Trump: A black swan or a bull in a china shop? Expert on the U.S. president’s tactics

MINSK, 15 January (BelTA) - Is Trump a black swan or a bull in a china shop? Which image suits his style of governance? Elena Ponomareva, Doctor of Political Science, Professor at MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations), shared her thoughts in the latest episode of the V Teme [On Point] project on BelTA’s YouTube channel.

Even after his victory in the U.S. presidential election, the expert described Donald Trump as both a black swan and a bull in a china shop. “It turns out the first metaphor reflected the true essence of the modern Trump - his unpredictability. Not in the sense of changing the principles and goals of U.S. foreign policy. The phrase is also well-known that America has neither permanent enemies nor friends, only permanent interests. By the way, this is often attributed to the UK as well, and so on. Clearly, it’s that kind of Anglo-Saxon bloc. And it turns out that only the techniques for achieving these interests change. But the black swan in practice - here he is, Trump - is ready for unconventional, very unexpected, sometimes even crazy actions. Yet this ‘madness’, generally speaking, hasn’t provoked any particular reaction. Take the Venezuelan case, for instance. We can say there wasn’t really a unified position, for example, among Latin American states regarding the abduction of the president [Maduro]. Some spoke against it, some supported it, and some, after speaking against it, later went on to make agreements with the USA. And that, essentially, is the bull in a china shop, who is meant to shatter even the conditional fragility that has existed in recent years. Nevertheless, the international system has somehow managed to function, albeit poorly. There were some restraining factors, but, figuratively speaking, one still shouldn’t cross the red lines,” said Elena Ponomareva.

The expert noted that Trump has mastered tactics such as aggressiveness, and rigidity in both rhetoric and action. She compared the U.S. president to a character from a novel by the French writer and specialist on contemporary France, Jean-Christophe Grangé. “In his novel Lontano, one of the main characters is Morvan, a veteran of World War II who works in a police station. Here is Morvan’s characterization, I quote almost verbatim: ‘Morvan killed, stole, defrauded, spied, blackmailed - all in the interests of the republic. This more or less distinguished him from a common criminal’. So, Trump is a kind of American Morvan, who spies, blackmails, threatens, abducts, kills,” stated Elena Ponomareva. “And the task of the bull, Morvan-Trump, is to raze the old world to its foundations.”

Why does the U.S. president need this? The expert believes such tactics are a way to prepare the ground for constructing a new world. “Perhaps this will no longer be Trump’s task, because he likely won’t even have enough time to see it through, but he must destroy this order and prepare everything for the construction of a purely American, autocratic model focused exclusively on the United States. It is very telling, by the way, that the United States continues (it started this literally from the first days of Trump’s second term) to withdraw from international organizations,” the MGIMO professor said.

In her words, it is possible that the USA may in the future also withdraw from the United Nations.