The Opinions - Trump’s Era of International Bullying

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

With President Trump meeting with heads of state in the Middle East this week, the Times Opinion senior international editor Krista Mahr sat down with the columnists Lydia Polgreen and Nick Kristof to talk about how the president is emboldening leaders of all kinds worldwide, and what relationships they’re most worried about.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail] episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Derek Arthur. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. The rest of the show's production team includes Vishakha Darbha and Jillian Weinberger. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. My name is Christomar. I'm the senior international editor at Times Opinion. One of the things my colleagues and I have been watching closely in the first four months of Trump's second term is how world leaders are reacting to this new administration. I wanted to talk about this so-called Trump effect with Lydia Polgreen and Nick Christoph, columnists who have reported extensively on America's relationship with the rest of the world. Lydia and Nick, welcome. Hi, Nick. Hi, Krista.

Good to be with you. So, from my perspective, it looks like there are a few different types of leadership that has emerged in response to Trump 2.0. There are the emboldened leaders, leaders like Vladimir Putin, who are using Trump's foreign policy to advance their own agendas. And then there are the defiant leaders. leaders like Canada's Mark Carney, who just won a recent election by promising to stand up to Trump. And then there are more kind of opportunistic leaders in thinking about Xi Jinping, who is really seizing this moment to strengthen China's ties in parts of the world that are being negatively impacted by Trump's policies or places that are just feeling very insecure about this moment.

So, Nick, Lydia, does this taxonomy make sense to you? Does this so-called Trump effect line up with what you're seeing in your own reporting? Yeah. Well, one of the things that I've been thinking about, Krista, is the sort of cause and effect, right? To what extent is Trump calling the tune or setting the tone? Or to what extent is Trump actually responding to events as they're unfolding and the way that the world is reacting to those events? And I think it's useful to actually think about Russia and Putin in that regard. In some ways, you know, Putin was an outlier before Trump 2.0 in terms of his territorial adventurism, for example, you know, the invasion of Ukraine and, you know, really the aspiration to seize the entirety of the country. That's something that Putin had done before Trump came back. You know, the kind of annexations in the West Bank that you're seeing from Netanyahu and these other kind of extraterritorial kind of smash and grabs. I've actually been wondering if Trump in some ways has been emboldened by the broad either failure to stop or. or in the case of Israel, a kind of indifference to the moves that have been happening.

It's probably a little bit of both. But I think that we're living in a world that Trump is both shaping, but also taking opportunity of himself. Yeah, you know, I think that President Trump fundamentally is not particularly ideological. He's a transactional bully. And the truth is that bullying sometimes does work. I mean, he has been able to in some limited ways. advance American interests. You know, you threaten Panama, and Panama is going to cave and try to transfer management of one of the ports to American interests. You threaten Colombia, and it is going

to take people return from the U.S. And so, you know, in very limited ways, a bully can accomplish things. But I think more fundamentally what we've seen is Trump really dismantling the entire post-World War II architecture and a system. that had very much supported American interests, and by abandoning any kind of commitment to human rights, as Lydia suggested, I think that has paved the way for Israel to behave more recklessly in the West Bank and in Gaza, for the United Arab Emirates to behave more recklessly in Sudan, not that it was particularly well-behaved before. And so, you know, fundamentally, if the point of foreign policy is to make your country safer, then I think that Trump has, you know, here and there has

created some benefits. But overall, we are less safe now. And he has, in particular, by rewarding aggression in the case of Russia and Ukraine, I think he's created, you know, increased risk of the very worst thing happening, which would be a war in East Asia involving China. How does what's happening now feel different than? what happened during Trump's first term to both of you? I mean, to me, I think we're seeing a much more fractured and dangerous world in which there is actually a tremendous amount of territorial adventurism happening, a sense that, you know, any actor can go out and try things. And I think at the same time, we're also seeing, you know, a hugely diminished

appetite from the Trump administration for using hard American strength. I mean, there was a remarkable report in the Times about the assault on the Houthis that, you know, essentially concluded that because they couldn't achieve anything very quickly and because it was costing, you know, about a billion dollars a month, Trump essentially decided to pull up stakes and say, you know what, we're just going to declare victory. So it's a really fascinating mixed message. And the message that you're sending to the world is we're going to bully, but if we can't get what we want really quickly, then we're actually just going to try to package whatever we can and salvage it as a quote-unquote win and then move on. Yeah, I think of this as, you know, Trump's first term squared or maybe

cubed or maybe to the power of a Google. You know, and a couple of examples. So in his first term, President Trump apparently raised the possibility of withdrawal. from NATO, but he didn't do it, and NATO survived. And these days, look, in effect, NATO Article 5, the essence of NATO, I think is realistically dead. If Russia invaded Estonia tomorrow, the U.S. would not join other countries in intervening to protect Estonia. That kind of collective security, which has been the foundation of the international system since 1945, I think, is in practice gone. And likewise, if you think about trade. Now, in his first term, President Trump was often aggressive on tariffs and trade. This time, he launched a trade war with China that, you know,

he ended up backing down from because, from my point of view, he was losing, that he didn't understand China's relative strength. And so that's one reason why I think we're in a more dangerous situation, that he's more aggressive, that he's got AIDS around him, who instead of constraining him, empower him. But I should also say that Trump does have this deep aversion to being in wars, and that is healthy considering his appetite for being impetuous and reckless. Lydia mentioned his retreat from Yemen, sort of declaring victory and withdrawing, and I at least count my blessings that Trump for all his reclassified. and lack of understanding about other countries, at least he does seem to want to avoid

major wars. So let's talk a little bit about then the reaction to this place that we're in globally. A lot of our listeners would be familiar with the kind of examples of behavior like, you know, Netanyahu's plans for the IDF in Gaza or Nick, as you've written about the gazification of the West Bank. and of course Putin's war of aggression. Can you each talk about other examples that people may be less familiar with

that you're worried about in terms of leadership reacting in this way to the Trump administration? So I think we're living in a world where leaders are doing whatever they can get away with and those who criticize them could also find themselves in exactly the kind of situation that alleged gang members in El Salvador have found themselves. So, you know, the standards are shifting in ways that I think are scary.

One situation that has been, unfortunately, very much out of the headlines that I think is precisely the kind of thing that you're talking about and is a place that both Nick and I have spent a fair amount of time, and that's the Democratic Republic of Congo. In eastern Congo, there is a rebel group that is aligned with and essentially controlled by the government of Rwanda. And they have essentially occupied a huge swath of Congolese territory. And there is, I think, real fear that, you know, what is one of the most protracted and deadliest conflicts in the world could lead to, you know, even more catastrophic territorial war in which Rwanda essentially tries to take a huge chunk of this neighboring country. But again, it's interesting. In this case,

it may be that Paul Kagame, the leader of Rwanda, is just as inspired by Netanyahu as he was by Trump. And I say that because, you know, Rwanda claims and has long claimed that it needs to have control over areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo in order to protect its security, blaming it on the genocide that happened in Rwanda many years ago. And so it is interesting to see this kind of admixture of how these different authoritarian leading aggressive rulers, like who's inspiring who. And I think that what Trump does is create an environment where, the country that I think thought of itself as the guarantor of the, you know, the kind of the rules-based international order is now led by someone who is playing with exactly the kinds of tactics that

the United States has always tried to keep at bay. And, you know, the catastrophic effects of huge territorial disputes on the African continent, for example, you know, the humanitarian crises that that already creates and could create, could they grow, it's sort of. It's sort of, just mind-boggling. I would just add that I think that the single scariest example where President Trump's policy has empowered a foreign leader's potential transgressions involves Xi Jinping in China. You know, my biggest nightmare over the next 10 years would be a war in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea that involves the U.S. and China and potentially becomes a nuclear exchange. And I think that's unlikely, but possible. And I think it is a little.

little bit more likely now than it was, say, a year ago. And that's because if you think about what constrains Xi Jinping, you know, I think one was the, he looked at Russia and Ukraine, and he saw that Russia was really hurt and it paid a real economic price. I think that now it is much less clear that Russia is paying a price for its aggression, and indeed that it may succeed. Secondly, I think that it was pretty clear that globally, the U.S. had a lot of soft power and would bring that to bear on China if it launched a quarantine or something like that around Taiwan. And the U.S. has, you know, just doesn't care about soft power right now. And so I think that makes it a little bit easier for China to pay badly. You know, I don't know what the odds are that there will be something

terrible happening there, but I think they're higher than they were before. And that is really scary. Nick, you had mentioned briefly the UAE in Sudan. That's the situation that I'd be interested in hearing you talk a little bit more about and how that's intensified recently. Sure. So it's generally thought that the world's worst humanitarian crisis right now is in Sudan. And the war, the civil war and what the U.S., both under Biden and under Trump have referred to as genocide in Sudan, is being perpetrated in large part because the United Arab Emirates, our pals, are supporting one of the military branches there, which is engaged in particularly brutal attacks. And, you know, countries are normally kind of embarrassed when they are supporting a genocide. And indeed,

the UAE tried to hide its military transfers to the rapid support forces, this militia. And then when President Trump was elected, I think the UAE thought, okay, you know, the gloves are off. Now, it doesn't really matter what we do. We're not going to be called out. And indeed, the RSF, this faction, you know, has elevated its campaign of murder and rape and, you know, basically destroyed Zam Zam, one of the biggest camps for internally displaced people around the world. So I think in some ways the Trump administration has created a permission structure where it is okay for other countries to bully as well, to solve territorial disputes, to move in their interests. You'll also see this not only when armies behave badly, but I think we created a

permission structure to ignore humanitarian concerns. And so when President Trump dismantled USAID, then Britain responded with a 40% cut in aid. France followed with cuts as well. And so we're left with a world where the humanitarian needs are particularly great and where the response has been substantially diminished. Well, I'm glad you brought up the UK because I wanted to talk a little bit about what's happening in that government in the context of a kind of opportunistic response to the Trump administration's actions. Last week, Trump and British Prime Minister, Care Starmar reached what the White House called a historic trade deal.

And the announcement was full of theatrics, including a televised call. And it really began back in late February when Starmor handed over an invitation from King Charles to Trump. This is a letter from his majesty of the king. It's an invitation for a second state visit. This is really special. So I guess the question is, is this a good way to... deal with Trump? Is it politically risky for Starrmer to take the approach that he has with the Trump administration? I mean, I think it's, it may be risky, but it's also pretty pathetic that we

essentially have world leaders treating the president of the United States like a toddler who needs to be placated with a shiny toy. The latest shiny toy, of course, being a $400 million plane that the government of Qatar is apparently donating whatever that means to the United States. I think there's something really sinister and frankly pathetic about this way of operating in the world. But I think it also becomes the cover for something very potentially dangerous, because it means that the government of the United States, rather than thinking about its broad interests and, you know, peace and security in the world is really catering to the venal and, frankly, the oldest desires of one very immature man. I once visited a museum in North Korea that was filled with gifts to the Kim dictators,

and it was this incredible monument to the idea of a personality cult. And, you know, I spent much of my career kind of mocking personality cults. They were funny. And then all of a sudden you see cabinet meetings in the U.S. that sound, frankly, a lot like North Korean. cabinet meetings. Because of your leadership, sir, I believe we're making the military great again. I want to thank you for standing up to the Chinese Communist Party and fighting for our main streets, for our workers, and for those that make things in America.

Your first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country ever. You are overwhelmingly elected by the biggest majority. I want to thank you for your vision or your leadership for giving me the 100 busy days of my life and most exciting and most rewarding. Thank you for your leadership and thank you for everything you're doing. Very good. Thank you. Marco. But I think the politics have it cut both ways because Mark Carney clearly benefited by standing up to Trump. And Trump seems to have respected that. And so I think it's really hard for other leaders to figure out just what to do and how to handle Trump. But as with universities in America, I don't think that.

it simply caving and rolling over has been particularly effective. Well, and it's interesting because you can tell that Trump has a not even grudging admiration for Claudia Shambom in Mexico, for example. You know, I think she has a pretty mixed record in terms of giving in on some things, but, you know, talking tough on others. And, you know, there's another word for that, which is just diplomacy, right? I mean, you know, where you agree on hard things, hard unpopular things. quietly, and then you trumpet the big successes. And to me, this is one of the mysteries of Donald Trump,

because on one level, it seems like he's spending an awful lot of time on things that just don't seem critical to American interests. He cares a lot about the Kennedy Center. He cares a lot about, you know, the design of the Rose Garden and, you know, things that just, you know, given that we're facing a world on fire, things that just seems so, so, so trivial. But then at the same time, I mean, And I think what we're witnessing this week with Trump in the Middle East and, you know, meeting with the leader of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the new interim president of Syria. And there is this kind of off the cuff, you know, it seems sort of shoot from the gut, we're just going to do it. Quality, for example, in saying something like, you know, I think we're going to lift these sanctions on Syria. I mean, that's the kind of thing that clearly is necessary in order for Syria to have a chance to rebuild.

and that a previous, perhaps more cautious and deliberative administration like the one that we just had, I think, would be much, much more careful and it would have taken a much longer time. So whether or not you agree with the process by which Trump, you know, sort of reaches that decision. And I think similarly, we've seen what this kind of, call it, vigorous action can produce in terms of getting the last living dual citizen hostage held by Hamas released. And, you know, I think it remains to be seen if the Trump administration will, in fact, reach an agreement to, and the slaughter in Gaza that somehow excludes the Israeli government that is perpetrating that slaughter. But I think that there is something, I guess I would just use the word vigorous about the way that these events are unfolding. And you compare them with the actions of the Biden administration. and it's hard not to kind of think, wow, like were some of these things possible had that administration taken a tougher stance? Being an American out in the world

can feel different at different moments depending on what's going on in our country and in other countries. You two are out talking to people in different countries all the time. How does it feel to you today? And are there any conversations that have stuck with you that you've had

in the course of your reporting or your lives that kind of reflect that feeling in this moment as an American? It's really fascinating, right? Because I think if you go as an American journalist to another country, particularly if it's a developing country, a poorer country, you know, and I think there is a mix of fascination,

you know, perhaps even longing to someday go to the United States and also maybe some resentment of American policy in the way that it plays out. I have to say that for me, that a lot of the encounters that I've had since Trump was reelected really reflect a kind of diminishment of America's role in the world

and a diminishment of the perception of the importance of American actions. I mean, I've spent the better part of the last year writing about global migration. And, you know, historically, the United States was the most desirable destination for migrants everywhere. The most ambitious people in the world

wanted to come to the United States. because that's where all of the opportunity was seen to be. And it's just been very striking to see how quickly that has changed and how quickly people are thinking about different futures elsewhere. And under the Trump administration, it's not surprising that people would not want to come here, risk being kidnapped by ICE and disappeared to some sort of gulag in El Salvador. And I think that that is to me the sort of prevailing feeling

is this either irrelevance or indifference. And that really changes the valence of what it is to be an American walking through the world. It was, I think there was enormous unpopularity of Americans. It was kind of embarrassing to be an American back in the peak of the Iraq War. But I think one difference is that back then Europeans or others would think that you might well be a, you know, if they didn't read my copy, at least, that you might actually be a supporter of that, you know, of the government then. And now support for President Trump is so class-based that in general, if somebody is educated in the professions, in journalism, then there's much more of an assumption that they're a fellow

sufferer. And it's not, obviously, not a perfect alignment, but I think it's more true now than it was in past periods when there were unpopular American government. So there's more of a sense of we're all in this mess together, almost an assumption of that at international gatherings I've joined. So when do you think that this moment sort of ends? What will we need to see before this kind of Trump effect really loses its power across the globe and the world stops reacting to what the United States is doing right now? Well, I think that the global system has been in trouble for a very long time, right? I mean, the United States, I'm sorry, the United Nations Security Council, you know, has been as much an impediment to achieving any sort of lasting desirable global

outcomes for a very long time now. You know, there has been a need to open up the global system to more countries having greater say in how these big international institutions are run. And the need for the U.S. to allow and hopefully manage, at least softly in its favor, that process, I think, has been with us for a long time. And there have been a variety of efforts, you know, we're from the G20 to reforms of the, you know, the World Bank and the IMF and other things that would create a kind of more inclusive global system that would make the world less dependent on a handful of big jockeying powers. And that, you know, multiple presidents, are responsible for not investing in that effort. And, you know, I sure as hell know that Donald Trump is not going to invest in it. So the moment where there could have been a more sort of natural, peaceful, elegant sharing of power in a way that would have preserved and protected American interests while reducing the burden on the United States to, you know, act as the world's policemen, you know, be the guarantor of safety and all that kind of thing. That moment is passed, and I don't think that that moment will come again because you'll never have an America that sits atop the global order in quite the way that it did.

So the question that I'm asking myself, and then I often talk to the kinds of people that I talk to is, you know, what sort of global order is likely to emerge in a post-Trump era, given that we've missed that opportunity. And I think it's too soon to say I'm going to be watching not just, you know, what China does and what Russia does. but I'm going to be watching what Brazil does, what India does. You know, how does Turkey operate in this new world? How strong is the EU as it responds? So I think that this multipolarity offers opportunities, but it's going to take a while for the United States to find a way to live easily within what that new world looks like. The question that I, you know, I talk to a lot of Europeans and others about is,

can we recover what we had before? Can we rebuild this? And I think the consensus is that we're never going to be able to fully get back what we had, that it's going to be decades before Canada trusts us again the way it once did. NATO will be hard to recover. But, you know, I must say, I mean, I remember during the Iraq War how much hostility there was to the U.S., how it just seemed it was going to be so difficult. And then President Obama did actually manage to restore a lot of that. So I think the system has taken a real hit. I think it'll take a long time to recover. We're not going to recover fully. But I don't think that it's all over yet either. Lydia and Nick, this has been a totally fascinating conversation. I'm really grateful to you both for being here and taking the time to talk through all of this with us.

Thank you very much for joining. Great to be with you. Thanks so much, Krista. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Veshaka,

Christina Samuelski, and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabro, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amun Sahota.

The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samuelski. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.