidating power in order to
lower taxes for the wealthy and eliminate regulations on business. His threats
to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, to take over Panama and Greenland, to turn
Gaza into a Mediterranean resort, or to annex Canada, are all just distractions.
The real
work is the replacement of agency heads with loyalists and the gutting of
agencies that oversee business. The big one coming up will be the budget with
the tax cuts. To try to justify the tax cuts, the unofficial agency of DOGE is
slashing funding to everything (except of course to Musk’s own contracts).
To achieve their
ultimate goals, the Trump regime needs total control of the federal government.
They need to sideline Congress and put themselves above the authority of the
courts. They are accomplishing this by the use of executive orders for actions
that legally require approval of Congress, like spending or not spending money
or gutting agencies created by Congress. They will attempt to gain control of the
courts by first ignoring then defying their orders. Trump’s atrocious picks for
cabinet was at least partly to establish and tighten control over the Senate. Another
technique used to control politicians, lawyers and judges is intimidation (see
my February 21 post).
Trump will also need tight control of the military. Trump went a long way towards that end on Friday (February 21) with the firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of Naval Operations, and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force. No reasons were given but their race, gender and stand on diversity are giveaway clues. He also fired The Judge Advocate Generals of the three armed forces whose jobs were to determine the legality of military orders. Hegseth admitted Sunday on Fox News that the TJAGs were fired so they wouldn't be "roadblocks to anything that happens". Makes you wonder what is being planned to happen.
Finally to
keep the people from learning what he’s up to, Trump needs to control the
media. He has all the right-wing propaganda (Fox etc.) already on his side. To
bring corporate media into line he is using, quite successfully, threats of
lawsuits and other forms of intimidation.
To appease
his racist and misogynistic base (and no doubt his own twisted desires) the Trump
regime is going after DEI with a religious zeal. The Feb 6 executive order to
investigate anti-Christian bias is his sop to his Christian Nationalist
supporters. All of these are secondary to the goal of making his billionaire
buddies richer.
Trump’s Ego
I will add
a third layer to Trump’s motives – his ego. The purpose of much of what Trump
does and says is to make himself feel more important, bigger, smarter, and more
powerful. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t to honor America or insult Mexico
as much as to make himself appear more powerful. Last week he even tweeted,
referring to himself, “Long live the KING”.
Trump’s ego
can of course be used against him. A large part of Putin’s hold over Trump is
from flattery. Trump wants to get a good deal for Russia in the Ukraine “peace
talks” so Putin will tell him “Who’s a good boy!” Similarly North Korean leader
Kin Jong Un used flattery to get on Trump’s good side. His billionaire buddies
have learned how to manipulate Trump’s ego to get him to do what they want –
tax cuts and deregulation.
This essay presents
a complicated set of motives which together try to make sense of the senseless.
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/24/donald-trump-doctrine-usa-reshape-the-world
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