A new theory explains why Trump keeps threatening global takeovers [View all]

[WestMichRad]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/trump-neo-royalism-abe-newman-greenland/

(Snip)
“Neo-royalism says that the state, the country, is not the key actor,” Abe Newman, a political scientist at Georgetown who co-wrote a paper coining the term, told me. “It’s groups of elites that are organized around political leaders. That system doesn’t play by the same rules.”

“What we propose, neo-royalism, is basically just saying to begin with, the state is not the key actor like the country. It’s groups of elites that are organized around political leaders. That system doesn’t play by the same rules, but it is very inherent to how humans think about international politics.”
(snip)
“I think a lot of people start with the idea that Trump is about spheres of influence balancing against China. Sometimes people call it America First. But that’s a red herring. But really, what you’re seeing is a set of foreign policy decisions that are about accumulating status and material wealth and then concentrating that in that group of insider elites. This is about status hierarchy, the relations of individuals.“

“Why does Trump have a big fight with India and put huge tariffs on India? It’s because Modi won’t recognize Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s not about competing against China. Why did we sell lots of semiconductors to the UAE? It doesn’t make a lot of sense from an America First perspective. So what’s going on there? It’s about the amount of money that the UAE is going to put into World Liberty Financial, the crypto company that’s associated with Steve Witkoff and their children. It’s about seeing the global chessboard as a site of status and material wealth. The same thing with Venezuela. People think it’s the oil companies that are pushing Trump to take over Venezuela. They’re not. That’s not the story. It’s about how Trump sees Venezuela as a resource that he can then distribute across his allies.”

Apologies if this has been previously posted, but I think it’s important and is a very credible viewpoint. It says the billionaire “class” is creating a new world order where they, not traditional political entities of nations, control everything.