Editor’s note: The world as we know it seems to be coming to an end—Trump tears apart alliances and rules like a demented King Kong. But in his madness lies a method—aimed at building a ‘back to the future’ world order where might is always right. In part one, we looked at what he is destroying. In part two, we look at what he is trying to build. In part three, we will look at where India fits into this Trumpian world.

Welcome to Trumpworld! 

Trumpistas want to tear down the existing order—and replace it with a world ruled by a small club of powerful nations—who respect each other's ‘spheres of influence’. The most telling bit of evidence: the significant shift in the White House’s rhetoric around “containing China”:

In the past, [Defence undersecretary] Elbridge Colby — who has for years advocated pulling US resources from Europe to confront a rising China… said he had now shifted that approach because of the worsening strategic situation, implying that if Taiwan could not defend itself, the island might have to be abandoned. "I've always said that Taiwan is very important to the United States, but it's not an existential interest,” he said.

Quote to note: Trump told the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation that it was a good idea to move high-tech chip manufacturing to Arizona—because it would "diversify to a very safe location" in a way that would have "a big impact if something should happen" with Taiwan. Yikes! 

Far beyond Taiwan: While the US has never inked a treaty with Taiwan, its established allies are not sleeping any easier. In Tokyo, there is already talk of a “long-term Plan B [that] could eventually involve breaking a self-imposed taboo and starting to seriously consider acquiring nuclear weapons.” The US’ strongest southeast ally is also having second thoughts. Singapore’s Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen recently used the most undiplomatic language to describe the United States—saying it has changed “from liberator to disruptor to landlord seeking rent.”

The big landlords club: That essentially sums up Trump’s view of the world—a world carved up between the ‘great powers’: 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio.. made clear in an interview with Breitbart News that it was time to move beyond the war in the interest of establishing a triangular relationship between the United States, Russia and China. “We’re going to have disagreements with the Russians, but we have to have a relationship with both,” Mr. Rubio said.

In Trump’s ‘art of the deal’, smaller, weaker states are sacrificed when needed. Of course, Putin wants to take back Ukraine—and China will inevitably invade Taiwan. That’s what big boys do in their part of the hood! Throwing them under the bus shows “maturity and sanity in diplomatic relations.”

Xi, mon chéri: We’re so simpatico! 

Trump has a well-known soft spot for strongmen—be it Putin, Xi Jinping, Saudi Crown Prince Salman or our Modi-ji. As Zakaria points out: 

The more muddled, compromised weaker leaders of coalition governments in Europe he finds feckless and uninteresting… The Trump administration’s view is that there are regimes that they have an affinity with, and the proper nature of American alliance isn’t some unchanging alliance between America and Europe because we’re all “liberal democracies”...

 

The proper nature is between regimes of affinity. And in that way, Putin sees the world more like Trump than Keir Starmer in the United Kingdom. Erdogan sees the world more like Trump does than Justin Trudeau does.

Point to note: For all his anti-China blustering, Trump has long boasted of his “very good personal relationship” with President Xi. Beijing and Washington are working on a Xi-Trump summit in June—the birthday month for both leaders (aww!). 

But what’s that ‘affinity’? It appears to be a shared contempt for liberal democratic values. Trump and his friends like Elon Musk have been courting right-wing parties across Europe. When VP Vance went to Munich—he met far-right leader Alice Weidel not Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Then he made an unprecedented speech scolding German leaders for shunning her party:

He did not mention the party, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, by name, but directly referred to the longstanding agreement by mainstream German politicians to freeze out the group, parts of which have been formally classified as extremist by German intelligence. “There is no room for firewalls,” Mr. Vance said, bringing some gasps in the hall… 

Some see a darker conspiracy afoot—a plan to dismantle the EU entirely—which the Trumpistas view as “an economic and even ideological threat” :

The more pessimistic observers in Europe argue the Trump administration is hell-bent on promoting populist nationalist forces in Europe to help destroy the EU and pull it back to a far looser confederation of countries, all of which would be more beholden to the United States — or, perhaps, to Russia.

A little paranoid? Maybe. But part of Vance’s entourage was a far-right crank who declared: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely.”

The bottomline: Tomorrow—in part three—we look at the role assigned to India in Trumpworld. He may heart Modi but New Delhi isn’t part of Trump’s big boys club. Does that leave us out in the cold? Or will we enjoy special privileges thanks to our bestie bros?

Reading list

Politico and the New York Times have more on the worries that Trump plans to destroy the EU. The Lowy Institute explains why Singapore is worried—while Nikkei has more on the turmoil in Japan. Reuters has the broader picture on US allies in Asia. South China Morning Post looks at the backdoor overtures between China and the US. Fareed Zakaria is best in summing up how Trump sees the world–or rather, the world he wants to build.