Donald Trump, the past and current President of the United States of America is in the daily global news headlines for his tendency to stoke controversies, browbeat opponents and allies in equal measure, and create an atmosphere of fear, resentment and uncertainty across the world. However, he uses this to distract his critics and detractors from the big policy changes that he is making, literally on a daily basis.
He has put China in his gun-sight, challenging its position as the second largest economy of the world. Trump is clamping down on China by imposing the tariff on Chinese goods, and this escalating trade war between the two countries has created an uncertainty resulting from the enormous taxes levied on each other’s imports with the tariffs often costing more than the price of goods itself. While the U.S. tax structure varies according to the goods, from zero percent on books to 20% on smartphones, it goes up to 245% on syringes and needles. These increased tariffs (or import duties) have a 20% tax component classified a “Fentanyl” tax as a punishment to China for its high-level flow of this powerful synthetic opioid drug that is lethal even in small doses, causing over 75,000 deaths due to overdose in the USA last year (2023-24).
Trump’s tariff wars on countries across the world are not without its failure. When he initially announced the tariffs, describing them as a “Liberation Day” for Americans, he destroyed the global economy by causing a massive collapse of the financial markets, pushing them almost to the brink of complete disaster. Initially he assured everyone that his tariffs were all part of a master-plan and suggested that he would negotiate tariff arrangements with the affected nations. The hugely negative market response and a loss of over a trillion dollars when the markets crashed, forced him to abandon the plan within days, admitting publicly that he had reversed his decision due to market panic.
Trump’s policies on immigration has spread fear among the undocumented migrants in the USA. His actions have effectively overhauled parts of the U.S. immigration system, including the processing and deportation of people. His administration publicized videos and photos of deportation flights with its occupants tied-up in chains, causing a global outrage and condemnation. But, by putting out videos of people being deported in military aircraft, his has created the myth of being a strong President who is unrelenting and tough on illegal immigration, while hiding the fact that his predecessor Joe Biden had deported 271 migrants to 192 countries in 2024, and over 1.5 million deportations during his four years in office. However, unlike Biden, Trump has suspended the entry of all undocumented migrants to the USA and is turning them away without granting them any asylum hearing.
His complete support for Israel in their war against Hamas in the Gaza, even with Israeli attacks leading to the death of 50,000 Palestinians is now affecting the status of legal migrants into the USA, especially those who took part in the pro-Palestine gatherings on campuses. The Trump administration is now using its immigration enforcement powers to suppress the activities of international students and scholars who participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations or criticized Israel over its military actions in Gaza. Accusing the protestors of being supporters of Hamas, a globally designated terrorist group, the administration is using a rarely invoked statute to authorize the Secretary of State to expel non-citizens from the U.S. citing their presence as a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. Some have been taken into custody and deported, some fled the country when their visas were cancelled and some have taken their cases to court to seek justice and justification.
So, the question is, why does Trump behave irrationally? Some observers say that he is playing the much used ‘madman’ theory of global politics. The key principle of the madman theory is to convince opponents that a leader is unpredictable and potentially irrational, willing to undertake actions that defy conventional norms or expectations. This psychological tactic relies on the belief that uncertainty and fear can alter the decision-making calculus of adversaries, leading them to make concessions or adopt more conciliatory positions. However, this requires a delicate balancing act, where the leader’s public image has to be carefully managed to maintain that very thin distinction between calculated unpredictability and a genuine threat to international stability.
Trump uses his own version of this theory, where he praises dictators and alienates allies, using chaos to create uncertainty in geo-politics. Today, Canada is in an economic trade war against the U.S., while Denmark is in the process of preventing the promised takeover of Greenland by the Trump administration, even if it means using its military to defend Greenland. Trump seems to be using the ‘theory of chaos’ more than anything else. The Chaos Theory is based on the premise that while chaotic systems display unpredictable behaviour, the hidden side of the systems are a well defined and perfectly determined set of equations that work with high precision. Trump’s daily announcements has thrown the world into uncertainty. While his tariffs on China was expected, his imposition of tariffs on Canada and other friendly states, his refusal to send any more military equipment to Ukraine, and his disregard for the mediation efforts by the French and the British shocked the Western world, especially the NATO countries.
Trump’s erratic behaviour revolves around two main factors; short-term gains for the U.S. treasury and the containment of China, economically and militarily. He has a transactional approach that gives priority for immediate profit over long term strategic alliances and he treats geopolitics as business deals. He wants to break the growing Russia–China alliance and has the opinion that ending the Ukraine–Russia war quickly would lead to better relations between the U.S. and Russia, while securing economic advantage by acquiring Ukraine’s mineral resources and potentially restarting the Nord Stream pipelines. In this plan, the American interests are predominant and those of traditional allies are secondary. Since Russia seems to be struggling economically, it might keep a distance between itself and China should the U.S. overtures offer tangible financial benefits. China has little to offer Russia apart from ideological solidarity, and pragmatism carry’s more weight than ideology in international politics where financial benefits are prominent.
Trump’s tariffs on various nations, including his neighboring nations of Canada and Mexico are harsh. However, the Indo-Pacific nations of India, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and Australia, have been treated mildly. It might be because these countries form a strategic perimeter around China and Trump needs these countries to support him to contain China. His view of the world seems to divide nations into two categories; those that are necessary to contain China and those who are irrelevant to this goal. It can be jocularly said, that had Canada bordered China, it might not have been targeted with punitive tariffs.
Trump essentially behaves like a crafty mafia don. While in public, he is belligerent, appears reckless and announces grandiose plans to annex Canada and Greenland; his private decisions are very clearly focused on reducing the financial burden of hosting illegal migrants, growing the U.S treasury through tariffs, forcing manufacturers to restart factories inside the U.S. and generate local employment, weaken the leftist–liberal political establishment, combat violent crime, and overall increase the confidence of his supporters and those who voted him into power. And if this means he has to bend and ignore the accepted rules of domestic and international political engagement, so be it. His flip-flops on policy matters is no joke, even though his new nick-name is "TACO" = Trump Always Chickens Out.
Regardless of whether Donald Trump will go down in history as a 'President who changed the USA' or just a vain and mentally afflicted person - to his MAGA supporters he will always be the Don.
The “Don” rules
