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As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump gleefully painted his opponents as trigger-happy interventionists who would get the United States slowed down in all method of overseas wars — up to and together with World War III.
As president, Trump has racked up an astonishing checklist of countries he’s each threatened to attack and truly attacked.
Trump added a brand new entry to that checklist on Wednesday, threatening to strike Oman if it tries to management the Strait of Hormuz together with Iran.
“Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow ‘em up,” Trump stated at a White House Cabinet assembly.
It was significantly putting as a result of it was phrased like an apart — one thing Trump seemingly casually dropped with little thought beforehand.
And that’s change into considerably typical for Trump.
Oman is at the least the fifteenth nation that he has both threatened to attack, left open the risk of attacking, or really attacked throughout his two phrases as president. Nearly all of these situations occurred in the first 16 months of his second time period, although some span each phrases.
He’s launched strikes in seven countries to date this time period — Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen — after additionally attacking some of these countries in his first time period. That doesn’t even depend the strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, which have focused practically 60 vessels and killed greater than 190 folks.
He has additionally threatened or left open the risk of strikes in opposition to seven others this time period: Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Greenland (which is an element of Denmark), Mexico, Panama and now Oman. He additionally threatened Mexico and North Korea in his first time period.
Not all of these threats and strikes are the identical. Some, like the strikes in Iraq, have been narrowly focused at terrorists moderately than the authorities in energy. And some of the threats have been much less direct — in many circumstances, Trump simply declined to rule out the risk.
Some of this can be defined by Trump’s embrace of the “madman theory” when it comes to overseas coverage. In different phrases, he likes to painting himself as unpredictable, believing it makes overseas adversaries extra possible to kowtow to his calls for.
But all of it betrays a remarkably bellicose perspective from a president who has already invaded two countries this yr (Iran and Venezuela) and seems to be contemplating a 3rd (Cuba).
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And the information level to simply how militant Trump has been. Here are some stats.
That’s what number of Trump has threatened or attacked to date: 15 out of the practically 200 countries in the world.
Those countries account for 1 out of every 11 folks in the world. That means 1 out of every 11 folks on the planet has been at the least considerably frightened that Trump might provoke a army strike on their nation.
Trump has now threatened or focused 5 countries in the Middle East alone. That’s 5 out of fewer than 20 whole countries in the Middle East.
Trump’s threats and strikes have included countries on 4 of the world’s six populous continents: Africa, Asia, North America and South America. He’s additionally technically threatened a European nation in Denmark, albeit by speaking about seizing its territory in North America.
Of the 15 countries he’s struck or threatened, he’s recognized 5 of them as potential additions to the United States: Canada, Cuba, Greenland, Panama (particularly, the Panama Canal) and Venezuela.