Trump’s Chaos: Astound, Confuse, and Embarrass Rivals and Allies

In the 2016 primary election, when almost the entire Republican establishment unequivocally opposed the candidacy of Donald Trump, one of his opponents warned that Trump is a “chaos candidate”, and if he is elected president he will be a “chaos president”. The warner was Jeb Bush, heir apparent to a dynasty that produced two presidents.

Nine years later, his prediction has not expired. Rather. In recent days, the impact of Trump’s statements on the political stability of key democratic allies of the US has begun to become clear.

The most dramatic price for the moment was paid by Justin Trudeau, who resigned this week as Prime Minister of Canada. In Britain, the center-left Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, found himself on the defensive against unprecedented incitement by Elon Musk, Trump’s close political partner. Musk, who is hardly on the part of the president-elect, also called on German voters to vote for an extreme right-wing party, the likes of which has not been seen in Germany since you-know-who.

Trump is stirring Denmark, because he wants Greenland. And Trump and Musk hosted this week as the hand of the king, or perhaps as the hand of the emperor, the most right-wing politician in democratic Europe, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Maloney, whose party’s pedigree, even if not its platform and methods of action, links it to the fascism between the two world wars.

that the whole world will guess

It is hard to tell if all this was planned in advance. Trump is known for his repeated boasts, that he makes brilliant use of the virtue of the uncertainty of his behavior. He knows where he wants to go, apparently, but he assumes that his chances of getting there depend on his success in confusing the opponent.

He wants the whole world to guess his intentions. At a press conference at his Florida estate on Tuesday, he was asked if he would take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland by military means. He replied: “I won’t commit right now. You may have to do something.” Let’s ignore the syntax flaws of his answer. What stems from it is the need to confuse and embarrass, even if the embarrassed are two close friends of the US, and one of them, Denmark, has been in the NATO alliance with it for 75 years.

At the press conference, Trump threatened Denmark with punitive tariffs, his favorite weapon in bilateral relations. He has already announced that he will impose such tariffs on China (not an ally), on Mexico (a friendly neighbor with which the US has a free trade agreement), and on Canada (also a military alliance, also free trade).

“People have no idea if Denmark has any legal right [על גרינלנד]but if they have it, they must give it up, because we need it for our economic security, for our national security,” Trump said. Can we even begin to speculate what will happen, if the American military takes over Greenland, against the will of Denmark and the autonomous Greenlandic government? What will happen If Denmark then turns to the other 30 NATO members, please apply Article 5 of the Alliance Charter to military aid to an attacked member? To which department of crazy science fiction does such a development belong? “Chaos” will not be enough to describe her.

The 51st country

Trump and his people are not satisfied with territorial demands. In recent weeks, they have been engaged in open attempts to destabilize democracies.

One intervention has already borne fruit: Trump’s threats to Canada caused a crisis in its government, the deputy prime minister and finance minister resigned, and the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was forced this week to announce that he himself will retire immediately when his party chooses a successor, in two and a half months.

Trump licks his lips. He started the process when he mocked Trudeau and Canada, and suggested that the giant neighbor to the north join the US as the 51st country, and Trudeau could be its governor. Right-wing leaders in Canada also reject the idea outright. One of them suggested buying Alaska from the US .

Trump promised on Tuesday that he will not invade Canada, although it demands that it start paying for its security. It spends ridiculously small sums, and its military is one of the weakest in NATO. Definitely fulfill his mission.”

The interventions in Germany and Britain were the handiwork of Elon Musk to boast, whose nature of partnership with Trump has not yet been clarified. He is slated for a senior position, albeit an informal one, in the Trump administration. He has more or less moved his residence to South Florida, and is wherever Trump is. Trump does not tend to appreciate people who steal the show from him, but for now he treats Musk with friendliness and patience. Musk is present at important meetings, and gives his life to ideas that have Trump’s stamp on them.

to collapse the constitutional order

Musk helps Trump normalize the abnormal. It crosses red lines to an extent that gradually dulls our senses. Repeated public support for the extreme right in Germany on the eve of the Bundestag elections is not only a gross interference in the affairs of a foreign democracy, but it is dangerously disconnected from history and common sense.

Serious people, even if they support right-wing parties, do not give their blessing to the German extreme right, at least because of the associations, unless they have the heart to risk the very constitutional system. In the case of Trump and Musk, the collapse of the constitutional order is not far from the mind. Trump once announced that he would suspend the US Constitution.

The intervention in Britain went even further. It also came from Musk’s mouth, but Trump gave up on Tuesday the opportunity to disclaim it even in full tone in his press conference.

Musk accused Prime Minister Starmer and one of his cabinet ministers of failing to investigate the rape of hundreds of white girls by Pakistani immigrants 15 years ago. He called for Starmer and the minister to be thrown in jail. He advised King Charles to dissolve Parliament and hold a new election, half a year after the election that brought Starmer to power by a huge majority. Theoretically, a British monarch could do so. But this would be a deviation from the precedents of hundreds of years, and a strong one that would produce a huge constitutional crisis.

Since World War II, the closeness between the US and Britain is often described as the ‘special relationship’, unparalleled between the US and any other country. With Trump and Musk, it is doubtful whether there will be anything ‘special’ left.

A foreign policy of impulses and whims is indeed preparing for chaos in international relations. It would be nonsense to assume a ‘special relationship’ between any country and Donald Trump. In fact, this very assumption might convince Trump to reverse the creation to prove otherwise.