"Trump is instinctively committed to the idea that the world is a jungle in which the big players take what they want. As such, it would be wrong to trivialise his repeated designs on Greenland, the Panama Canal, the Gaza Strip and even Canada. He divides the world into spheres of interest. There is a consistency to Trump’s sympathy with Putin’s claims on Russia’s backyard. There is also a symmetry in Trump’s reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine in which the US has domain over the western hemisphere.

Some have projected on to Trump a clever chess move in which he is luring Russia away from its “no limits” partnership with China in a reverse of what Richard Nixon did in the cold war. But that is wishful thinking. Any such manoeuvre would make sense only in concert with America’s allies. While promising to lift sanctions on Russia, Trump is readying for a new transatlantic trade war. After three generations of US leadership, it is always tempting to believe that Trump does not mean what he says. Perhaps this is a feint in some grand art of the deal. But allies and erstwhile friends must banish those self-soothing thoughts. With Trump, what you see is what you get. America has turned."

https://www.ft.com/content/1511aa42-a9ad-4952-99c8-98bea07d0414

#USA #Trump #Imperialism #Russia #Putin