A New Theory Explains Why Trump Keeps Threatening Global Takeovers |
Yui Mok/AP
Since the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and the ensuing claim by US leaders that “we’re in charge” of a sovereign nation, President Trump and his allies have gloated. “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall,” Trump told reporters, implying that the island country was next on his takeover list as he flew back to Mar-a-Lago this weekend.
“Fuck around,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth keeps warning other nations, and “find out.” Meanwhile, commenters on the right, who bask in hubris, are declaring that American might is the only international law of importance.
The parade of threats, which had seemed absurd until Friday, has prompted many to wonder: Why? What is the point of invading other countries? Could it really be as simple as oil? A play for a sphere of influence? Age-old imperialism? Is it because, as Chuck Schumer meekly suggested, that Republicans just aren’t “stepping up to the plate?”
If you’re in a system that is about rules, then this looks irrational because it’s not following the rules. But if it’s a system that’s about status and hierarchy dominance…then it makes perfect sense.
If you can’t help but shake the feeling that such theories don’t quite fit this moment, you’re not alone. On Bluesky, I noticed a new theory that popped up: neo-royalism, which argues that we’re talking about this moment all wrong. That the world order as we’ve known for the last century—let’s loosely call it Cold War liberalism—is disappearing. And in its place, a new order shaped by the private interests of individual men and their fiercest allies, not the interests, private or public, fair or foul, good or bad, of a nation.
“Neo-royalism says that the state, the country, is not the key actor,” Abe Newman, a political scientist at Georgetown who co-wrote a paper coining the term, told me. “It’s groups of elites that are organized around political leaders. That system doesn’t play by the same rules.”
If that sounds like a return to the era of kings, you’re on the right track. But neo-royalism expands this to a global structure, with American power dominating the world and King Trump attempting to reap profit across the globe. It’s through this lens that, suddenly, the tech CEOs and other countries groveling with golden gifts make more sense.
I caught up with Newman on the emerging theory and what it really means. Our conversation has been lightly edited.
For those who haven’t come across your paper, let’s loosely define neo-royalism and how this framework might explain Trump’s chaotic foreign policy.
Let me start by asking: What do we usually think of how international politics works? For the last 100 years or so, it was based on what people call the rules-based international order. The United Nations and the World Trade Organization interacted based on the idea that each state was........