CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Another Blow Against Pax Americana

1906 political cartoon depicting Theodore Roosevelt using the Monroe Doctrine to keep European powers out of the Dominican Republic – Public Domain

Remember that photo from Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as president back in 2017?

The new president was in Riyadh. Instead of going to Europe or Japan or Canada, Trump was making his first presidential trip to Saudi Arabia. And there he was, at the opening of a new World Center for Countering Extremist Thought, flashing his trademark smirk as he put his hands on a glowing orb that represented the globe. Next to him, their hands also on the magic ball, were the Saudi king and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The three leaders looked like they were in a film, playing an evil trio plotting to take over the world. Twitter lit up with comparisons to the three witches from Macbeth. It was a terrifying irony that Trump and company were inaugurating a center for “countering extremist thought” since they all three, in their own way, represented the promotion of extremist thought.

This appearance in Saudi Arabia was effectively Trump’s announcement that the liberal international order was over. The new president didn’t want to associate with European liberals or Japanese democrats or Canadian moderates. He preferred the company of a military strongman from Egypt and a religious autocrat from Saudi Arabia. Their hands on the globe symbolized their desire to spin the world in a different direction.

A decade later, Trump can still be judged by the company he keeps. He’s buddies with war criminals like Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s tight with autocrats like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman.

But, increasingly, even the autocrats are leery of Trump. Sure, no one wants to piss off Trump since, after all, he controls both nukes and tariffs. But the U.S. president is unpredictable and, frankly, erratic. Richard Nixon pretended, more or less, to be a madman in the 1970s so that the North Vietnamese would not be able to predict his next move in the war. Trump is probably not pretending. Other leaders are playing it safe by quietly treating him........

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