Trump promised to end America’s wars – instead, the US is acting like a rogue superpower

Albeit for the wrong reasons, no one could deny that Donald Trump is an extraordinary US president.

His disregard for the US Constitution and due process, the multi-billion-dollar grift, the vulgar, petty insults, and the abuse of long-standing allies are clearly not normal.

Yet in one important respect, the American presidency under Trump is reverting to type.

The overnight bombing raids in Syria against Isis, following an ambush that killed two US soldiers in the city of Palmyra last month, are merely the latest sign.

In recent weeks, Trump has also attacked Islamic militants in Nigeria in retribution for assaults on Christians, ordered the abduction of Venezuela’s head of state, Nicolás Maduro, and escalated his threats against Denmark and Greenland.

America is once again throwing its weight around – threatening and bombing weaker nations with impunity. Nigeria and Syria are not even within Trump’s claimed western hemisphere stamping ground.

Neither is Iran, which could yet be his next target. Trump may have developed a taste for overseas shows of force after ordering the assassination of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani at the end of his first term in January 2020.

This is a striking reversal for a man elected in 2016 on a promise to end America’s “forever wars” and gung-ho interventions in far-flung places.

That pledge was wildly popular among millions of Americans who had watched their compatriots return home in body bags for reasons they could barely comprehend.

Once in power, however, Trump’s desire to disengage from foreign conflicts was expressed through a series of ill-thought-out and deeply irresponsible policies.

He announced America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan via a deal with the Taliban that completely excluded the Afghan government, setting in train events that culminated in the chaotic pull-out of US troops in 2021.

Two years earlier, in 2019, he had ordered the sudden withdrawal of US forces from Syria, widely seen as a profound betrayal of the Kurds, who had fought Isis at immense human cost.

Selling out the Kurds to Turkey was a gift to the Assad regime in Syria, to Russia, and to Iran-backed militants. It also allowed remnants of Isis to regroup in the Syrian desert – the very militants the US was bombing on Saturday evening.

Few will object to decisive action against the Isis death cult, whose fighters, acolytes and franchises continue to murder civilians across the Middle East and beyond.

But America’s justification for the latest air strike – retribution – underlines the reckless logic underpinning Trump’s foreign policy and the common thread running through it: a profound lack of ethics and strategic intelligence.

The removal of Maduro in Venezuela was accompanied by fanciful claims about plundering the country’s oil wealth. Yet the rest of the corrupt Caracas regime remains firmly in place, while US oil major Exxon said on Friday that it would not touch Venezuela with a barge pole – let alone invest the estimated $100bn required to extract its underground crude.

Trump’s puerile snub of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado – whose offence was accepting the Nobel Peace Prize Trump so desperately coveted – only reinforces how unserious this foreign policy has become.

Now, Trump is determined to “acquire” Greenland, regardless of the potentially catastrophic consequences for European security should such brinkmanship trigger the collapse of Nato. A major conflict between western Europe and Russia would have devastating consequences for both the US and the global economy. Yet Trump, his cronies and the far-right ideologues egging him on appear not to have given this any serious thought.

The increasingly interventionist foreign policy of the world’s most powerful nation is now driven largely by the whims of one unhinged man.

There is little reason to expect improvement any time soon. Even if Trump loses control of the US Congress later this year, he will retain command of the US military.

America has, in effect, gone rogue. Watching this unfold with mounting alarm, the UK and Europe urgently need a credible plan of action. Opinion is divided over whether Europe should confront Trump directly and risk his ire, or acquiesce and hope for the best.

For this continent, however, there may be a third path. This year could mark an inflexion point, with Britain and France – backed by German investment – moving rapidly towards a truly independent submarine- and air-launched nuclear deterrent.

Both countries are already working separately on replacements for existing systems; cooperation would save time, money and political capital.

A new European nuclear shield, independent of US warheads, would silence Maga critics of Europe, strengthen the continent’s hand in defending Denmark and Greenland – and send a clear signal to Vladimir Putin that Europe is serious about its own security.

It would not cure Trump’s addiction to overseas military adventures. But it might at least ensure that Europe is no longer wholly at the mercy of them.