A conservative commentator compared Donald Trump's relationship with U.S. adversaries as "rival crime families," and said the president was remaking American foreign policy to fit his antiquated worldview.
U.S. and Kremlin officials met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss a deal to carve up Ukraine and its resources as part of an agreement to end Russia's invasion, but didn't include any Ukrainian representatives, and CNN commentator Jonah Goldberg said the president seems to view the world through an imperial lens.
"I think that Donald Trump has a goldfish's memory of historical, you know, stuff," Goldberg said. "But he is very similar to a 19th-century imperial leader that, when you talk about his allies, I think he comes from, he subscribes organically, instinctually to a 19th-century notion of spheres of influence, where we're the boss of the Americas and Western Europe, and we can boss them around and we can treat our allies as, really, like underlings, because this is our zone. Putin has his own, he's another strong man, he has his zone, and that's one of the things that helps explain why Trump likes to talk, when he heaps praise on dictators and adversaries while heaping scorn on friends, is that he thinks our friends are actually subordinates, right? He thinks NATO is basically a protection racket or a country club, and they're not paying enough dues to him. They're not kissing up to the boss enough."
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Trump has talked about retaking control of the Panama Canal, refused to rule out military action against Greenland and suggested the annexation of Canada, and Goldberg said that tracks with his view that Russia was entitled to Ukraine and that China was welcome to attack Taiwan.
"But he sees Xi and Putin as basically rival crime families, and they deserve respect because they are equal strongmen," Goldberg said. "They get Taiwan, they get Ukraine, we get Panama."
That's a radical reorientation of the post-World War II geopolitical order, said CNN host Jim Sciutto.
"That would it would be a dramatic upset of what had been bipartisan U.S. policy and approach to the world for 80 years, right, going back to World War II," Sciutto said.
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