President Donald Trump triggers chaos among America’s closest allies by starting a full-blown trade war with Canada, Mexico, China, and the European Union. Trump uses Machiavellian and Nixon’s madman techniques to destabilise the world order. This will likely cause a recession by mid-2025 in North America and around the world. At the same time, the Trump administration favours the Putin regime while trying to coerce Ukraine to sign a peace deal with Russia. Trump wants to divide and rule nations within NATO. Moreover, President Trump tries to trigger economic and political crises around the world. Still, Trump’s actions could be part of a well-planned agenda to rally Americans to his personal agenda. Trump could manufacture a political and economic crisis to gain more power, restrict people’s freedom, and rally people to his own personal causes. All together, Trump gets along very well with Russia; since then, Trump has been trying to damage the national economies of NATO members and cut funding to Ukraine. Afterwards, Russian government officials told the media that Washington’s policies were allied with Russia’s. Privately, Trump and Putin might want to work together to get some territorial expansion. Trump wants to rule over Canada, Greenland, and Panama, while Putin wants to rule over Eastern Europe. Thus, Trump creates winning conditions to achieve his political agenda by hurting NATO members’ economies through tariff imposition. Trump cuts funding and intelligence to Ukraine to support Putin’s war. As well, Trump considers America is being exploited by its allies, and he wants America to no longer have trade deficits with its trade partners. In a time of global crises manufactured by Trump, the U.S. President expects to be perceived by Americans as a great leader putting America’s interests first. He wants to fix what are, in his view, some of the past mistakes, expanding the American territory, and isolating the U.S. from its closest allies to enhance his powers as a U.S. president.
To begin with, Trump wants Canada to be annexed to the U.S. President Trump believes in the U.S. manifest destiny, which means America is destined by divine providence to expand its territory. Moreover, the concept of manifest destiny implies that America is the beacon of democracy and freedom. U.S. President John Quincy Adams wrote in 1811 that “the whole continent appears to be destined...to be peopled by one nation. The acquisition of a definite line of boundary to the [Pacific] forms a great epoch in our history.” Based on this belief that America has a manifest destiny, President Trump considers that America needs to expand its territory over Canada and Greenland. In a nutshell, he argues that Canada is not a viable country without U.S. support. Likewise, Trump questions the territorial boundaries between the U.S. and Canada. The White House questions the legitimacy of the validity of the 1908 U.S.-Canada boundary treaty that defines the border between the two nations. Additionally, Trump offered Canada several times to apply for statehood in the U.S. to avoid tariffs. Trump claims that Canada abuses the U.S. because Canadians rely on America for their defence and economic prosperity. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau told the media on March 4, 2025, the true purpose of Trump’s tariffs: “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us.” Also, Trump considers that this would be an honour for Canadians that their nation joins the United States. Trump does not care whether or not the Canadian nation wants to give up its sovereignty; Trump only cares about his political ambitions and legacy. For that reason, he tries to annex Canada by economic force. The U.S. president wants to destroy the Canadian economy to push Canadians to join America.
As well, Trump wants to fundamentally change the U.S. economy, and he shows very little consideration for his political opponents and economic allies to achieve his goal. In short, Trump wants American manufacturing to return back to the United States. Trump argues that the U.S. had been ripped off by every country in the world. He thinks that tariffs are the best tools to achieve his political goals. The threat of imposing tariffs and the prospect of perpetual uncertainty is the best way to bring manufacturing businesses back to America, according to Trump. However, Trump will never be able to achieve this goal because it would be too expensive for businesses to do that, and America does not have a competitive advantage in manufacturing anymore. Trump governs by impulse, and foreign nations no longer believe Trump’s words. Canada has decided to keep doing a trade war by not removing its first wave of tariffs on the U.S. because it does not have any guarantee from the Trump administration that the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement will be respected again in the future.
Likewise, President Trump will impose a 25% tariff on the European Union because he argues that Europeans are unfair with the U.S. businesses exporting to the E.U. Trump claims that the European Union was “formed to screw” the U.S. In short, Trump wants to create global economic chaos and to make world leaders believe that they must serve America’s interests or suffer from harsh economic consequences.
In addition, Trump’s desires for territorial expansions could be part of a much bigger plan made between Trump and Putin during very secretive meetings. For starters, Trump admires Putin for his territorial ambitions and his strong approach to international diplomacy. Putin dreams that Russia retakes the former Soviet republics. In contrast, Trump wants to annex the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada to the U.S. Accordingly, Trump and Putin want to create a new world order in which they help each other achieve their territorial expansions. Since 2016, Trump and Putin developed a friendship that lasted after Trump’s first term. For starters, Putin and Trump met several times in highly secret meetings that Trump tried very hard to keep the content of discussions secret, even from his own team. During the very secret Helsinki meeting, Putin talked at length about Russia’s territorial loss and how the West took advantage of Russia and the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Matt Bevan, a columnist from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, believes that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have agreed to divide the world into two spheres of influence. Russia would rule over the former Soviet republics and the U.S. over North America and Panama. Such as, Russian President Putin has been inspired by the 1945 Yalta Conference between Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In short, the Yalta Conference divided the East and the West between the communists and the capitalists. For that reason, Vladimir Putin wants Russia to take back the separated republics of the former Soviet Union, while Donald Trump wants to expand U.S. territory. Therefore, Matt Bevan suggests that both leaders could have decided to help each other to achieve their territorial expansion goals and to expand their spheres of influence. As a result, Putin and Trump’s friendship could explain the diplomatic chaos that Trump is making with Canada, Panama, Greenland, Mexico, and with the European Union. Lastly, Trump and Putin have mutual interests, and they might work together to achieve their personal goals. Machiavelli suggested that you should "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." For that reason, Trump wants to keep America’s traditional enemy very close to him because he can use Russia to make NATO and Europe lose their traditional sphere of influence. At the same time, Trump wants to work with Putin on mutual goals.
Furthermore, Trump knows exactly what he is doing while creating global chaos. Trump takes advantage of the fact that nobody understands what are the goals of his decisions. Trump’s strategy is similar to Nixon's Madman theory that defined America’s 1970s foreign policy. The Hindu in 2018 defines the Madman Theory as follows: “The strategy of deterrence adopted by a leader to portray himself as irrational and unpredictable in order to convince his enemies that it is better to stay away from him and avoid trouble… Nixon, who apparently tried to portray himself as an unpredictable and volatile person to scare the Soviet Union and other Communist countries.” Consequently, Trump uses this foreign policy approach to coerce his enemies and allies to make them do what he wants. Yet, this political strategy is ineffective and dangerous, according to political scientists Samuel Seitz and Caitlin Talmadge, because it fails to strengthen deterrence or generate bargaining leverage. They argue in the 2020 essay “The Predictable Hazards of Unpredictability: Why Madman Behavior Doesn’t Work” that the target state fails to understand the madman’s message and the target state does not perceive the “madman” behaviour as credible, and the “madman” cannot make credible assurances of future behaviour. In sum, the bullied state does not play with the “madman” and it is willing to fight with the “madman” rather than to comply with the “madman” multiple wishes.
On the other hand, Trump’s ruling type has been inspired by Machiavelli’s concept of using madness to gain greater power. For instance, Machiavelli thought that a ruler needed to stimulate madness to have more leverage. Machiavelli suggests that a ruler must show an appearance of unpredictability and strategic deception. Machiavelli wrote in 1531 “Discourses on Livy” that this was very wise to stimulate madness. The Italian political philosopher argued that a leader must show an image of being unpredictable and irrational to intimidate his or her adversaries. Trump makes irrational decisions that make his opponents believe that he is crazy to get more leverage over them. One of these irrational decisions was the imposition of tariffs to coerce Canada to be annexed to the U.S. Besides, the use of tariffs is an old trade technique that has been proven to be a failure to increase the national wealth because it restricts international trade. Nevertheless, President Trump favours this Machiavellian concept to have a better grip on power over world leaders. Moreover, Trump insulted Ukrainian President Zelenskyy during a White House meeting. In sum, Trump’s public behaviour is often unpredictable and irrational, according to journalists and politicians.
Finally, Trump talks about America’s manifest destiny in the inaugural address, and later he talked about the territorial expansion of America’s national territory by annexing Canada, Greenland, and Panama. Trump intends to annex Canada by economic force and Greenland by military force. This is why Trump imposes very harsh tariffs to make the Canadian economy collapse. At the same time, President Trump disrespects Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on live TV and cuts U.S. funding and intel sharing to Ukraine. All at once, Trump triggers a trade war with the European Union that could end up in a global economic recession. In reality, Trump stimulates madness through his presidential executive orders and diplomatic relations. Trump is seen as a madman ruling over America and making a chaotic global order. Trump’s policies and visions are closely aligned with the Putin regime that wants the Western economies to crumble and their military influence to decline. Trump and Putin could be working together to annex Canada and Greenland to the U.S. and that Russia conquers former Soviet Union republics. Whether or not Trump achieves his policy agenda, Trump’s “mad behaviours” will allow him to coerce his opponents to comply with America’s demands. Trump wants America to become more self-reliant and isolate itself from the world. All together, Trump is ready to collapse the global economy, America’s economy, and abolish NATO to expand America’s territory and to make America’s economy self-reliant. Trump’s foreign policy’s chaos is well planned by the new U.S. administration. Nevertheless, Trump will never achieve his end goal to annex Canada and Greenland, and he will never be able to bring back manufacturing businesses to America. The Trump presidency can be described by Machiavelli’s famous paraphrase: “the end justifies the means.” This new presidency is Machiavellian and Western nations should be ready to save the world order and economic welfare from Donald Trump. Canada, Greenland, and Panama could be dragged into the fight for their survival, sovereignty, and economic prosperity. Simultaneously, Trump’s support of the Putin regime risks Europe’s security.
March 16, 2025