Before the stealth bombers streaked via the Middle Eastern night time, or the missiles rained down on suspected terrorists in Africa, or commandos snatched a South American president from his bed room, or the icy slopes of Greenland braced for the risk of invasion, there was an thought on the White House.
It was a philosophy put into motion by President Donald Trump however enunciated by prime aide Stephen Miller.
“We live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Miller instructed NCS’s Jake Tapper. “These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.”
That is undoubtedly the type of world the president has imagined ever since he stepped again into the Oval Office. While diplomats, world affairs analysts and international leaders stared open-mouthed, Trump spent his first year laying out an extended listing of calls for and grievances he needs the world to reply for — or else, he’s threatened, it can reply to the collected powers of the United States.
His army inclinations have incessantly led the best way. Nodding closely to the Department of Defense — which he calls the Department of War — Trump has routinely insinuated that the huge armaments beneath his command could possibly be delivered to bear on all kinds of international foes. It wasn’t simply bluster.
In Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, Trump unleashed air assaults on teams recognized as terrorists by intelligence forces. In Iran, he despatched American planes to pound nuclear services with bunker-busting bombs. And after months of movies of alleged drug-running boats being blown out of the water in each the Caribbean and Pacific, Trump permitted the massive raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
What’s extra, Trump rapidly declared the United States would effectively run the oil-rich nation for the foreseeable future. What did that imply? Sen. Tom Cotton had an thought. “When the president said the United States is going to be running Venezuela, it means that the new leaders of Venezuela need to meet our demands,” the Arkansas Republican told NCS’s Dana Bash.
But the main points of such a plan stay a thriller and apparently a piece in progress. And the talk about Venezuela’s future was quickly drowned out by one more spherical of saber-rattling from Trump. Right after the transfer in opposition to Maduro, he threatened Cuba and one other South American president: “Colombia is producing a lot of drugs … so he better wise up or he’ll be next.”
Early in his second time period, Trump made noise in regards to the United States reclaiming management of the Panama Canal, turning Canada into the 51st state and taking on Greenland. When each Greenland and Denmark, the nation that oversees the self-governing Arctic territory, mentioned, “No, thanks,” that problem light.
But with Maduro standing before a judge in New York accused of drug trafficking (by no means thoughts that Trump just lately pardoned one other Latin American chief sentenced to 45 years for — you guessed it — drug operating), the US president resumed the drumbeat for America taking possession of the world’s largest island.
“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” he mentioned, insisting it’s crucial to US safety, at the same time as critics famous Greenland has hosted an American army base and proven broad settlement to fulfill US wants within the area for many decades.
What’s extra, Trump’s thought of taking Greenland is so unpopular with Americans — 75% opposed the transfer in a recent NCS poll — even some lawmakers in his personal social gathering are grumbling a couple of doable third impeachment if he goes forward with the plan. It can be the “end of his presidency,” in keeping with Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, who known as the concept of taking on a NATO member “appalling.”
While that drama performs out, Trump has additionally threatened contemporary army strikes on Iran as protesters there rage in opposition to the long-standing clerical management. American warships have been despatched to hover close by, and as soon as once more — at the same time as Trump backed off his rhetoric as he mentioned executions of detained protesters had been halted — the world has eyed him warily.
Until Trump’s second time period, US international coverage didn’t appear to be heading on this route.
Near the tip of Trump’s first time period, he instructed graduating cadets at West Point, “We are ending the era of endless wars.” In his marketing campaign to retake the White House, MAGA followers cheered when Trump instructed them his focus can be on American jobs, the associated fee of groceries and gasoline, housing costs, and different home points. On the stump, he accused then-President Joe Biden of carelessly and needlessly tangling the United States in international conflicts, and he laid the groundwork for the title he would quickly bestow upon himself: the peace president.
And after many matches and begins, even some of Trump’s critics gave him credit score when he secured an alternate of hostages and prisoners and a ceasefire to the brutal combating between Israel and Hamas. Since then, both sides has accused the opposite of violations, however the deal is progressing to what has been deliberate as a safer second stage.
Ukraine, nonetheless, has not made it that far. Although Trump is loath to say the warfare there was triggered by Russia’s invasion in 2022, he boasted time and again in his marketing campaign that he had the answer prepared if solely he have been put again into workplace. “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians,” he mentioned in a 2023 NCS town hall. “I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”
Instead, after a year of dealmaking, pleas, bluster, guarantees and insults — principally aimed toward Ukraine — Trump has nearly nothing to indicate for his bravado.
None of that has saved him from endlessly bragging that he has solved or ended greater than half a dozen wars since retaking the White House. Fact-checkers have uncovered the declare as a wild exaggeration, however he has held to it. “I saved millions and millions of lives, and that’s what really makes me feel good,” Trump instructed Fox News.
Nor have his failures on the peace entrance blunted his bare want for a particular recognition to this point given to solely 4 US presidents. “I can’t think of anyone in history that should get the Nobel Prize more than me,” Trump has mentioned, “and I don’t want to be bragging but nobody else settled wars. (President Barack Obama) got it almost immediately upon attaining office and he didn’t do anything, and he was a bad president.”
Trump was stung when the 2025 Nobel went to Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado. In an act of conciliation, Machado gave her medal to Trump when she visited the White House recently.
“I thought it was a very nice gesture,” he mentioned.
The Nobel committee has famous that the award shouldn’t be transferable, but Norway — which doesn’t management the committee — quickly felt Trump’s wrath too. As worldwide apprehension rose over a doable army confrontation in Greenland, Trump wrote to the Norwegian prime minister, “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”
Trump’s clashes with the world usually are not all about army may. His price range cuts to US foreign aid programs rattled many countries that had come to rely on Uncle Sam’s generosity to fulfill the meals, medical and academic wants of their individuals. Diplomats and charity staff alike have been shocked by the sudden abandonment of these “soft power” applications, which even some American army generals had lengthy known as efficient in constructing worldwide goodwill.
Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Human Rights Council and lots of extra international agreements. With every withdrawal, his critics added up the anticipated value to America’s world popularity and affect, and analysts predicted that China would quickly step into the hole by forming new partnerships that might value the US for years.
Still, one of Trump’s most globe-shaking moments got here not with the roar of a jet or the wail of an deserted ally. It got here with a chart. On the second morning of April, on the sunny garden of the White House, Trump hoisted a board lined with names of international locations and rows of numbers and launched what many critics would characterize as financial warfare on your entire planet.
“It’s our declaration of economic independence,” Trump mentioned of the staggering tariffs he unveiled on his self-declared “Liberation Day.” He has lengthy believed that charging international locations extra to promote their items within the US is essential to future American wealth. It didn’t appear to matter to him that financial analysts broadly noticed the concept as regressive, harmful and doomed from the beginning. Trump was beaming.
“Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country, and you see it happening already,” he mentioned.
The president fiercely pushed the concept international governments and companies would bear the brunt of the much-higher charges he was imposing on their imports to the US. But economists insisted that Trump was ignoring a fundamental fact: Tariffs are taxes and customers pay for them. Indeed, estimates quickly predicted common American families would see their spending rise by 1000’s of {dollars} as Trump’s tariffs settled in.
Rates for particular international locations — and their very own retaliatory measures — have risen and fallen so usually that solely essentially the most devoted observers can maintain observe.
But Trump insists his tariffs have produced an immense windfall for the US authorities. Between the direct revenue and related investments, he has repeatedly said they’ve “helped us get $18 trillion brought into the country.” Other analysts put the sum for all tariffs collected in 2025 nearer to $200 billion. Yet, at one level Trump mentioned there was a lot contemporary money, he may ship a $2,000 check to each American. His Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, met the concept with reserve. “We will see,” he instructed Fox News. “We need legislation for that.”
Trump has hinted extra tariffs may be imposed at any time. And in a transfer that brings his imperialistic tendencies collectively, he’s threatened them in opposition to a number of European nations until there’s a deal for the US to accumulate Greenland. This would appear to be one purpose Trump is fearful that the Supreme Court might nullify his tariffs on grounds that he didn’t invoke the right authority to impose them. Posting on his Truth Social account, Trump wrote, “If the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this National Security bonanza, WE’RE SCREWED!”
More than as soon as within the first year of Trump’s second time period, mates and foes alike have dusted off an age-old debate in regards to the effectiveness of the Monroe Doctrine. Stemming from President James Monroe in 1823, it pushed the concept the Americas — all of them — must be free from European affect and snugly beneath the thumb of the United States. Through time and the affect of different presidents, Theodore Roosevelt chief amongst them, it turned extra broadly a notion that the US must be the preeminent and unconstrained energy of the Western Hemisphere, pole to pole.
More than a year into Trump’s return to workplace, some conservatives are winking on the president’s first identify, calling his view of worldwide affairs “the Donroe Doctrine.” It’s a flip of phrase he has repeated, and that was echoed in a brand new national security strategy launched simply earlier than the vacations. “The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere,” it mentioned, “as a condition of our security and prosperity—a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.”
Among his political critics, that sort of language is deeply worrisome. Trump’s supporters, nonetheless, broadly say he has made the world respect the United States once more and not take without any consideration its safety or generosity. His followers respect his prepared use of army may to impose US beliefs on different nations or to even seize land which may serve nationwide pursuits. To deliver it again to the concepts of Miller, some Trump supporters are delighted to have a robust president unafraid to make use of that energy regardless of customized, worldwide norms or legal guidelines.
When New York Times reporters requested Trump in a prolonged interview whether or not he noticed any restrict to his energy, he might assume of solely a single risk. “Yeah, there is one thing,” he mentioned. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
But polls present that Americans who help Trump’s world ambitions — militarily, economically and culturally — are a minority and shrinking. Proving even when the world actually is all about energy, holding on to it may be troublesome.
AMERICAN BATTLEGROUND is an ongoing NCS collection in regards to the affect of the Trump administration on politics and tradition.