By Andreas Kluth
The search continues for a framework that will give meaning, or at least name, the enigmatic state of international relations worldwide since Donald Trump was sworn in as president of the United States for a second time. I propose "neo-monarchism". At first – and second – glance, I would say that it fits.
Let's start with a recap of adjectives that have clearly failed. Trump is obviously not an isolationist, because, for starters, he continues to bomb foreign countries – provided they are weak enough to return nothing but symbolic fire. Right now, he's thinking about hitting Iran again.
Nor is he realistic, because too much of what he does – from starting random trade wars to insulting allies or allowing China to have state-of-the-art American microchips – harms rather than helps the national interests of the United States.
Trump is certainly transactional. But this "label" simply implies that he thinks in terms of short-term agreements rather than strategy — as one of his former national security advisers puts it, his foreign policy is "an archipelago of dots, with no logical connection between them." Although the description fits, it has little analytical value.
Some adjectives come from the science of psychology – rather than international relations – and also have limited usefulness. Narcissism, for example. It explains a lot about Trump's leadership: his constant projection of his megalomania and his need for flattery, among other things. However, other world leaders and American presidents have also shown signs of narcissism.
And somewhere here I invoke Stacey Goddard of Wellesley College and Abraham Newman of Georgetown University for describing current world politics as a "neo-monarchism." Their hypothesis is that scholars of international relations fail in part – in understanding Trump – because they have been trained to think of their science, as its name suggests, as interstate and intra-state affairs. Instead, they argue that the appropriate unit of analysis in the Trump era (and of his counterparts in Russia, India, Turkey, and other parts of the world) is his leader and clique.
"Clique" is the word they use to describe what historians of the Middle Ages and early modern times call dynasties, oikos, khanate and the like. The clique extends to family, supporters (e.g., campaign donors) and other friends. The foreign policy of the Trump clique, according to this argument, would be easily recognizable by the Tudors, the Habsburgs, the Bourbons, the Romanovs or the Medici.
These dynasties, as Goddard and Newman put it, were networks of families and supporters around a leader "who sought to create lasting material and social hierarchies based on the exploitation of economic and cultural taxes."
Suddenly, several contradictions become more meaningful. Trade and economic policy, for example. Despite his "America First" rhetoric, Trump does not use tariffs, or the threat of tariffs, as a means of mobilizing state power, but as a "profit-seeking strategy, a regime based on arbitrary decisions, with the aim of extracting maximum wealth for the clique."
In this royalist regime, the leaders of the countries he targets must offer special access to him or his family and associates. The tithe tax can range from gold crowns (South Korea) to Trump-branded golf courses (Vietnam, for example), luxury jets (Qatar), or crypto deals with the Trump family (United Arab Emirates).
One aspect of the clique's quest for extra taxes is, of course, the accumulation of enormous wealth. The Trump clique's businesses have earned at least $4 billion since he returned to the White House. Members of the clique who do not belong to the family are also doing well, as Trump redirects, for example, the oil riches of Venezuela, a country he recently attacked and then subjugated.
But this neo-royal era is as much about prestige as it is about money. For Goddard and Newman, this explains perhaps the most enigmatic aspect of Trump's foreign policy: a combination of what they call a "conspiracy" with some of America's traditional enemies, notably Russia and China, and his contempt for allies, including Denmark and Canada.
In a pragmatic, state-owned context, this attitude is contrary to America's interests and makes no sense. In a neo-royal order, it makes perfect sense, because "hierarchy is what is required".
The ruling dynasty "will only recognize the rival 'great cliques' as equals," Goddard and Newman argue. "All others are unequal and do not deserve any recognition." When Trump looks at the Kremlin or Zhongnangai, he sees royal courts that are worth visiting. When he looks at Copenhagen's Borgen (if he even knows it), he sees a vassal feudal lord.
This view of the system of states is, of course, the complete opposite of what is defined, at least officially, by the so-called "rules-based international order" that America adopted between World War II and Trump. He considered all sovereign nations as equal and respected institutions such as the United Nations or the European Union as a forum for cooperation. As a neo-feudal lord, Trump despises the UN and the EU.
Neo-monarchism also sheds light on how Trump deals with the law (and the law). "I don't need international law," he said recently. "The only thing that can stop me" is "my own morality, my own mind". Both at home and abroad, Trump is embracing what Goddard and Newman call "legitimacy by exception": stories that explain why certain actors are the only ones entitled to exercise sovereign power.
In his second inauguration speech, Trump said he was "saved by God to make America great again" while during prayers - at the initiative of Hegseth - at the Pentagon, he presented himself as "divinely appointed". Such perceptions come quite close to the "Command of Heaven" once claimed by Chinese emperors or the traditional notion of rulers of past centuries that "the state is me".
I think that neo-monarchism fits shockingly into the attempt to analyze American policies, which, in themselves, seem increasingly arbitrary and chaotic. Historically, monarchy has been the rule, not the exception, and in some places — such as Russia — it still is.
If neo-monarchism seems unfamiliar and strange to many of us, it is because America has spent 250 years — since saying goodbye to George III — presenting an alternative, both at home and abroad. In this worldview, what mattered was the well-being of the governed, not the ruling clique.
With this change of mentality, the American (and then the French and others) revolutionaries changed not only their country, but also the world. Similarly, the restoration of a neo-monarchism, if successful, would mark a regressive turn for the entire world. You may or may not like it. I, for my part, have to get one of these banners with the phrase "No Kings".
Adaptation – Editing: Lydia Roubopoulou
