By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
Feb 17, 2025
The President of the United States and his various “generals” and “deputies” have begun to drive us crazy. Not a day goes by that they don’t send out one “signal” that cancels out another. Do they not know what they are doing, are they captives of the contradictions within the now dominant group in power, are they obliged to satisfy or appear to satisfy different constituencies, or are they using the confusion they themselves cause as a political weapon?
Trump’s policy simultaneously displays elements that in principle can be considered very positive, such as those that pave the way for peace in Ukraine, and others that threaten to accelerate humanity’s descent into the generalization of violence and chaos, such as when the American President essentially renounces both international law and the humanitarian ideology that prevailed internationally after the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
We are not yet in a position to give categorical answers to the questions concerning Trump’s foreign policy or make predictions with certainty about what will happen in practice, something which, does not depend exclusively on Trump, but also on the reactions he will encounter both within his country and internationally.
In the following article, we try to make a first record, analyzing and commenting on the most serious initiatives of the new American President in foreign policy, less than a month after the beginning of his second presidential term.
- Abolition of international law and of the post-war “global ideology”
Mr. Trump began his term by declaring that he wanted to take Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada and remove the Palestinians from their homeland, at the same time that Mr. Musk called for the overthrow of two European governments. Of course one can certainly agree or disagree with the German or the British government, but it is the sovereign right of the European peoples, or at least it should be, which government they will have. It is certainly not the right of the US to appoint European governments.
And all this without any pretext. In other words, the US President declared that he was officially putting an end to international law as we know it after the victory over Fascism in 1945, as well as the democratic, humanistic and anti-colonial ideology that has since prevailed in the ethics and conscience – if not always in practice – of humanity.
These are replaced by the law of the Strong and the will of the Dictator, according to the definition of Carl Schmitt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt. Schmitt was one of the most important jurists and philosophers of law of the 20th century and also the President of the Association of National Socialist Jurists of Germany. The Dictator according to him is the only one, in a given context, who has the right to declare a state of emergency and violate normal legislation.
This global democratic (certainly not in the sense that the various Bidens give to this term), humanitarian and anti-colonial ideology, which prevailed after 1945, at least in theory, together with the existing international law, as embodied in particular in the UN Charter, has reflected the correlation of forces that emerged from the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies, the resisting European peoples, over Nazi Germany. This victory allowed the establishment of a “social-democratic”, “Keynesian” type of compromise between capital and labor (later demolished by neo-liberalism) in advanced capitalist countries while making possible the Chinese Revolution and other revolutions and national liberation movements of the colonies.
This ideology and this international law began to be blatantly demolished by Mr. Netanyahu as early as October 2023 with the live genocide of the Palestinians for more than a year and with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of victims. Such situations occurred and continue to occur after 1945. However, this is the first time a genocide is broadcast live in front of all humanity for more than a year. It is also the first time that a state, instead of trying to hide the war crimes it commits and cover up the violations of international law, claims its right to do whatever it wants. In Israel, we saw, for the first time in history, demonstrations in favor of the right to torture and rape Palestinian prisoners to death.
But it is not only Israel. Even before the election of Donald Trump, key states of the “collective West” seemed to be crossing the Rubicon, abandoning any concept of international law and humanitarian ideology to support with words and weapons the genocide of the Palestinians. Trump brings certainly a new quality, but his demarche was prepared by the entire previous course. There was always an inherent contradiction between the democratic ideology and the imperialist practice of the West. Now this contradiction is braking down. The system now needs a new ideology to move forward.
- Both ceasefire and ethnic cleansing in Palestine!
Mr Trump “imposed” the ceasefire agreement in Gaza on Mr. Netanyahu. We use those quotation marks because it is more often Netanyahu who is imposing on Trump, rather than the other way around. The Israeli Prime Minister had played a decisive role in the election of the American President even back in 2016 through the behind-the-scenes assistance of his services (see for example https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-israel-collusion/, https://www.defenddemocracy.press/israel-behind-trump-according-to-wolff/ ) . The ceasefire agreement signed for Gaza is the same one that was already ready since last May. By refusing to implement it before the US elections, Mr. Netanyahu achieved his goal, which was the election of Trump. A critical mass of Democratic voters in the swing states did not vote for Harris, protesting the Biden-Harris policy in Gaza and the lack of a ceasefire http://www.defenddemocracy.press/support-for-gaza-genocide-top-reason-biden-voters-did-not-support-harris/ .
Just after making this brave “pro-peace” move (ceasefire agreement), Trump made the exact opposite “pro-war” move: He called for the expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank (which is practically being rapidly annexed by Israel manu militari while the spotlight remains on Gaza), abandoning the established US and international policy of “two states”. He even threatened Jordan and Egypt with the interruption of US economic aid if they did not take in the Palestinians. In other words, he has adopted the most extreme strategies of chaos and the neo-conservative strategy, developed under the leadership of Mr. Netanyahu himself, decades ago, which foresees the overthrow of all Middle Eastern regimes, even those friendly to the USA. According to the Israeli Prime Minister and leader of the global extreme right, even Saudi Arabia must give up part of its territory for the Palestinians to live there.
Some friends, desperate enough to pin their hopes on Trump, tell me that these may be nothing more than statements. I am afraid they are wrong. The public and official advocacy of ethnic cleansing by the President of the United States is an extremely worrying precedent and creates the impression that we are not facing an era of peace in the Middle East but of bigger and more dangerous wars, within an environment of generalized chaos and anarchy.
One of Zionism’s most prominent geopolitical planners, Oded Yinon, wrote his scenarios for the dissolution of the Arab states in the early 1980s. They did not come true then, decades passed, but they were finally realized with the dissolution of Iraq and with what is happening now in Syria. In the case of Trump’s statements, however, we risk seeing them come true much more quickly. And not only those concerning the Palestinians, but also those concerning Iran. “I have no doubt that with Trump’s help we will also finish the job of neutralizing Iran,” the Israeli Prime Minister declared happily after his talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who (for the first time) visited Israel but not the Palestinian Authority (and this despite the latter giving everything to Israel and the Americans, sometimes behaving like a Quisling government ) (look to http://www.defenddemocracy.press/netanyahu-vows-to-finish-the-job-against-iran-with-support-from-trump/ and https://www.defenddemocracy.press/rubio-says-hamas-must-be-eradicated-casting-doubt-on-gaza-ceasefire-deal/).
Let us recall at this point that the seizure of power in Syria by jihadists, who are historically linked to Western, Israeli and Turkish services, with the assistance of an alliance of Israel, Turkey, the USA and Ukraine, could constitute a huge contribution to the implementation of the strategies of chaos not only in the Middle East but also internationally, by exporting terrorism even to Central Asia as well as to Europe. There are many incidents of “Islamic terrorism” in Europe and Russia that seem to reflect more the targeting of Western centers of power than a genuine Islamic movement.
- Peace or a simple ceasefire in Europe?
Of course, the most important of Trump’s announcements concerns the war in Ukraine and relations with Russia, which indirectly constitutes a strong slap in the face of Washington’s European allies. The American president acknowledged the reality, namely that Ukraine can join NATO only after a global nuclear war, which the West would not only have to win, but also manage to survive. He also admitted that there is no possibility for Ukraine to regain Crimea and Donbass.
In other words, the US president accepted the objective fact of the failure of the West to achieve its goals, which were to overthrow the regime in Russia and turn this country into a banana state worse than it was under Boris Yeltsin, perhaps even breaking it up into various smaller entities.
This goal of the West, led by the United States, has failed, but the war is not over, nor do we know how it will end. As long as it continues, the possibility of escalation to a nuclear conflict remains open, as the explosion in the Chernobyl sarcophagus also showed, as well as the increased possibility of an accidental nuclear war, while the enormous, absolutely catastrophic ecological consequences of the conflict will continue.
In addition, Trump stated that if European troops are deployed in Ukraine, they will not be protected by Article 5 of the NATO Charter, that is, the Americans and NATO will not rush to assist them in the event of their military involvement with Russia.
These statements are by far the most positive of President Trump because they probably open the way, for the first time, to a peaceful way out of the Ukrainian tragedy. But it is still too early to know what will happen, what security regime will exist for Ukraine and Europe, what conditions will prevent the recurrence of this or other conflicts tomorrow, and what the possible consequences will be on other “fronts” of the planet, such as the Middle and Far East in particular.
In our next article we will discuss in more detail the possible US goals and the motives of the Trump administration. And, since now the European governments insist on repeating extremely dangerous nonsense about the war in Ukraine, we will very briefly repeat the main arguments about what has really happened there and who is responsible for this war.
In closing, let us add one observation: if the European elites think they will “resist” the US by waving the flag of continuing NATO’s war against Russia, they are sadly mistaken and will lead Europe to a strategic defeat, the consequences of which will be paid by the European peoples.
