Can Trump Realign the World Order?

Or will world disorder realign Trump? In the end, it might not matter

By Anil Madan

The advent of Trump 2.0 in the White House was replete with promises of realignment both at home and on the geopolitical stage. The 100-day mark of this second presidential term has come and gone and while there is much turmoil and churn at home, attempts to discern meaningful change around the world come up empty. This does not mean that nothing has changed, but it does show once more that, at least in international relations, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Trump’s Middle East Trip. Pic – AP News

Trump promised that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in one day. The delusion that he held sway over Vladimir Putin and could convince the Russian to do his bidding, ran smack dab into reality. And that reality is that Putin listens only to the beat of his own drum. Trump appears to have miscalculated quite seriously just how the Western alliance should go about ending the ongoing carnage in Ukraine. Whereas Joe Biden, the Europeans, and Britain saw their strength in unity, Trump saw his in bravado.

First, he declared as he has so often that Putin would never have started the war if he had been president, implying that Putin had exploited Biden’s weakness. Then, he threatened Russia with secondary sanctions if a ceasefire were not achieved. Putin did not bite, so Trump tried to embrace Putin. He lashed out at Zelenskyy in that infamous White House encounter and even repeated Putin’s assertions that Zelenskyy was, after all, responsible for bringing war upon his own people.

Trump had also promised peace in Gaza and relied on his embrace of Netanyahu to bend Israeli policy to his will. That plan too ran into the hard shock of reality. Netanyahu too marches to the beat of a different drummer, one playing an existential rat-a-tat-tat for his premiership. Like Putin, who seems to have an insatiable thirst for inflicting pain on the Ukrainians, Netanyahu must satiate the thirst of his right-wing allies who want to inflict pain on the Gazans and seize their land. At least in the case of Hamas, Trump could not blame Netanyahu for the attacks on Israel, but he did blame him for not stopping the attacks on Gaza. Nevertheless, Israel’s attacks on Gaza continue.

Rumors abound that Trump has threatened to abandon Israel if the carnage doesn’t stop, but those are denied by his administration. On the other hand, Netanyahu has openly acknowledged that Israel’s “friends” (presumably including the U.S.) have pressured him to allow humanitarian aid to reach the Gazans. Israel has so far allowed in a trickle of trucks. Relief agencies say this is not enough to make a dent in the impending famine.

Trump’s Middle East Trip

Trump’s trip to the Middle East did have the obligatory call for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords. Whereas rapprochement with Israel would be a welcome development for overall Middle East peace, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) appears disinclined to embrace Netanyahu while the Gaza siege endures.

MBS’s stated position is that he will not recognize Israel or establish diplomatic relations unless a two-state solution guaranteeing the Palestinians a state of their own is implemented. The prospect of that happening in the near term is close to zero. More likely, MBS is focused on continuing to thaw relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Supreme Leader of Iran is likely to remain intractable about wanting to eliminate Israel. Saudi softness toward Israel is likely provoke Khamenei.

Trump implored MBS to join the Abraham Accords: “It will be a special day in the Middle East, with the whole world watching, when Saudi Arabia joins us, and you’ll be greatly honoring me and you’ll be greatly honoring all of those people that have fought so hard for the Middle East,” he said. Of course, MBS does not think it particularly important to “honor” Trump, at least not in this way.

But Trump is quick to back away when he senses defeat. Thus, although declaring that it was his “fervent hope” that Saudi Arabia would soon sign its own normalization agreement with Israel, he added, “But you’ll do it in your own time.”

Here, Trump did not appear to show any interest in the revelations that Yahiya Sinwar, the now deceased former leader of Hamas, had planned the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel as a way of preventing Saudi Arabia from establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. If ever there was a lever available to persuade MBS, it would be to get him to react to the fact that he had been manipulated.

The Peace Process

The same sort of backing away was on display with Russia and Ukraine. Trump had a lengthy call with Putin which apparently went nowhere. So, despite his repeated promises that he would intervene to bring that war to an end, The New York Times reports that Trump had informed Zelenskyy and his allies (Trump said he had informed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany and President Alexander Stubb of Finland) that peace was up to Russia and Ukraine. Trump distanced himself from the peace process. In an interesting twist, Trump suggested that Pope Leo XIV would be “very interested” in hosting peace talks. Let’s leave it up to God, I suppose. The European allies have promised to step up sanctions on Putin, leaving the Divinity’s retribution to Judgment Day.

Readers may recall that Trump had announced a tariff rate of 145% on all Chinese imports to the US. When China countered with its own retaliatory tariff, Trump declared that China was desperate to negotiate but, in the end, he backed down. America’s tariff rate on Chinese goods is down to 30%. It will likely fade away soon.

Now, we are witnessing an attempt to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear enrichment. Here, Trump alternately threatens and cajoles. Just as he promised Putin great business opportunities, he has promised Teheran the same. On the other hand, at the end of March he threatened Iran with bombing and sanctions if it did not agree a deal. In Saudi Arabia, he said, “enemies get you motivated” and threatened to apply maximum pressure on Iran.

It is not clear that any of these initiatives, whether related to Ukraine, Gaza, Israel and the greater Middle East, or Iran, have changed the geopolitical landscape or that the world just goes on in the face of bluster.

The trip to the Middle East did yield promised investments in the US by wealthy Arab nations. Then there was the “gift” of a luxury Boeing jet by Qatar. The irony that the United States would accept a gift by a foreign country, of an aircraft manufactured by an American company, should not be lost on us. On May 14, the White House announced: “Today in Qatar, President Donald J. Trump signed an agreement with Qatar to generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion.” The math is obscure, but the purchase of additional Boeing jets is a significant part of the deal. The announcement also referenced a $600 billion investment commitment by Saudi Arabia. Abu Dhabi is to invest $2 billion in a Trump-backed stablecoin crypto asset tied to World Liberty Financial and Binance.

Meanwhile, the war on Ukraine rages on and the Europeans and Brits threaten more sanctions. And Britain, France and Canada, condemned Israel’s expanded operations in Gaza and threaten sanctions.

Trump did claim that Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio helped to broker a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Here, the irony was that Trump claimed credit for intervening in a conflict that Vance had declared just days before is “fundamentally none of our business.” CNN reported: “There are conflicting accounts of how the ceasefire was negotiated. While Islamabad praised US involvement, New Delhi downplayed it – keen to portray the ceasefire as a victory and saying that the neighbours had worked together ‘directly’ on the truce.”

Meanwhile, China appeared to remain aloof but concerned about the India-Pakistan conflict in the region. China expressed support for Pakistan its “ironclad friend.”

Will Trump realign the world order, or will world disorder realign Trump? In the end, it might not matter. This too shall pass.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
— Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, 1849.

Cheerz…
Bwana

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 23 May 2025