It took Donald Trump five years behind the Resolute Desk to reach an epiphany that could rock the world.
The most brazen president of the modern age might sometimes face legal or constitutional roadblocks at home. But he's realizing there's an entire globe on which to pursue his quest for infinite power.
As hubris mounts at the White House, Trump told theNew York Timesin an interview published Thursday there was only "one thing" to limit his global power. "My own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me." He added: "I don't need international law."
Trump's comment will alarm foreigners who blanche at his character. It could also catalyze three years of international turmoil.
His rare moment of self-reflection followed a frenetic week that can best be understood as a demonstration of him applying brutal and unapologetic power.
Shocking events underscored how American policy at home and abroad is now the personification of the president's complex character. It's volatile, ruthless and performative; it sometimes challenges constitutional and legal constraints.
Trump has long disdained international law, treaties, multilateral institutions, free trade and alliances that previous presidents saw as multipliers of US influence. More than ever before in his five total years in the White House, he's acting on that belief.
The daring special forces raid that pluckedVenezuelan President Nicolás Madurofrom his bed infringed another nation's sovereignty and international law. The operation probably went beyond a president'sconstitutional prerogativein the use of military force. But the president's morals weren't troubled, so he went ahead.
Trump's global ambitions are unleashed
The dispatch of several hundred troops, multiple aircraft and attacks on Venezuelan targets went right up to — and many critics think beyond — the limit of what the president is authorized to do under the Constitution.
But Trump's Venezuela gamble is more audacious than that. He declared he willpersonally oversee Venezuela's oil exports, in a revival of colonialist politics that the US has long opposed.
Trump is againeyeing Greenland, whose already-highstrategic valueis becoming even more critical because of itsrare earth mineraldeposits and as melting polar ice opens up new geopolitical competition.
Trump seems not to care that it's a semi-autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark and that its people have expressed no wish to be American.
"Ownership is important," the president told the Times. The White House had previously said Greenland was important to Trump for national security reasons. But his unique morality allows him to embrace a more personal motive. He said ownership of Greenland would give him "what I feel is psychologically needed for success."
Trump's ambition is extraordinary. But his belief that America's strength entitles it to territory it does not own recalls the land grabs of history's notorious dictators — not to mention Russia's President Vladimir Putin with Ukraine.
The President's comments to the Times follow a warning by his deputy White House chief of staffStephen Milleron CNN that the US now lives in a world "that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power."
No letup at home or abroad
Trump is not unlike many second-term presidents in discovering a haven in foreign policy when their domestic power begins to wane.
But he still plans to wield massive power at home, despite a recent deterioration in his political position followingsplits in the MAGA movementand acongressional revoltover the Jeffrey Epstein files.
This was brought home by the administration's swift and aggressive attempts to portray the killing of a 37-year-old Minneapolis womanby an ICE agentas a response to domestic terrorism. Video recorded by bystandersdid not support this view.
Vice President JD Vance on Wednesdaydescribedthe death of Renee Good in her car as "a tragedy of her own making."
His appearancein the White House briefing room Thursday, in which he absolved the agents involved, demonstrated a determination to ensure the incident doesn't endanger the ICE crackdown that is one of the most tangible applications of Trump's domestic power.
Huge risks in Venezuela
Trump's new"Donroe Doctrine"is based on the premise that the United States is the greatest power in the Western Hemisphere and therefore has the capacity and the right to dictate how things run in its backyard.
Take his fixation on Venezuela's oil.
From a hard-eyed national security perspective, why would a newly assertive United States tolerate a state close to its borders that cooperates with its rivals China and Russia and helps meet their energy needs? By controlling Venezuela's oil exports, the US could also cripple itsgenerations-long rival Cubaand possibly topple that repressive communist regime.
This is all explained in the White House'snew national security strategy. "We want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations," the NSS says. "In other words, we will assert and enforce a 'Trump Corollary' to the Monroe Doctrine."
Trump's flexible morality will make all this easier. But it is also creating huge risks.
His plan tocontrol Venezuelan oil revenueswill involve the US taking a cut. The administration promises to spend the profits to benefit Venezuelans. But these are not US resources to exploit or sell.
Sticking withremnants of the Maduro regimemay be shrewd given the haunting experience of insurgencies that followed the US destruction of governing structures in Iraq. But it also looks a lot like Trump plans to preside over his own petro-dictatorship in Latin America.
Such concerns will only be fueled by Trump'swarning to the Timesthat the US could be overseeing Venezuela for "much longer" than six months or a year.
Trump's hubris could go badly wrong.
A prolonged stewardship of Venezuela would almost certainly cause a backlash against American power. And many experts also doubt whether the US plan to "run" Venezuela through leverage of US offshore military power is feasible.
While the South American continent as a whole is showing signs of moving towards Trump-style populism, the idea that he can impose American will on the vast hemisphere is not realistic — even if the US had the resources.
Further afield, Trump's plan for omnipotence will be hugely disruptive.
Any US move on Greenland or attempts to coerce its population to join the US could buckle NATO or destroy US relations with transatlantic allies. It's hard to see how a return to turmoil in a continent soaked in blood during the 20th century will end up making America safer or more prosperous.
Trump's rejection of international law — the framework the US long advocated to avoid ruinous wars between major powers and to protect the sovereignty of lesser ones — could also make the world more dangerous.
States such as Russia and China have demonstrated in Ukraine and the South China Sea that they will flout global norms. By joining them, Trump could further embolden US foes.
It's not clear Trump has thought that far ahead as he bristles for action in line with a narrow prism of direct US national interests.
At his first presidential convention as Republican nominee, in 2016, Trump proposed a doctrine to solve the country's problems.
"I alone can fix it,"he said.
Trump's saggingapproval ratingssuggest his second attempt to apply this theory is failing.
But he's taking it global regardless.
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