| TRUMP TAKES ON THE WORLD |
Soon
after the November election, but before actually taking office in
January of 2025, Trump began to make pronouncements as to how things
were going to change, now that America was about to have him as
president. For instance, He felt that it was time for America to take
control of mineral-rich Greenland. Needless to say, Denmark, whose
territory that actually is, was not consulted on this matter.
He
also talked about the fact that it was high time for Canada to come
into the American Union as its 51st state –
shocking Americans and outraging Canadians in the process.
And he
declared that the Federal government (and Google Maps as well)
would no longer designate the waterway below the American southern
coast as the Gulf of Mexico. It would now officially be known as
the Gulf of America. Americans wondered why was that so important
... especially to Trump, when no one else had thought that there was a
need for such change. But if Trump gets his own thoughts on
matters, that's all that matters – as Trump sees things.
Indeed, America needed to get used to the idea that with Trump in the White House, presidential aides, including cabinet members, were there not to advise Trump wisely, but only to obey Trump ... in carrying out whatever his most unusual mind was working on at the moment. Turnover would once again be rapid in the Trump cabinet to those that did not understand the Trump program.
| TRUMP BACKS AMERICA AWAY FROM ITS STRONG SUPPORT OF UKRAINE |
With
Trump in the White House, an immediate reversal of America's (and its
NATO allies) support of Ukraine in its fight to fend off Russian
aggression was announced. Trump even blamed Ukrainian President
Zelensky for having "started" the war –
ignoring the fact that there was no such war until Russian President
Putin took it upon himself to invade Ukraine and bomb its capital city
Kiev – without warning or any particular provocation coming from Ukraine.
Trump
claimed that by ending further support of Ukraine, this would force the
combatants to come to peace terms ... a strange thing to propose by
someone supposedly knowledable about how power works on the world
stage. In fact all this would do would be to support Putin in his
Hitler-like urge to secure his regime by bringing surrounding peoples
under his control. That's what the whole thing was about from the
very beginning.
Trump
was acting like Chamberlain in 1938 when he let Hitler take over the
Sudenland, with the naiive (and costly) belief that by doing so he was
bringing peace to the world. Surrendering Ukraine's ability to
defend itself from a massively larger military power bent on muscling
its neighbors back under a Russian dependency (that those nations had
broken away from at the end of the 1980s) would not only end Ukrainian
independence, it would likely then result in a Russian grab of Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania. And Finland understood that danger of
playing into Putin's hands by recently joining NATO& –
as did even "neutral" Sweden. In fact, all this "Trump diplomacy"
would do would bring the world back to an ugly Cold War.
So why was Trump so bent on pulling a "Chamberlain" on Ukraine?
And
when Zelensky came to the White House at the beginning of March (2025),
he was simply shouted down by both Vice President Vance and by Trump
... the well-televised meeting proving to be – and shocking to all. What was going on here?
Yet
Trump somehow believed that he alone was able to bring the
Russian-Ukrainian war to an end (making a promise leading up to his
election that he could end it within one day of taking office ... which
dobviously did not happen). And thus in August he met met with
Putin (but not Zelensky) in Alaska to go over ways to end the war.
How Trump could do that without taking Ukraine's position in the
matter into account was a huge mytery. But Tump lives entirely in
a world of his own. In any case, the three-hour Trump-Putin meeting
came to nothing (like so many of Trump's promises to bring things
quickly to peace through his own personal intervention).
| TRUMP BRINGS "DEMOCRACY" TO VENEZUELA |
Then
on January 3, 2026, the world was awakened to the news that American
troops had gone into Venezuela and captured both Venezuelan President
Maduro and his wife Celia ... and brought them back to the States ...
supposedly to undergo trial for conducting narcoterrorism against the
U.S. Needless to say, the venure involved intense and lengthy
(months) preparation ... as well as heavy support. Supposedly
some 150 aircraft were involved in the operation .. which included
dropping troops into Caracas as 2:01 in the morning while the world
slept.
While many were supportive of ousting a clarly
illegitimate dictator, the idea of grabbing the head of state did not
sit well with many.
The Venezuela presidency was quickly
transfered to the Venezuelan vice president, Delcy Rodrigues (sworn in
as president on the 5th of January). And with that
American-Venezuela diplomatic relations were restored. Indeed,
the oil business connecting the two countries was also quickly restored.
But
much of the very authoritarian Venezuelan political establishment is
still in place – with many Maduro supporters still located throughout
the structure. Thus the situation remains rather uncertain.
| THE ONGOING ISRAELI-ARAB WARS |
Going into the 2024 election, and then in his first days in office, Trump voiced very strong support for Israel. Certainly he was most correct in blaming Hamas for starting the conflict. But the Israeli response (literally trying to make the Gaza strip uninhabitable for anyone) has brought a reaction not only to Americans but also recently to Trump ... who seems to be moving to a more neutral position – especially with the announcement in August of 2025 of Israel's intention to take over the strategic Gaza City in the northern portion of the Gaza strip ... completing Israel's takeover of the entire region.
parachutes into Gaza City - August 7, 2025
Then in March of 2026, Israel lanched a huge attack on Lebanon
(airstrikes and artillery ... the level of violence mounting quickly.
Israel
claimed that its intent was solely to target Hezbollah sites ... from
which Iran-backed Hezbollah had been attacking Israel with rockets
and drones. Obviously, Hezbollah had learned nothing from the
disaster that Hamas brought on Gaza.
Israel
then proceeded to move inhabitants out of southern Lebanon ... claiming
the area now to be an Israeli "security zone." Israel then
proceeded to bulldoze vacated homes – the
intention obviously being to make a return of Lebanese refugees most
unlikely (some 1.2 million Lebanese had been forced to vacate their
homes as of mid-May)
Then on April 8th, a cease-fire worked out in Pakistan between
America and Iran supposedly included the war in going on in
Lebanon. But Netenyahu was not moved by the new arrangement, and
ignored it ... with Israel's own April 8th murderous attack on Lebanon, killing
over 350 people in the first day of the operation alone (attacks again
reaching even to the Lebanese capital, Beirut) ... Israel again
claiming that it was targeting only Hezbollah sites. But homes,
shops and hospitals were hit hard ... whether Hezbollah or not.
Whereas
the U.N. and countries across the world condemned the attack ...
Trump's America was noticeably silent over the matter. The
Trump-Netanyahu bond seemed to be holding ... Trump even denying that
Lebanon was intended to be part of the ceasefire.
| TRUMP'S WAR WITH IRAN |
On February 25, 2026 Trump – in cooperation with Israel's President Benjamin Netanyahu –
began the bombing of Iran. At first Trump claimed this to be merely
a preemptive strike on imminent Iranian threats (probably at
the urging of Netanyahu, who was most anxious to see Iran removed as a
threat to Israel) ... suggesting that Iran was about to attack American
troops based around the Middle East. He also added the idea that
this was a program to destroy Iran's nuclear and missile-delivery
capacity.
Then
on February 28th, the Israeli airforce, supported by the U.S. navy,
conducted an airstrike on the Tehran residence of Iran's leader, the
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ... killling Khamenei and several other members
of his family in the process. Once the success of the secret
operation was confirmed, Trump went on to explain that all this was
designed to help the Iranian people take their government away
from the hands of a cruel regime ... thus turning this venture into
another American "war to spread democracy." Certainly there were
Iranians in agreement with this idea. But many were those ever
more deeply embittered against America for such an act.
At this point Trump was forced to explain that
in fact this was likely to become a longer-lasting conflict. So
the bombing of Iran continued ... with (most unsurprisingly) Iran
striking back with major attacks on American diplomatic and military
facilities around the Middle East.
Trump thus responded blocking
all Iranian ports ... hoping to force Iran to come to his terms by
shutting down its economy. Trump had the idea that all this
would bring Iran to the negotiating table ... and play out as a huge
Trumpian success.
A ceasefire? The Iranians appeared to be curious, leading
Trump to brag about the progress he was making with the Iranians – and
then pleased to announce in early April that a ceasefire was now in
place and supposedly all military action had ceased ... even though
tensions remained high.
But nothing had really changed.
Most
unsurprisingly, in the meantime, Iran had moved to block the oil
exports of its neighboring countries ranged around the Persian Gulf ...
ordering its navy to shut off oil shipments through the Straits of
Hormuz –
through which around 20-30% of the world's oil supply is sent ... as
well as the strategic flow of liquified natural gas (LNG).
With
all this, the Persian Gulf states were forced to shut down production
as their reserves filled up ... at the same time that the world once
again experienced a horrible oil shortage ... with prices at the pump
climbing significantly.
All of this put huge pressures on the economies of America's
European allies as well as other nations – China, India, Japan, South
Korean, etc. ) ... who had not been consulted in any of this and who
were most unsupportive of this program of Trump's – whatever it was
supposed to be.
So
where was all this economic pressure and counter-pressuring taking
things? Basically America (and the world) was caught in a Trumpian
conflict that seemed to have no very good ending. And none of
this was ever put before Congress for its approval. This was
strictly a Trumpian war ... not an American war.
| TRUMP MEETS WITH CHINA'S XI |
Trump,
in accompaniment with Tesla's Elon Musk and Nvidia's Jensen Huang met
with China's premier Xi Jinping on the 13th of May 2026 (including some
touring of China's historic sites) ... to try to improve US-Chinese
relations. There seem to be some agreements to work together more
closely (for instance, purchasing oil from America rather than Iran).
But some questions still remained ... in particular, America's
protective role with respect to Taiwan.
CNBC
Trump and Xi in front of China's Temple of Heaven
Reuters
Go on to the next section:The Lessons of History
Miles
H. Hodges
