Understanding Donald Trump

The world has been feeling the effects of the Trump “whiplash” effect, with markets and currencies see-sawing dramatically depending on the latest post, and world leaders uncertain what new tariffs and proclamations will come out of his office on any given day. It’s necessary to try understand Trump’s thinking, whether or not one agrees with him.

It’s important at the outset to accept that Trump was elected on a “United States First policy”, a policy that hasn’t been applied, at least on such a dramatic scale, since the 1930s. As The Economist describes it, “The basic elements of an America First foreign policy – indifference to liberal values; scorn for global rules and norms; and a cold-eyed focus on the national interest” is now playing out in real time. Trump isn’t interested in allies, historical connections, or obligations, or the niceties of supporting democratic principles, he is solely focused on what he perceives as beneficial for the United States (US).

This has led to a dramatic shift in the US approach to Europe and Ukraine, so much so that experts are calling the new US approach to its erstwhile European allies the biggest shift in transatlantic relations since World War II. What is Trump’s thinking here?

First, he really wants to reduce US involvement both in the Ukraine war and with Europe as a whole. Although the Financial Times has provided detailed charts showing that Europe has in fact contributed more money to Ukraine than the US, although the US has provided more weapons, he is unhappy with US expenditure on the war. He is also unhappy with the fact that some European countries, notably Belgium and Spain, but there are others, aren’t spending the agreed NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) requirement of 2% of their gross domestic product on defence, and he thinks they are “freeloading” off the US. This is also despite the fact that the Financial Times reports that “almost two-thirds of the arms imported by European members of NATO over the past five years were produced by the US, according to new research”.

He therefore both wants to get a deal done in Ukraine and to reduce drastically the US’s involvement in European matters, telling the Europeans repeatedly that they must look after themselves. On this issue, he seems to have had some success. Major European powers like the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have agreed to increase their defence expenditure in recent days.

In addition, he wants a deal in Ukraine because he wants to make peace with Russia and bring Russia “back into the fold”. He doesn’t see Russia as a threat to the US and therefore sees no reason to carry on fighting against Russia. In fact, the current Russian-China alliance worries him as he thinks that could be a threat to the US. He believes that by ending the Ukraine war and making peace with Russia, he could break up that alliance. In addition, he feels that Russia can greatly assist him in doing a deal in the Middle East if it gets what it wants in Ukraine.

That’s the thinking behind the dramatic decisions he has taken in recent days like cutting arms to Ukraine. He doesn’t care what happens to Ukraine. If Russia gets to keep much of the land it has taken in the war and is able to force Ukraine to stay out of NATO in future, he’s happy to give it that. He is, therefore, pushing hard to pressurise Ukraine into a deal, even if it’s not the deal it or the Europeans want, and to speed things up, has accordingly cut arms and intelligence assistance to Ukraine in recent days.

Many experts are claiming that Ukraine will be sacrificed on the altar of big-power politics and that the now notorious Zelenskyy meeting in the Oval Office was in fact an ambush, giving Trump the excuse to cut off arms and intelligence support. On the other hand, Trump has at least potentially brought the end to the war a lot closer than at any time in the past three years. The question, though, will be at what cost to Europe and Ukraine?

With respect to the Middle East, once Trump does a deal over Ukraine and is back on good terms with Russia, he thinks he can then look to the Middle East. From recent reports, Trump is considering a nuclear deal with Iran, and is no doubt expecting Russia, which has close ties to Iran, to deliver Iran a nuclear deal as a quid pro quo, which would then take away the US need to be that involved in the Middle East as well. If afterwards Trump could, in addition, bring about a normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, that would reduce the need for US involvement in the Middle East still further.

Though there’s clearly method to Trump’s perceived madness, it doesn’t stop world leaders from worrying. The last time there was a United States First policy to this degree, and a US not involved in European affairs at all, was in the 1930s, and everyone knows how that turned out. The world needs the US as its policemen, and without this steady hand at the wheel, tends to veer dramatically off course. Stronger countries start to dominate weaker ones, and international politics becomes reduced to a simple issue of “might is right”. One hopes that this time it will be different, and history for once won’t repeat itself.

• Baruch The Balanced is an attorney who can’t be named for professional reasons, but who also studied both politics and international relations at university.