When asked by New York Times journalists on 8 January, ‘Is there anything that could stop you from doing what you want?’ Donald Trump replied clearly and unequivocally: ‘Yes, there is one thing: my own morality, my own mind. That’s the only thing that can stop me. And that’s good.’ Trump also said: ‘I don’t need international laws. (…) (My power is) limited by strength rather than treaties or conventions.’ Finally, he said: ‘Well, yes, for me, it’s property. Property is very important, yes. (…) Property gives you things and elements that you cannot obtain by simply signing a document that you may have a, b…’. This last statement clarifies Trump’s thinking and actions very well.
From all of these statements, which are unacceptable from every point of view, it is clear that a person with such views cannot be allowed to continue to legitimately hold the office of President of the United States. Reality provides dramatic confirmation of this: his actions are already causing disasters for life on Earth in the environmental, economic, human, social and political spheres. His impeachment is necessary and urgent. Not a day more. Impeachment must be the work, above all, of the American citizens and people. But it must also be an indisputable duty for the vast majority of citizens and peoples of the world, whose rights and dignity have been trampled upon with great contempt and cynicism by Trump. His contempt for other peoples of the world is not explicitly due to racial, class or religious factors, which would be very serious, but to the fact that, in his view, they count for less than a speck of dust. Why? Because, he asserts, they have no economic or military strength, no power, as they are not ‘owners’ of their land and resources, of their lives. The concept of “ownership” to which Trump refers in the interview occupies a central place in his worldview, which he attempts to impose as ‘his order’. The statement ‘I don’t need international laws’ means that Trump believes that thanks to the strength (money and weapons) derived from being the dominant economic and technological ‘owner’ in the world, he can impose ‘his order’ and exercise “power” according to his ‘needs’ and principles. If, as he clearly states, the only power that can stop him is his morality (he does not mention ethics) and his convictions, we are faced with absurd principles. The only method he accepts is that of force. In this sense, he argues that the fate of the weak (individuals, social groups, organisations, peoples, states) will be to submit to the strongest or perish (another absurdity).
Trump’s ideas (which I analysed and criticised a year ago in a long article entitled ‘Understanding why the American system is the greatest danger to the world’) published by Pressenza .com.fr (1), are anti-human and anti-social, openly criminal.
It is impossible to imagine that anyone could accept these principles being applied with impunity and tolerate them remaining the global strategic objectives of the president of the most militarily powerful State, who has proclaimed himself ‘above the law’ and above any other power.
Let us now re-examine, in the light of these principles, Trump’s relations with the Ukrainians, Palestinians, Venezuelans, Nigerians, Cubans… and Europeans… as well as developments concerning Greenland, Canada, Mexico… and, in contrast, relations with Israel, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia… not to mention the devastation of the climate and life on Earth and the struggle for supremacy in the ultra-powerful world of artificial intelligence, it sends shivers down the spine.
As things stand, especially after the virtually non-existent reaction of other states in Latin America, the Middle East and Europe to what he has done in Venezuela (seizing control of the country’s government, particularly its oil, manu militari), everything indicates that we will not have to wait long before Trump decides to occupy Greenland, by force or by cunning, as he openly claims. The annexation of Greenland seems to me to be closer and more likely than a military invasion of Canada, even though a leaked ‘secret’ US government document on a plan to invade Canada is currently circulating oin the media.
Everything will depend on the mobilisation of American and European citizens, as the reaction of European governments is likely to be geared towards seeking submission through compromise.
A brief final remark on what Trump deliberately left unsaid and which, had he mentioned it, would have highlighted one of his greatest contradictions, his lies, which make him an even more dangerous figure for the future of the world. When speaking of ‘my own morality, my own mind’, he did not refer to his professed Christian faith. Let us recall that on the occasion of the armed attack of which he was allegedly the victim without consequences, Trump himself stated, with apparent conviction, that God had saved him so that he could continue his work in favour of the great America, symbol of freedom, as a global leader. Trump thus confirmed his adherence to the mystical and fideistic conception of the ‘Manifest Destiny’ of the United States, which has been dominant in all American political groups since 1849. According to this conception – notably in the 1914 version of President Woodrow Wilson, a fervent supporter of the creation of the League of Nations, namely: ‘I believe that God presided over the birth of this nation and that we have been chosen to show the way to the nations of the world on their path to freedom’ (2) – Americans are convinced that God has clearly decided that the destiny of their “nation” is to ‘guide’ the world. It does not matter to what extent Trump’s religious beliefs are solid and effective (I have the impression that he does not believe in God at all, except in instrumental terms: see ‘We trust in God’ as printed on the US $1 bill; his divine ‘salvation’ during the attack; God’s mystical and fideistic mission regarding the global destiny of the United States…). The reality is far from mystical: Trump believes only in himself, because he considers himself to be ‘the power’, legitimised by the power based on ownership of what is strategically powerful, including the state, reduced to an ‘administration’ and therefore to an instrument belonging to the president who won the electoral competition and to the forces that supported him financially.
In short, the concepts and practices of power implemented by Donald Trump at the American, ‘Western’ and global levels are destructive to life and global society in all their key aspects. As such, they are not good for the American people of the United States and the peoples of the Americas, nor for the peoples of the so-called ‘Western’ world, including Europe, nor for the peoples of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Daring to embrace global cooperation and justice
The world began to refuse to be dominated by the United States even before Donald Trump came to power. With Donald Trump in power, in a country that remains the first and only one to have used atomic weapons to date, it has become unacceptable for an ever-increasing proportion of the world’s population to tolerate the destruction of the world’s future that is currently being wrought by the United States. Admittedly, Trump’s impeachment is urgent and damaging, but the ideas and objectives expressed by Trump will not disappear with his removal from office, because he represents the most extreme and violent form of ideas that are still supported today by the dominant social forces of the American system and, more generally, by the economic, social and political system of capitalist society based on the market economy of free ownership of goods and services essential to life.
Only a global mobilisation, marked by close, real and non-rhetorical cooperation between American, Latin American, European, African, Middle Eastern and Asian citizens, can bring about a global pact for the construction of new rules, institutions and instruments. The time has come to give birth to a new global constituent assembly of the inhabitants of the Earth, or Earth Constituent Assembly, based on what remains of the UN and the new multipolar structures put in place in recent years (the BRICS are a fragile but essential example) in order to foster the gestation of a more cooperative, just and peaceful world.
- Riccardo Petrella, https://www.pressenza.com/fr/2025/02/comprendre-pourquoi-le-systeme-america-est-le-plus-grand-danger-actuel-pour-le-monde/
- For an analysis of the threats associated with a mystical-fideistic vision of the United States, see op. cit.
