An Axios piece explores this view….
Which seems to ring true in Trump 2.0…..
Trump working FOR Putinon Ukraine and Favoring China in Trade and Diplomacy
Donald manuevinbg ‘his America’ up front in real time ….
The concept of ‘Internationalism ‘ chucked aside…..
As a criminal American President tries to rips the ass out of a America as we had ‘thought’ we knew….
President Trump’s first term opened the age of “Great Power Competition” with China and Russia.
- His second is actively working to end it.
Why it matters: For the past decade, Washington has operated on the bipartisan consensus that China seeks to overtake the United States, Russia seeks to undermine it, and reinforcing alliances in Europe and Asia is key to winning the 21st century.
- Trump is challenging that entire foundation, envisioning a new world order where great powers cut deals — and look the other way when needed — rather than restrain each other’s ambitions.
What they’re saying: “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country,” the White House argues in its new National Security Strategy.
- “Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.”
Catch up quick: The first Trump administration declared a genocide in Xinjiang, blacklisted Huawei, and moved to ban TikTok.
- After returning to office, Trump kicked off a spiral of U.S.-China tariffs, threats and export bans, before striking a truce with President Xi Jinping in October.
- Lately, Trump has been sounding like the biggest China dove in Washington.
Breaking it down: His administration has backed off plans to sanction China over last year’s massive Salt Typhoon cyber intrusions, so as not to undermine the trade pact, Axios’ Sam Sabin notes.
- As China and Japan engaged in rhetorical brinksmanship last month over Taiwan, Trump sided with Beijing and urged Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to cool it.
- Trump recently announced he’ll be visiting Beijing in April, and Xi will make a return trip later in 2026.
- A U.S. official said the administration was “committed to ushering mutually beneficial trade relations with China without compromising on our national and economic security,” and noted that under the October trade truce China had “agreed to crack down on fentanyl precursors, purchase U.S. agricultural products, and keep rare earths flowing.”
…
The intrigue: That vision aligns with Trump’s calls to bring Russia back into the G7 — from which it was expelled after the 2014 invasion of Crimea — and to treat Moscow as a great-power partner.
- Trump’s National Security Strategy is notably far less hostile to Russia than to the European Union, which Trump has cast as a “decaying” project of the old liberal order.
The bottom line: In Trump’s model of great-power coexistence, spheres of influence are the price of stability.
- For the U.S., that means tightening its grip on the Western Hemisphere, confronting a Venezuela backed by China and Russia — and warning both powers to stay out of America’s backyard….
image…Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch. Photos: Getty
If you’ve read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), you may remember the world divided into three spheres of influence: Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania.
Orwell was drawing upon his reading of The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham — a dissident Trotskyist on his way to becoming a leading editor of National Review for which Burnham wrote a hawkish regular column, “The Third World War”.
In The Managerial Revolution, Burnham similarly divided the world into the respective domain of three superpowers (although, writing during World War II, he could easily see Germany and Japan, rather than the USSR and China, as possible leaders in their respective hemispheres).
But readers may also remember that Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia were in continual armed conflict, with changing combinations of two allying against a third.
The NSPM’s world-view of spheres of influence seems to reflect the same view, having a far more tolerant attitude of letting Russia bully Ukraine and China threaten Taiwan. This is in direct contradiction of the outlook of all previous postwar administrations—under Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Biden. You can’t imagine Ronald Reagan adopting such a world-view, American naitionalist though he was.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!
another (carefully-written) post lost in moderation.
You need to adjust your filters, James.
I will look at them DSD….
If you’ve read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), you may remember the world divided into three spheres of influence: Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania.
Orwell was drawing upon his reading of The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham — a dissident Trotskyist on his way to becoming a leading editor of National Review for which Burnham wrote a hawkish regular column, “The Third World War”.
In The Managerial Revolution, Burnham similarly divided the world into the respective domain of three superpowers (although, writing during World War II, he could easily see Germany and Japan, rather than the USSR and China, as possible leaders in their respective hemispheres).
But readers may also remember that Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia were in continual armed conflict, with changing combinations of two allying against a third.
The NSPM’s world-view of spheres of influence seems to reflect the same view, having a far more tolerant attitude of letting Russia bully Ukraine and China threaten Taiwan, while being allowed to dominate Latin America and the Caribbean. This is in direct contradiction of the outlook of all previous postwar administrations—under Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Biden. You can’t imagine Ronald Reagan adopting such a world-view, American naitionalist though he was.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!
And what could be more Orwellian than the laughably named “ House Freedom Caucus ,” a group of authoritarian Republicans who blindly supported the machinations of this totalitarian Trump ,who evinces a flip contempt for our Constitution ,the separation of powers ,and fully supported his effort to steal the election in 2020.”Freedom” indeed.
A more despicable group of liars, cheats and would be thieves one can’t think of.
Some members of the House Freedom Caucus (which meets with the Progressive Caucus every couple of weeks), like Thomas Massie, do feel free or even compelled to go against the White House/MAGA line on issues such as releasing the Epstein files and renewing FISA.
But as I understand it, the original Freedom Caucus, with at least some libertarian aspirations, has become swelled with other members who join either to fend off right-wing challengers and/or to please Republican donors, conservative organisations and Federal or state officials.
Better Name?
“Right Wing Nuts’?
MAGA has NOT been making America Great AT ALL….
Seems like some of them GOPer’s ARE trying to sneak away?