«In the world under his leadership Donald Trump the law of the strongest applies” he explains about the new era in which the planet has entered a year ago Isaan Tharoorcolumnist for the American newspaper “Washington Post”, responsible for the “Today’s WorldView” column, one of the most popular among those interested in international affairs.
Speaking to “Vima” he comments on the major international issues that dominated the first year of the Trump administration, highlighting not only the tactics of the new American foreign policy but also the deeper imprint it leaves on the international scene.
If Trump were to take any aggressive action against Greenland, what do you think the geopolitical consequences would be? Many have talked about the possibility of NATO breaking up – do you think that is a real possibility?
“This is an absolutely real and, I would say, unavoidable concern. Although a year ago it might have seemed like a “bona” in the whirlwind of the first months of Trump’s return to power, it is now clear that the White House is serious about his desire. So now, if the most powerful NATO member state openly challenges the sovereignty of another Alliance member state and moves aggressively against it, the question directly arises: what is the credibility and meaning of NATO itself?
Presumably in such a case Europe would not rush to militarily defend Denmark, which owns Greenland – and this is something the White House knows all too well and has, in some cases, almost publicly scoffed at.
In such a scenario, then, Article 5 of the Alliance, which deals with collective defense and which is already being treated with strong skepticism as an essential mechanism, would lose all value. And of course, it would be a situation that would underline the degree to which “might makes right” has been established in the world for a year now, that is, that “might makes right”, as institutions and rules are discredited”.
In Venezuela, the US has made it clear that its main interest is oil, while no substantial political change is immediately in sight, with Trump sidelining the opposition, at least for now. How do you evaluate the strategy that the US president has implemented so far?
“More than a coherent strategy, what can be clearly discerned is a set of impulses: an impulse to assert American dominance and primacy in the region the US still perceives as its “neighborhood,” the Western Hemisphere, regardless of treaties or laws; an impulse to wage a cultural and ideological war against a perceived leftist enemy—both within and outside the country’s borders—and, finally, a narrow and outdated fixation on fossil fuels as a key driver and indicator of economic power.
These impulses are largely satisfied today. can be considered a tactical success, even if the broader strategy behind it remains unclear.
A client regime in Caracas will be aligned with Trump’s interests, while a populist leftist movement will have been weakened. At the same time, Trump can present to his electoral base a narrative of “economic benefit” from all this, despite the fact that in reality the US has no real need for Venezuela’s oil and that the revival of the country’s energy sector would require astronomical sums.
Do you consider a possible end of the war in Ukraine in 2026 realistic?
“I think the pressures inside Kiev and inside Europe now dictate as much a compromise with Putin as Trump’s personal desire to emerge as the architect of peace. I believe that under this framework there is a realistic possibility that we will see some form of ceasefire in Ukraine this year, and the White House is expected to make an effort to forge any peace agreement in the coming months.”
Do you think Donald Trump’s foreign policy, as it has developed over the last year, will have long-term consequences? Can we say that the world order as we have known it for decades has fundamentally changed?
“For a long time, the dominant analysis in Washington argued that Trump was more a ‘symptom’ of wider social and political processes in the US and internationally than a key shaper of them.
But the scale of the damage done over the past year, combined with the speed with which the Trump administration has dismantled institutions, rules, and balances, has shocked most of us who cover American domestic and foreign policy. To paraphrase Gramsci, the old world is dead, but I don’t know if the new world has already been born (s.b. “The old world is dying and the new is struggling to be born; now is the age of monsters” – Antonio Gramsci). But what has now become clear is that we have entered a ‘post-liberal’ era, and Trump has acted as a catalyst in that transition.”
