r/IRstudies • u/smurfyjenkins • 16h ago

Trump uses the same coercive toolkit against Canada that Putin uses against neighbours: economic coercion, annexationist rhetoric, support for internal separatist movements. Both share a vision of international order built on spheres of influence, in which smaller states comply or face punishment.

https://hegemon.substack.com/p/trumps-near-abroad
857 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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43

u/Demortus 16h ago

There's no strategic vision. Trump is trying to look strong for his base by bullying other countries at a time that he is politically weak.

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u/JefeRex 15h ago

There def is a vision, and you could say it’s even successful, even if it’s not the kind of country most Americans want to live in.

We put too much importance on Trump. What is he, some Renaissance Man who knows enough about trade and international relations to even know which industries exist in which countries and are possible to put tariffs on at all? He doesn’t know shit. He has done more in less time than just about any President probably in our entire history, and he would have to be a super genius to have the background knowledge and insight to know about all of these moves. He has no clue about anything but the broadest possible strokes. He has a vague idea of where he wants to go, and there is an army of Republican policy experts who have been biding their time in think tanks until a President came who would elevate them. They’re the ones calling the shots, and they’re the future of the Republican Party.

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u/Demortus 15h ago edited 12h ago

He doesn’t know shit.

Yes, I totally agree. What we're seeing is the behavior of an actor who doesn't understand the consequences of their actions, like a toddler attempting to drive a car. Trump wants things -- power, admiration, money, etc. -- but he doesn't understand how the economy works, he doesn't understand how geopolitics works, and so he ends up getting in his own way more often than not.

He has a vague idea of where he wants to go, and there is an army of Republican policy experts who have been biding their time in think tanks until a President came who would elevate them. They’re the ones calling the shots, and they’re the future of the Republican Party.

I don't buy this. Republican policy experts would be at a minimum looking out for the interests of the GOP. Instead, with this war with Iran, unending trade wars, etc. Trump has created one of the worst political and economic environments an incumbent party has ever seen prior to midterm elections.

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u/JefeRex 14h ago

Remember when John McCain, who has become known as an old-fashioned reasonable and almost moderate Republican, sang “Bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of Barbara Ann at a rally? It has been a goal for decades to actually instigate war with Iran, and the new philosophy is to act with the power we have without international cooperation or approval. It’s only one step beyond Iraq, and kidnapping Maduro is only one step beyond Gaddafi. One small step. And a small step in the future direction of travel for foreign policy.

And the future of trade is Trump’s. Recently a public-private investment was announced by the CEOs of Ford and JP Morgan and Dem gov of Michigan Gretchen Whitmore (a very realistic Pres candidate) to reshore and build new auto supply chains entirely in the US with all Michigan companies. She was asked about the trade dispute with Canada, and here’s what she said:

“I want to first and foremost say the Canadians have been tremendous allies and partners of ours here in Michigan for a long time. Autos go back and forth over that border. The busiest crossing in North America is right here in Detroit. And so we're proud of that long heritage, but I think it's really important that we continue to onshore as much as we can to the United States from all around the world.”

So… what can Canada expect? Tariffs and attempts to onshore their industry, just in a more sensitive way after Trump. This trade policy is even stronger among the new left wing candidates and electeds who seem to be the future of the Dems. Trump is doing it all clumsily and too much at once, but his actions reflect where both parties want to go, in different aspects and different senses for each party. This will all last beyond him, a fundamental break has happened and rushed a reorientation that was always coming anyway.

He’s crazy clumsy. He’s not moving in a crazy direction. It’s the future.

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u/Demortus 14h ago edited 12h ago

Remember when John McCain, who has become known as an old-fashioned reasonable and almost moderate Republican, sang “Bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of Barbara Ann at a rally?

Sure, neoconservatives have wanted to invade Iran for a while. But these are generally competent and intelligent people, like Rubio, Bolton, Cheney, etc. Reporting on the events prior to the war with Iran suggest that Rubio (the main neocon in the Trump administration) played a pretty small role in that decision. The major players were Bibi and Hegseth, i.e. a Machiavellian who wanted to manipulate Trump into taking actions that served his interest, and a complete buffoon. This is evidenced in the complete naivete that underlay the attack itself. Trump apparently believed that a decapitation strike would result in the regime being overthrown and that those who replaced them "wouldn't dare" close the Strait of Hormuz. Clearly, he was wrong, likely due to being misinformed/manipulated.

Also, per Whitmer's comments, you're cherry-picking comments from one of the most protectionist governors. Democrats are being elected this cycle, and likely next cycle, with a mandate to lower the cost of living. There is no realistic path to do that while maintaining very high tariffs with the USA's largest trade partners. So, either democrats will lower tariffs when they're in power, or they'll only be in office for a short time.

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u/JefeRex 14h ago

They’ll lower and remove some, not all. Biden kept almost all of them and added more, he just didn’t do it with a loud voice and the world barely even noticed. The blanket tariff bullshit will disappear. But many or even most will stay. And more will be coming in the future. I don’t see any other future in the tea leaves, and I think we are wise to prepare for what’s ahead. But I can’t really claim to know where this whole thing is going more than anyone else can, I only have my tea leaves and my thoughts.

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u/Demortus 14h ago

They’ll lower and remove some, not all.

Not right away, for sure. There'll be negotiations, probably long ones.

Biden kept almost all of them and added more, he just didn’t do it with a loud voice and the world barely even noticed.

Biden was elected with a different mandate: handling COVID better and pulling us out of an economic tailspin. He did that. Tariffs under his term were much lower than they are now, so it was a lower priority for his administration. Any democrat who's elected in 2028 will face immense pressure to get inflation down. There's no way to do that without lowering tariffs significantly.

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u/JefeRex 13h ago

Time will tell. Do you think our next President will be a Dem or Republican? I know you don’t have a crystal ball any more than I do, just curious your thoughts.

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u/Demortus 13h ago

It's pretty hard to predict elections two years out, but my hunch is that it'll be a democrat. My reasoning is that Trump has no clear path to end the war with Iran, which means energy prices are going to skyrocket once global oil reserves are depleted. At the same time, his party will probably continue to protect him from being removed, due to fear of being primaried by his diehard base. That would put Democrats in a very strong position to capitalize on sky high energy prices. Going in to 2027 and 2028.

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u/JefeRex 13h ago

I hope that path to end the war appears, but that is just my hope. I don’t think I have a read on it at all, so I’ve got my hopes and that’s about it. It’s gonna be a long two years in any case, all six of the Trump years have been a real slog, time just passes so slowly as we look on in horror. So I’m buckled up. What else can we do.

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u/SystemCheck990 14h ago

if you listen to the man rant when he was on Joe Rogan, and he would start talking about tariffs, beautiful tariffs

his trade war was just him acting out, I think this kind of stuff is allowed to happen by his backers, they don't care about it one way or the other, and maybe make stock trades on it, Lutnick seems to find it entertaining while betting against it

but he has some things he probably is supposed to deliver, such as Israel policy, abortion rights, tying to bully EU into making exceptions on tech and food imports.

the rest the stuff mainly spoke out loud is for him, is for his own political theater that he loves, and a revenge tour for anybody who slighted him... which is a huge list in his head, and includes any blue states, or dem voters.

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u/JefeRex 14h ago

I think it is a comforting fiction, a fairy tale, to blame everything on Trump and think that anything at all will go back to the way it was before. Democrats and even Republicans will clean up the mess, but nothing will be the same, and we will keep moving forward in this direction. Trump is a sideshow, a magician’s misdirection, a clown that grabs our attention and distracts us from what is going on behind the curtain. It’s easy to blame Trump because the real truth here is an unknown and radically different country for the foreseeable future, and that’s extremely uncomfortable to think about. So we blame Trump and pretend it is all just an out of control President who we can just forget about in two years and everything will make sense to us again. I don’t think that’s the truth. But that’s just me. Who really knows what the future holds, I don’t know it for sure any more than anyone else does. It’s all unknown anyway.

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u/SystemCheck990 14h ago

i think there are goals underneath it, just that Trump's bluster is him, doing his show, people have paid a lot of money to get him in the chair.

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u/JefeRex 13h ago

Yeah. I have stopped thinking of him as a buffoon and more as a conman. We have a history of responding as individuals and as a societal system to galaxy sized conmen… PT Barnum, Hearst, the Music Man… I think he is in that tradition. The most successful conman in American history, and we have a history of producing them so that’s saying a lot.

But I guess in the end what’s the difference. He’s here. We try to make sense of him. We move forward the best way we can.

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u/SystemCheck990 13h ago

Most successful fake TV evangelist in history 😄

its the same thing rather than pretending to make people walk again, he pretends to fix the country every week 😂

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u/JefeRex 13h ago

Fr fr. That is exactly what he is. Best way to say it that I have heard from anyone!

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u/BrainEatingAmoeba01 12h ago

Project 25 and the delusion of manifest destiny over north America disagrees

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u/Demortus 12h ago

I'm referring primarily of foreign policy. I agree that Project 25 describes Trump's domestic policies pretty well.

The "Manifest Destiny" document is interesting, but doesn't explain at all Trump's decision to attack Iran. Trump does have people in his administration who have their own (often competing) ideas of what American foreign policy should look like, but they are not calling the shots. Trump is. And he is too myopic and illiterate to be limited by a policy document.

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u/BrainEatingAmoeba01 12h ago

The fog of chaos and economic crippling of nations helps makes those moves more possible.

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u/Demortus 12h ago

No, it's completely undermined them. Thanks to tariffs and this war Trump has upended the economy and popularity along with it. He is sitting at 35% approval and it's continuing to fall. He only has 2 years left to somehow overthrow democracy. How is he going to consolidate power when over 60% of the population is opposed to him?

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u/BrainEatingAmoeba01 11h ago

They may be opposed but where's the effort to stop him?

The exploding economic problems within the US makes them more dangerous in my mind. Like a cornered animal.

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u/Demortus 11h ago

They may be opposed but where's the effort to stop him?

The midterm election will be happening in a little over 2 weeks. That's how the American people can and will check his power.

The exploding economic problems within the US makes them more dangerous in my mind. Like a cornered animal.

Oh, sure. I have no doubt that he will try to cheat and con as much as possible to hold on to as much power as he can. The thing is that his ability to affect the election's out come is limited: states run elections, not the federal government.

If he overplays his hand by trying to prevent elected Democrats from taking office, he will unite a massive opposition movement against him that will march with demands for his removal.

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u/Numerous-Bowler-8677 15h ago

Trump loves the power dictators like Putin have in his country. He wants to be seen as the most powerful so he associates and emulate himself with dictators…

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/IndependentBorder670 14h ago

I mean why would you use non-economic measures when fighting an economic battle?

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u/Infinite_Second6928 15h ago

Where do you think Republicans receive their marching orders?

Of course they will follow the same modus operandi.

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u/SandF 2h ago

Spheres of influence is strategy which only make sense for continental powers (like Russia), not maritime powers (like the US).

The US -- a nation with a secure home base and enormous moat, wealthy from dominance of world trade, possessing all the near-insurmountable advantages of the world's leading maritime power -- has redefined success in 18th century continental terms of territory grabs and resource extraction.

Because Russia runs Trump. Simple as. He's not just a fool, he's their fool.

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u/gerblnutz 15h ago

Its Putins 3 kingdoms doctrine. US gets N/S America, China gets eastern asia and oceana, Russia gets Europe Africa and the arctic. Russia being the supreme kingdom the other two pay tribute to, and Moscow as the new rome, Putin the new Caesar.

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u/IncredibleEdible321 15h ago

Unfortunately for Putin, he doesn't have the power, the money, the vision, or the military to pull it off.

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u/Alarming_Purpose4081 15h ago

on paper that must sound great to Putin... "too bad" Russia is the weakest of the three

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u/gerblnutz 15h ago

Yes but that's why he has been reliant on funding reichwing reactionary parties in Europe and America as well as using bots to prop up viewership on propaganda mouthpieces on social media that amplify and often times lead the reactionary party talking points... and like now getting useful idiots like hegseth to burn off decades of institutional knowledge and working relationships firing generals and logistics officers while burning through our stockpiles on an idiotic war of choice while demoralizing the soldiers. His asymmetrical attacks on America are bearing the worst possible fruits that only benefit Putin.

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u/InevitableSprin 9h ago

It's always hilarious how India is forgotten here. They are maybe 10-15 yeats behind China in overall power, but the gap is manageble.

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u/MyGruffaloCrumble 9h ago

They may have a large population, but they have a huge obstacle in making the country livable for the majority of citizens. They have the highest emigration rate for a reason.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/countries-largest-emigrant-populations/

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u/InevitableSprin 2h ago

China had massive migration as well, until recently, it is a fixable problem with enough investment.

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u/MyGruffaloCrumble 59m ago

Sure, but Indian outmigration is almost double China’s.

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u/InevitableSprin 38m ago

It's not really an issue, it will get better the more developed India will become.

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u/gerblnutz 9h ago

The reason why no one in western media talks about BRICS is because it could be a viable replacement for the US as a reserve currency if the US were to ever do something stupid like collapse it's own economy force out reputable bankers and regulators, destroy their goodwill and beneficial trade agreements with their allies and largest purchasers of treasury notes, and destroy their softpower and goodwill with the 3rd world (used in the unaligned sense) so they are left overdebted isolated and an unstable investment.

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u/InevitableSprin 8h ago

Brics is nothing but a gathering platform, like the G20 and others. To become something, they need some level of integration, free trade, military alliance, ex. So far, there is just nothing of that sort. Brazil is de-facto with west, India is integrating slowly with France, Japa and SK.

There was global international trade before Bretton woods, so IF US is dethroned, there will always be something, it's just a matter of how expensive such system will be.

The cheif opponent of Brics having reserve currency is China, because it's bad for it's manufacturing.

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u/NotSoFastLady 15h ago

Trump isn't smart enough to do this on his own. He is, and many members of his cabinet, are Russian assets. The only thing that hasn't happened yet is for someone in law enforcement to state these facts as such and charge them for their crimes. Hopefully that day will come sooner than later.

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u/SubconciousBrainwave 14h ago

“Don’t attribute to malice what you can to stupidy” is a great quote, however naive in most circumstances I find.

As the best shield for malice is stupidy.

“This guy isn’t taking the most efficient way to collapse American economic dominance on purpose, he’s just stupid and that’s coincidentally what’s happening.”

All of Trumps major decisions this term have a clear destination for anybody with a layman’s knowledge of geopolitics. I am not in the camp where I think that is just a coincidental result of his stupidy or his party’s apathy.

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u/NotSoFastLady 13h ago

Agreed. That's my point. He's too stupid to be doing all of this without direction. The theory I subscribe to is that he's owned by billionaires, which also includes Putin. I've read some theories that Putin may actually have a networth closer to or greater than a trillion dollars.

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u/adeniumlover 14h ago

Er, US already had the sphere of influence. So now you are just destroying said sphere of influence.

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u/OneTotal466 15h ago

Birds of a feather

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u/ShipRude504 9h ago

You underestimate the planning involved in this re-design of the American government and global democracy.

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u/OuterLightness 7h ago

Organized crime style

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u/MaximumJoyce1916 5h ago

What Trump is doing to our great country was a decision by the American electorate.

They’ll tell you over and over that they are not responsible for who they elect… that it’s hard to understand politics, that they are so easily manipulated that they cannot be accountable for what they choose.

Americans chose to give a Putin-loving insurrection-leading racist, moron, rapist half Earth’s nukes twice. And then forgot what civil disobedience looks like.

They are all less than worthless. Our soldiers died for American security, and those people chose to fuck my country, and they still choose that while denying any accountability for it. And if one day I could prevent America’s collapse by tossing a nickel in a pool, I’ll keep my 5 cents.

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u/SandF 2h ago

Not the entire American electorate. American here. I get you're angry, you have every right. Canadians are the fiercest allies America ever had. You did bleed for us. Some of us haven't forgotten that a debt is owed, and never will.

And yet, I'm here to say, in genuine friendship, that perpetuating the division and rooting for America's collapse serves no one but Putin-loving insurrection-leading racist moron rapists. To defeat them, we have to be smarter and play a longer game. This is hybrid warfare.

If our White House were taken over by foreign armed forces, I have no doubt Canada would have come to aid. But a White House taken over by foreign information warfare and kompromat?

Abandoning that ally because the attack succeeded (twice) is playing right into your adversary's hand.

November comes soon.

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u/bacon-squared 16h ago

Trump views things as a realist would. Though he lacks the ability and intellect to project this power against countries that are actually in opposition with his.

He only looks for weaker countries to try and bully intimidate, he’s not coordinated enough to do any actual expansion plans in a permanent method.

Venezuela oil is burning. His regime installed in South America will fall the moment republicans are out of office.

The rest of the world is moving on without him, and he’s throwing tantrums to those nations that are actually making progress with the countries. He has no plan beyond bullying and intimidation. That’s all he’s got.

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u/Demortus 15h ago

Trump views things as a realist would.

Realists at least appreciate the value of alliances and a balance of power against geopolitical rivals. Trump sees almost all interstate interactions as zero-sum (even those that most realists would see as cooperative, like trade and alliances) because he places no value on future payoffs in the near-term, much less the long-term.

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u/Cogito-ergo-Zach 15h ago

Absolutely accurate take. Shadow of the future means nothing to Trump. All about zero-sum game.

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u/Coolerguy317 15h ago

Every time I read an article like this I think something similar. America spent decades in a position where restraint was cheap. It dominated the dollar system, global trade the seas its alliances etc. so it rarely had to openly push countries like Canada around to get favorable outcomes. Now that other powers have grown within that same system that restraint is becoming more costly. That doesn’t make Trumps neccesarily right but great powers leaning on weaker neighbors is hardly some new “neo-feudal” world.

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u/StandardAd7812 7h ago

But they're doing it incompetently. They're likely to get less not more from Canada

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u/Upset_Scientist3994 17m ago

In Russia they have been adoring Molotov - Ribbentrop pact for long time, leading it to see that as example how foreing policy should be done.

This is logical conclusion of that.

IMO multipolarism ought to be called as "Molotov - Ribbentropism".