On the new world – Alon Pinkas in Haaretz:

‘The U.S. demand from – or shakedown of – Zelenskyy over the rights to Ukraine's rare earth elements and minerals was subdued. Zelenskyy was apparently ready to sign the deal in exchange for U.S. security guarantees against Russia violating a war-ending agreement.
But Putin's defense lawyer, Donald Trump, was quick to promise that Vladimir would do no such thing, since "he has respect from me" – unlike Barack Obama and Joe Biden. There's a possibility that Zelenskyy anticipated this altercation and ambush, but nonetheless chose to proceed to shore up European assistance.
The Washington Post editorial opined that "Donald Trump sounded more like Don Corleone than an American president… Trump acts as if he's more aligned with the authoritarian aggressor than the democratic victim."
Thomas L. Friedman, in The New York Times, went farther and wrote immediately after the White House bar brawl that "This is a total perversion of U.S. foreign policy practiced by every president since World War I. My fellow Americans, we are in completely uncharted waters, led by a president, who – well, I cannot believe he is a Russian agent, but he sure plays one on TV."’

(…)

‘On February 15, eight days before the elections in Germany, Dugin [Putin’s favorite philosopher] posted on X a call to Germans to vote for the far-right AfD party, or otherwise "we will occupy Germany once more and divide it between Russia and the USA." Vice president JD Vance and co-president Elon Musk also called on Germans to consider voting for the AfD.’

(…)

‘There's the idea that Trump is mirroring Richard Nixon's 1972 China policy, which was designed to drive a wedge between China and the USSR, by aligning himself with Russia to detach it from China. This is very tempting to endorse, but there's no proof of a coherent plan toward that end here.
The transactional/mercantilist/financial approach that Trump calls "foreign policy" is based on the assumption that the post-1945 world order that "the West" and liberal elites swear by was costing the United States far more than benefitting it. The international trade system and the exorbitantly high defense expenditures and guarantees – through alliances – in fact eroded America's superpower status by giving smaller countries leverage that they accumulated individually and collectively, thus diminishing America's bargaining position and hurting the American economy.
This is a perfectly legitimate and arguably a compelling approach in 2025. The thing is, while Trump derides soft power, America's political leadership role, the defense of democracies and the entire "rules-based world," he never developed a coherent and structured alternative – just retail financial politics.’

(…)

‘It also means that the U.S. commitment to Europe is an anachronism. For better or for worse, this is a new world.’

Read the article here.

Trump plays a Russian agent on tv. The show must go on after all.

Unlike Pinkas I do believe that China is on the mind of Trump and his people. Russia is needed to counterbalance China’s power.

And it’s hard to proof that the Pax Americana hurt the American economy.

Isolationism and trade wars as a way to prosperity?

But a new world, definitely.