Trump’s week of aggression taught us three things – but here’s what we don’t know

Donald Trump’s audacious raid on Venezuela at the weekend, along with the US seizure of a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the Atlantic, has taught us three important lessons about how the President views the world, one year into his second term.

First, Trump, a self-declared non-interventionist, is now willing to use US military force in a way that many doubted he would be comfortable with. The seizure of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, briefly put US troops on the ground in a hostile nation, using lethal means against another country’s armed forces. It was arguably the most ambitious military operation the US has carried out since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Second: Trump sees deploying troops to another country as entirely compatible with his “America First” domestic agenda. Trump saw Maduro as a threat to US national security, so he took him out.

And third: Trump is pumping America’s armed forces with steroids, proposing a $1.5trn (£1.12trn) defence budget in 2027, so that he can build the “Dream Military”.

What we don’t know is where any of this fits into Trump’s future geopolitical strategy.

This new phase of Trumpism will cause the most immediate alarm for countries in the “Western Hemisphere”, which he has made clear he wants to control in full. However, there is debate among diplomats as to whether this is also evidence that Trump now sees the world as divided into spheres of influence, where a dominant power effectively controls a large territory.

Or if he simply sees America as the premier global power that can act with impunity wherever it wants.

This distinction is important, because it sends a message to superpowers in other so-called spheres of influence, like Europe, Asia and the Middle East. And it matters because it just so happens those regions are home to four countries that make up what analysts call the new “Axis of Evil”: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

All four see themselves as adversaries of the West and will have spent hours since the Maduro capture assessing the potential threat this new version of Trump poses – but also what opportunities it might present.

Multiple diplomatic sources that spoke with The i Paper cast doubt that any of these countries thought Trump would replicate the raid on Caracas on their own capitals, given their stronger military and defence capabilities and the increased difficulty of such operations. But the risk does seem larger than it was a week ago.

Take Iran as a case-in-point. There is currently civil unrest against the hardline Islamic regime and Trump has expressed support for anti-government protesters. But trying to actually remove the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with direct US military action would almost certainly result in American deaths and raise the prospect of a wider regional war.

Similar bloodbaths and fallout would be on the cards in both Russia and China, should any military operation be attempted. This would likely be far too costly for Trump and his Maga base to stomach.

That likely hesitancy leaves an opening for these countries to flex their muscles and for them to advance their own regional interests: think China cracking down on Taiwan, Russia escalating in Ukraine, Iran suppressing opposition or North Korea carrying out brazen nuclear tests.

But before they get too carried away, the benefits of any opportunism must be balanced against the ambiguity the White House has created in the last week.

In the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s capture, Trump’s officials made clear that this operation was a message to the rest of the world. Marco Rubio put global leaders who “like to play games” and “thinks nothing’s gonna happen” on notice.

The challenge for leaders in these countries essentially boils down to this: If Russia moves to capture new territory in Ukraine that has critical minerals or China increases its military presence around Taiwan, how, they might ask, is that different to what the US has done in Venezuela? And does Trump care enough about the fate of those countries to risk the lives of US troops?

Or does Trump’s new taste for displays of power – combined with distracting the US from uncomfortable domestic news like the Epstein files and ICE agents killing people in the streets – make him more likely to pick a fight with internationally-recognised baddies if they push him?

The US’s sudden muscularity has left these sorts of questions open at the highest level of international politics.

A Western security official, talking on the condition of anonymity, told The i Paper: “I think Trump sees Latin America as his sphere of influence, sure. But he doesn’t see Asia (and other regions) as not his sphere of influence. The world is America’s sphere of influence.”

It will have therefore brought little comfort to those left trying to guess what Trump thinks and what his next moves might be when the President told The New York Times this week that the only constraint on his power is “my own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me”.

With global tensions ratcheted up to a level unimaginable a decade ago, there are more trip-wires than ever that could bring the US into direct confrontation with a hostile state. This would leave the UK and its European allies forced to answer a question they’ve long hoped to avoid: how far will they go to keep the US on side?

Sir Keir Starmer was attacked by all sides for his response to the capture of Maduro – not criticising the US President and celebrating the fall of a dictator. He has also risked Trump’s ire by siding with Europeans against the President’s desire to buy Greenland – which could get ugly.

Both these issues are simple compared to the diplomatic nightmare of Trump getting into a scrap with another major power. How could we credibly distance ourselves from the man whose country still underpins our own national security?

Optimists would hope that through diplomatic flattery, Trump could be persuaded against doing something rash. But the truth is, no one outside his inner circle knows what he is thinking, what he cares about, and where he believes the limits of his power extend.

This last week has taught us that more than ever.