Japan steals us economically, and Europe takes advantage of us making us pay for its safety. Both messages appeared in the first TV ad published by the then real estate developer Donald Trump, in 1987. The figure that occupies the Oval Hall today is an opportunist for fluid political convictions, but maintains a coherent worldview. From it emanates what must be described as Trump doctrine.
The “bright city on the high of the hill” – the expression, coming from the semi -pronounced secular sermon by John Winthrop, the Puritan founder of Boston, aboard the Arbella ship, has often reemerged countless in speeches by republican presidents or democrats. Historically, for good or evil, the US has been showing themselves and foreigners as a world reform lighthouse. Trump replaces the bright vision of the prophetic city with the dark view of a fortress in decline, betrayed and exploited by allies.
“Let us be honest: the European Union was created for the purpose of screwing the US. This is her purpose – and they did a good job of that. But now, I’m the president” (Trump, 26/2). “The threat that plagues me most is not Russia or China or any external actor. What worries me is the threat from within: the retreat of Europe of some of its most fundamental values, which are shared with the US” (JD Vance, 18/2).
And their deputy do not see the danger in autocratic powers, rivals ever, but in democratic societies that widened the space of public freedoms, expanded civil rights and tolerated immigration. Hence, Vance and Musk’s support statements to German AFD, an extremist party that operates as a tentacle of Putin and flirts with neo -Nazis. Trump’s golden dream is to dismantle the European Union and, together, the transatlantic alliance materialized in NATO.
The post-war-built order established an open international economy that functioned as a frame for US prosperity. Trump, however, interpreters it inside out: Free trade would be a trap for foreign nations to take advantage of the US market. “We have been stolen for decades by almost every land countries and we will not let it happen again,” Trump proclaimed before Congress. Change Japan from the 1987 announcement to China, Canada, Mexico and the root of the trade war triggered by the White House.
The postwar order shaped an imperfect safety rules system that avoided a third world war, leveraged US geopolitical leadership, and provided multilateral cooperation. Trump, however, interprets it as a scheme designed to extract US advantages and aims to replace it with a dominant power system surrounded by its spheres of influence. Under this logic, peace would emanate from transactional agreements signed among powerful sovereigns: the “triangle Russia/China/US” in the words of Kremlin. Putin and Xi Jinping are potential partners; Zelenski, a hindrance to be eliminated.
Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first secretary general, defined the alliance as a means to keep the US in Europe, the Russians outside, and the Germans underneath. Trump doctrine tends to leave the US out, Russia inside and the Germans (from AFD) on top.
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