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Your guide to what Trump’s second term for Washington, business and the world mean
The resignation of world police officer is more difficult than it seems. When they fought broke out between India and Pakistan last week, the first reactions of the main figures in the Trump administration were in line with the principles of “First America”.
JD Vance said the US would not be involved in a conflict that was not “basically none of our business”. The US Vice President continued: “We cannot control these places. America cannot tell the Indians to throw their wings. We cannot tell the Pakistan to throw their wings.” President Donald Trump unconsciously commented that the two countries “would understand it in one way or the other.”
That high indifference did not survive long. As the fighting between India and Pakistan intensified – with Pakistan casting severe suggestions for nuclear weapons – top US officials, including Vance, hit phones. When a ceasefire was announced, Trump was quick to seek credit. (It’s no surprise there.)
The exact role of the US in negotiating a ceasefire – and if it will maintain – remains open questions. But the whole episode is recalling a famous Madeleine Albright phrase: America is the “indispensable nation”.
Albright, who served as secretary of state under Bill Clinton, is exactly the type of “Globalist” liberal internationalist, despised by the “First America” crowd that has gathered around Trump.
There is an argument that it is not only irony – but also somewhat inevitable – that Trump and Vance have ended up in the place that Albright scored for them. They are running a superpower and, as Robert Kagan’s foreign policy thinker once said: “Superpower should not retire.”
It is possible that if Trump and Vance had stuck with their initial instincts and stayed away from the Inde-Pakistan conflict, the US would have had no useless consequences. But, after all, they were not prepared to risk it.
Whether Trump and Co really aspire to “retire” – or simply use American power in different ways – it’s also unclear. Sometimes they talk about washing the hands of foreign disturbing disputes. At other times it is about promoting US economic interests.
Self-stylized “limitors” that have gathered around Vance, in particular, really regard themselves as peacekeepers-all the threats of the administration for Greenland and Panama. As for Trump himself, his self-images as a trade master extends not only to trade-but for war and peace.
Last week the president finally received the opportunity to seek trade loans and peace agreements. Britain and the US sign a ceasefire in the trade war that Trump himself had initiated. And Pakistan and India banned their deadly exchanges.
In diplomacy-in the other trade-the next one is whether last week’s agreements will prove they are once. Or if Trump can finally do well in his claims to be a trade master.
So far Hoopla and Self-Promotion-Administration Trump has made very little progress in its research on peace agreements. Gaza’s newspaper that the US negotiated again in January is broken. The Israeli government apparently thinks there are cards to fight the war while sees it reasonable, including preventing food supply and humanitarian relief in Gaza.
Trump can use his visit to the Middle East this week to try and revive some kind of peace plan for Gaza. But the chances of success look scarce – even though the situation on Earth becomes more and more desperate.
In the bosom, Trump will also have to engage in the Iranian issue. Israel is pushing a lot for a military strike against the Iranian nuclear program, even when Washington tries to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Tehran. The savings if it will illuminate an Israeli attack – which would inevitably withdraw to the US – is emerging as the central division of foreign policy within the Trump administration.
Here the inhibitors, led by Vance, seem to be winning the upper hand to argue against military action. The dismissal of Mike Waltz, the harsh US national security adviser, was a blow to the Netanyahu’s government. But the idea of attacking Iran continues to return. A prominent inhibitor says: “I call it Monday, ‘stop fighting with Iran’s day’ because it starts every week.”
And then there are attempts to negotiate a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Once again, the Trump administration has found the realities of disappointing diplomacy. In Washington last week, I saw Vance complain that the Ukrainians and the Russians both spent the first half of each conversation by rigging their complaints against each other.
Trump’s negotiator is Steve Witkoff, a real estate mogul, which is at the same time accused of ending the Russia-Ukraine war, which deals with the Iranian nuclear program and the behavior of peace in Gaza. If he has five spare minutes, he may also be asked to solve Kashmir.
If Trump’s foreign policy was not complete, some close observers are also afraid that China is preparing to make a move in Taiwan.
In the face of all these disappointing strangers, there is a clear temptation for Trump to ignore the outside world and rely on the “Great Ocean beautiful” to keep America safe. But – as last week’s events in South Asia confirmed – this has been said more easily than it is.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
