Trump’s Gaza plans are so atrocious and inhumane that one can only conclude that he simply believes he can do whatever he pleases
ISTANBUL
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me…” [1]
Two weeks were more than sufficient to make the character of US President Donald Trump’s second term foreign policy apparent to the entire world. Trump is returning to American imperialism’s formative era, brandishing an aggressive mix of Gunboat and Dollar diplomacy — updated for the 21st century. This throwback approach might well warm the spirits of former Presidents William McKinley [2], Theodore Roosevelt, and W. H. Taft. Trump’s behavior especially brought Roosevelt to mind because of his famous adage, “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Trump has modified this to “speak loudly, act thuggishly, and carry a big stick.”
Since World War II, US leaders generally accepted that America’s interests were best served through international cooperation, and the integrated chains of global commerce, anchored by the US economy, served as concrete illustrations of that reality. Trump has completely jettisoned that approach. From now on, Trump decides what serves “America First.”
The leviathan in flux
Trump’s behavior means, most essentially, the further erosion of the system that has determined norms of international state behavior. Trump is not the first US president to ignore international diplomatic and legal standards [3], but he has declared the US to be completely unhindered by those principles. Without those standards, though, we risk sinking back into the Hobbesian world of all-against-all, where might makes right, and life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” [4]
There is precedent for this situation. WWI saw the definitive downturn of the British Empire, which had overseen the world’s maritime commerce lanes for the previous 150 years during humanity’s first era of true globalization. Britain’s decline created a power vacuum that various smaller actors attempted to fill. Historians and political scientists generally agree that this lack of a global ‘leviathan’ was a key factor contributing to WWII’s outbreak.
For that reason, during WWII US officials and their United Nations allies designed a series of international institutions, underpinned by US economic, military, and political strength, to lay the foundations for an international system that would provide order to the world’s affairs.
Who will or can replace the American colossus and create a basis for world diplomatic, economic, and legal stability? Can the UN be reformed in order to fulfill that function? Without the world’s states agreeing to forego some of their sovereignty and grant the UN true enforcement capability, that seems unlikely. What about China — can an enormous, non-democratic, and not fully industrialized power function as a stabilizing force for the world? The EU does not even have internal unity, much less the capacity to ensure world stability. Can the world’s states coexist without a leviathan?
Outliers: Israel/Palestine and Syria
Just as clearly, two interlinked situations will test the contradictions in the course Trump has chosen for himself and the US. Last Tuesday, after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump shocked the entire world by demanding that Gaza’s Palestinian population be removed, Gaza taken under US control, and the territory rebuilt under American auspices as “the Riviera of the Middle East.” [5] Global outrage erupted immediately.
In other words, Trump is picking up right where the Biden Administration left off, not only as a facilitator of Israel’s war crimes, but now as an active participant in ethnic cleansing. Israel already applies the same annihilation techniques to the West Bank, and Trump implicitly approved Netanyahu’s expansionist aims [6]. Such plans, however, will result in more Eastern Mediterranean conflict, and if Trump is serious about taking control of Gaza, then US forces will inevitably be involved in, and the target of, potential conflict.
That is the fundamental danger in Trump’s aggressive posturing: threats of force only work if the threat is backed by concrete action. Sooner or later someone will call Trump’s bluff. Moreover, if Gaza’s inhabitants are forced to migrate to Egypt or Jordan (or both), civil unrest will be the guaranteed short-term outcome as those regimes are already struggling to keep a lid on political discontent. Would massive regional upheaval finally force Trump to recognize that his approach is mistaken? Some observers suggested that Trump’s stance towards Gaza is a negotiating ploy, but Trump later reiterated his intent [7]. Ultimately, a gambling bluff must be believable, but Trump’s Gaza plans are so atrocious and inhumane that one can only conclude that he simply believes he can do whatever he pleases.
In Syria, on the other hand, rumors suggest that Trump is preparing to withdraw US troops [8]. Although Trump failed to push the Pentagon into withdrawing from Syria during his first term, he seems more determined this time around. And whether the US remains in Syria or not, Türkiye is now the key actor supporting the new Damascus government.
Even more importantly, Türkiye is now the foundation for an emerging regional power bloc that already includes Qatar and the new Syria, but which also looks to include Lebanon and Iraq. The implication is that Türkiye is now Israel’s de facto neighbor, and Tel Aviv will not be able to pursue its current expansionist aims indefinitely, whether in the Golan Heights, in Lebanon, or in Gaza. The Eastern Mediterranean — if not Ukraine or China — looks like the spot where Trump’s foreign policy preferences will be given a litmus test.
A new colossus?
Trump’s horrific threat to remove Gaza’s population and turn it into an American possession brought Emma Lazarus’ poem, inscribed in the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, to mind. Once upon a time, the US gave shelter to “huddled masses” fleeing oppression and poverty. But for many decades now, US society has turned against immigration. Now, Trump ships plane loads of desperate people back to the source of their poverty and oppression; now, Trump sees those teeming homeless masses as impediments to luxury real estate projects.
Thus, America’s general abandonment of its ideals in favor of pure material gain and political expediency is accelerating.
So, who will be the New Colossus? — AA
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[1] From Emma Lazarus’s famous poem, “The New Colossus”: https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/emma-lazarus.htm.
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/politics/william-mckinley-trump.html.
[3] Previous US Presidents already made significant progress in destroying the system the US sponsored: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/analysis/opinion-america-abandons-its-own-project-the-united-nations-system/3238531.
[4] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm#link2HCH0013
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0xJ1sXq2FE.
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgxL_7NOnmc; https://x.com/yunuspaksoy/status/1887219330120884502. The following day, the White House spokesperson told the press that the US would not send troops to Gaza and would not pay for Gaza’s reconstruction. Because neither Egypt nor Jordan have the resources to perform the logistical or military operations Trump suggested, and because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Arab states with financial resources will not provide money without a Palestinian state’s establishment, Trump’s entire proposal seems to be, at the moment, sheer nightmarish fantasy: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/white-house-refuses-to-commit-to-ensuring-palestinians-can-stay-in-gaza-under-trumps-plan/3473192.
[7] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/trump-says-he-s-committed-to-buying-and-owning-gaza/3476963
[8] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/dod-drafting-plans-withdraw-us-troops-syria-recent-trump-comments-rcna190726
