World News: Trump and Risk Diplomacy

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Category: World News

Published on Wednesday, 05 February 2025 12:24

Written by Olivier Longhi

President Trump's statements about Canada, Greenland, and Gaza are both worrying and amusing. They are the will of a man convinced that the consequences of his decisions push allies and enemies to respect and distrust the United States.

Between making Canada the twenty-first state of the United States, buying Greenland from Denmark and transforming the Gaza Strip into a resort space for wealthy North Americans in search of low-cost Orientalism, President Donald Trump does not shy away from one-upmanship.

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Whether it is a communication action or a real desire to implement the projects mentioned above, in any case, Donald Trump is shaking up the diplomatic rules of multilateralism that has prevailed since the end of the Second World War and the creation of the United Nations.

Regarding the annexation of Canada, it is clear that some people do not believe in it. Of course, Donald Trump would give substance, if he complied, to an old idea that had been current in the nineteenth century in the United States, and which was precisely that of annexing Canada.

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Strategic Value

Seriously, no one, even the most American-minded Canadians, thinks about it in view of all the implications that come with it. The same is true for Greenland. Buying it, of course. But at what cost?

The fact that many Chinese and Russian ships transit the waters of this territory under Danish domination, due in particular to the melting of the ice floes due to global warming (while President Trump paradoxically poses as an official climate sceptic,) will not be enough to convince Copenhagen to abandon this icy piece of land that covers,  proof of this is a considerable strategic value.

As for the Gaza Strip, which Donald Trump wants to evacuate Gazans to other Arab countries, which simply looks like a form of ethnic cleansing that does not speak its name, its potential U.S. trusteeship has the sole objective of reassuring the Israeli ally bogged down in a war against Hamas and whose nobody, despite the truce, sees no lasting and peaceful solution. The presence of U.S. forces or populations would guarantee Israel indirect security, as Hamas would probably be reluctant to attack U.S. interests once it is established.

The main thing is that they believe it!

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Generally speaking, it is unlikely that the United States' partners or not will accept that such projects are carried out, but for President Trump the priority is not there. He adopted the thinking of Ronald Reagan who, in the eighties, alerted by his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, George Shultz, was informed that the Soviets were worried about the fact that the United States wanted to declare war on them.

To which Ronald Reagan replied: "We will not declare war on them. But the main thing is that they believe it! In the same spirit but much more cynically, Donald Trump is thus playing on the fear inspired by his words, considering that they pose his international stature and that the risk of seeing him apply them calls for caution and humility from his allies or not. If the three ideas put forward by Donald Trump are improbable for any rational individual, his unpredictability and impulsiveness, artificial or not, bring these ideas into the realm of possibility and therefore of risk.

In the end, to ensure the respect that Donald Trump believes is due to the United States, he fanns, through noisy and aggressive diplomacy, the embers of destabilization in order to appear both as the troublemaker and the one through whom the trouble ends. Vis pacem, para bellum...

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Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently a professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist and recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, was a press and publishing consultant, and was a communications consultant.