Project Syndicate
America’s Weak Strongman
Jun 5, 2025
Timothy Snyder
US President Donald Trump is strong in a relative sense: after he destroys institutions, what remains is his presence, surrounded by incompetent sycophants. But he is weak because, having destroyed so much state capacity, the United States has no actual tools to deal with the rest of the world.
TORONTO – Over the past two months, financial investors have hit upon a new trading strategy, based on a simple rule: TACO – Trump Always Chickens Out. America’s president threatens to slap massive import tariffs on friends and foes alike, or to remove the Federal Reserve chair, only to back down when the whip of the market imposes its uncompromising discipline. Then he switches back to tariffs, only to back down yet again.
It’s a pattern that extends beyond the economy. In fact, it’s the defining feature of Donald Trump’s presidency. But Trump is not just “chicken.” He is a weak strongman, and America’s adversaries may understand that better than most Americans.
Many Americans fear Trump, so they imagine that others must, too. But no one outside America fears Trump as such. America’s friends fear an arsonist – someone who destroys what others have created. And America’s enemies welcome the destruction wrought by Trump and by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. When Musk recently stepped down, the leading Kremlin ideologue Alexander Dugin lamented his departure: “DOGE made a great favor to the entire world liquidating USAID, Health department and Department of education.”
Trump is strong in a relative sense; after he destroys institutions, what remains is his presence. But he is weak because, having destroyed the government departments overseeing money, weapons, and intelligence, the United States has no actual tools to deal with the rest of the world. He plays a strongman on television, and he is a talented performer. But his strength consists solely in his audience’s submissiveness. His performance arouses a dream of passivity: Trump will fix it.
To be sure, Trump’s charisma is a kind of strength. But it cannot be brought to bear on any problem, and it is irrelevant outside the US. Trump’s supporters might think that America needs no friends because it can intimidate its enemies without help. But we already know that Trump cannot make Canada or Mexico – much less China, Iran, or Russia – do his bidding.
That only works at home. For years, Trump has used rallies and social media to inspire random violence against his domestic opponents. This has led to a self-purge of the Republican Party and forged a docile cohort of congressional cadres. The people who submit to Trump perceive him as a strongman, but what they are experiencing is their own weakness. And their weakness cannot magically become strength in the wider world.
The capital letters and exclamation points in social-media posts that Trump has directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent months, demanding that he stop the war in Ukraine, have had no effect on Putin’s emotional state, let alone on Russian policy. And inciting stochastic violence won’t work on foreign leaders. No one in Irkutsk is going to threaten or harm Putin because Trump posted something on the internet.
One could be generous and interpret a Trump post threatening sanctions as an act of policy. But words matter only when there is actually a policy, or at least the possibility that one might be formulated. But for there to be a policy, there must be institutions staffed with competent people. And Trump’s first policy was to fire those who would be competent to design and implement a policy. Many of the people who knew anything about Ukraine and Russia, for example, are simply gone from the ranks of his administration.
In their place came Trump’s flailing efforts to make concessions to Russia regarding Ukrainian sovereignty on his own – without Ukraine and without any allies. It didn’t work. His position was so weak that Putin naturally assumed he could get more and duly escalated Russian aggression in Ukraine. Trump is a sheep in wolf’s clothing, and the wolves can tell the difference.
It’s an obvious point, but it must be made clearly: no one in Moscow thinks that Trump is strong. Even if he wanted to, Trump cannot credibly threaten Russia without functioning institutions and competent civil servants. To make sanctions work, for example, he would need more people on the job, not fewer. Moreover, foreign powers would need to believe that the Department of the Treasury is more than an American billionaire’s plaything. Unfortunately, their intelligence agencies read the newspapers.
Americans can choose to ignore that the state capacity needed to deal with adversaries has been gutted and/or entrusted to people whose only qualification is absolute fealty to Trump. But the destruction of the institutions of US power creates a very simple incentive structure for America’s enemies. The Russians hoped that Trump would return to the White House precisely because they believe he weakens the US. Now, as they watch him dismantle the CIA and FBI, putting the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and Pam Bondi in charge of intelligence and federal law enforcement, they can only think that time is on their side.
That is why Putin has ignored Trump’s demand for a ceasefire in Ukraine, and why Russia will use any ceasefire that may occur to prepare for the next invasion. Putin is justifiably confident that a US neutered by Trump will be unable to respond, that the Europeans will be distracted, and that the Ukrainians, after years of war, will find it harder to mobilize again.
What is true for Russia also holds for China. The weak strongman helps the People’s Republic. Time was not really on China’s side before Trump. While a generation of Americans had feared that China would surpass the US economically and militarily, the trend lines in recent years were no longer so clear, or indeed had reversed. But now that Trump has set a course to destroy America’s state capacity, China can simply take what it once would have had to struggle to gain.
Wall Street might profit from the TACO trade in the short term, but a weak strongman brings only losses. While Trump’s supporters might be tempted to believe that he has made America a titan among nations, the opposite is true. As a strongman, Trump destroys the norms, laws, and alliances that held back war. As a weakling, he invites it.
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Project Syndicate
The End of German Complacency
Jun 3, 2025
Daniela Schwarzer
Friedrich Merz may be remembered as the chancellor who carried out the Zeitenwende ("historic turning point") that his predecessor had promised, with Germany assuming geopolitical responsibilities commensurate with its economic and diplomatic capabilities. But first, his government will face several tests, both at home and abroad.
BERLIN – When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz assumed office on May 6, 2025, few anticipated how swiftly he would begin reshaping the country’s foreign policy. Yet the change in tone has been unmistakable. Germany’s long era of strategic hesitation is ending.
Central to this reorientation is a clear-eyed reassessment of Germany’s most essential alliance: the once-sacrosanct transatlantic relationship, which has been severely eroded. Merz, long a committed transatlanticist, now openly concedes that the United States can no longer be trusted as a credible guarantor of European security or reliable economic partner. In a striking public rebuke, he recently condemned top Trump administration officials’ interference in German politics for being as “drastic, dramatic, and shameful as that from Moscow.”
This shift is more than rhetorical. Since 1945, Western Europe (followed by much of Central and Eastern Europe after 1989) has rooted its identity and security in alignment with the US. But after 80 years, the Merz government is turning Germany’s focus inward, investing heavily in domestic defense and advocating for a more autonomous Europe. Ironically, this shift draws on a traditional American value: faith in the power of democracy and freedom. If Europe can reassert this principle independently, it could emerge as a decisive player in today’s evolving global order.
So far, the new German foreign-policy stance rests on three pillars: steadfast military support for Ukraine, which Merz views as strategically foundational, a more nuanced posture toward Israel, and a deliberate push for European sovereignty. The Merz government’s resolve has only strengthened in the face of Russia’s relentless aggression, President Vladimir Putin’s evident disinterest in ceasefires or negotiations, and inconsistency on the part of the Trump administration.
During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Berlin on May 28, Germany announced a major €5 billion ($5.7 billion) aid package that includes €1 billion for air-defense systems as well as technical and financial assistance for the joint development of long-range weapons on Ukrainian soil. This commitment marks a notable departure from the more cautious approach taken by Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz.
Looking ahead, Germany’s stance will be tested by European negotiations over stronger sanctions against Russia and, crucially, by the inevitable confrontation with China over its indirect support for Putin’s war effort.
Merz has also begun to recalibrate Germany’s approach toward Israel, which has traditionally been one of unwavering support. According to recent estimates, the war in Gaza – triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack – has resulted in more than 53,000 Palestinian deaths, leading Merz and key members of his cabinet to re-evaluate Germany’s position. They have voiced concerns over the scale of Israel’s military response and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, and this rhetorical shift echoes what one hears from the German public. Younger generations, in particular, are less tethered to Holocaust-era guilt and have been shaped by a more diverse, pluralistic society that includes a substantial Muslim population.1
To be sure, Germany and Israel remain mutually dependent. Following a ten-month suspension of German arms deliveries to Israel between November 2023 and August 2024, Germany resumed weapons transfers and remains committed to purchasing Israeli Arrow 3 air-defense systems and Heron drones – for use in supporting Ukraine. Yet the change in tone is significant, and it may well herald policy shifts. A looming test will be whether Germany supports initiatives for a two-state solution and a suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. This agreement has provided Israel with privileged access to the European market since 2000, and its suspension is increasingly seen as a tool to push Netanyahu to respect international humanitarian law and eventually end the attacks in Gaza.
But the most far-reaching element of Merz’s early foreign policy is his emphasis on pursuing European strategic autonomy. Confronted with American retrenchment, Germany has embarked on its largest rearmament effort since 1945, allocating €400 billion to defense and security.
This massive increase in defense spending was made possible by a constitutional amendment to loosen the country’s “debt brake” (a cap on annual deficits). While the previous government broke new ground by stationing a full German brigade in Lithuania, Merz has already built on these initiatives and made them his own, thus solidifying Germany’s credibility as a reliable partner within NATO and beyond.
These moves may not constitute a revolution in German foreign policy, but they do represent a meaningful evolution. Long comfortable in its role as an economic powerhouse and diplomatic player, Germany is assuming geopolitical responsibilities commensurate with its capabilities.
Will Merz be remembered as the German leader who carried out the Zeitenwende (historic turning point) that Scholz declared after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022? Within EU institutions and in key member states such as France and Poland (as well as in the United Kingdom), Germany’s new assertiveness is already reshaping debates about defense, democracy, and sovereignty. In a world where power is being renegotiated and alliances are being tested, Germany is finally beginning to lead on its own terms.
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Daniela Schwarzer
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Daniela Schwarzer, a member of the Executive Board of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, is a former director of the German Council on Foreign Relations and former executive director for Europe and Central Asia at the Open Society Foundations. She is the author of Krisenzeit: Folgen Sicherheit, Wirtschaft, Zusammenhalt – Was Deutschland jetzt tun muss (Piper, 2023).
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