‘Should be an empire’: Trump’s ambition

News.com.au - 22/02

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

“It’s no longer speculative to ask how the post-Second World War world order, led by the United States, will end. It’s apparently already ended,” argues Canadian criminologist Jeffrey Meyers.

US President Donald Trump is full of praise for his nation’s competitors.

“The smartest one gets to the top,” he said of Russian kleptocrat Vladimir Putin.

“He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect,” he said of Chinese authoritarian Xi Jinping.

But Trump also has displayed a tendency to threaten longtime friends and allies.

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left,” he falsely said of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky this week.

“It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” he said, insultingly, of his northern neighbour, while also accusing it of facilitating illegal migration and drug imports.

Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Mr Trump has called a “dictator”. Ukraine’s constitution prohibits elections while martial law is in effect, as it has been since Russia invaded in early 2022. Picture: Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom Mr Trump has been calling “Governor” – an allusion to his suggestion that Canada become a US state. Picture: Dave Chan/AFP

His schoolyard insults sometimes elicit a retort.

“The most destructive president in history,” Australian Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd said in 2020, adding that Trump “drags Americ...
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