Trump’s world vision: Honest, yet precariously primitive

 US presidents are not known for telling the truth. From Thomas Jefferson’s denial of a relationship with the enslaved Sally Hemings onwards, there has been no shortage of political distortions emanating from the Oval Office. President Donald Trump, however, has taken a different track. When asked by The New York Times reporters whether there were any restraints on his global powers, Trump replied, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” “I don’t need international law,” he added.

There is something almost refreshing about Trump’s forthrightness. He says exactly what he means. Surprised by his violations of international law such as striking boats in international waters, killing survivors, and abducting Venezuela’s president? Concerned that the US military committed the war crime of perfidy by disguising one of its aircraft as a civilian plane in attacking a suspected drug-smuggling boat from Venezuela? Worried that he did not consult members of Congress before sending armed forces abroad? “He who saves his Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in February 2025, “does not violate any Law.”

And Trump’s deeds back up his words. As the US flexes its muscles in Venezuela and threatens other countries in the Western Hemisphere and beyond, the White House announced on January 7 its withdrawal from 66 international organisations. Taken together, the assertiveness in Venezuela and retreat from multilateralism underscore an expansive interpretation of “America First” as well as a very particular 21st century rejection of the rule of law and international cooperation. 

White House Executive Order 14199, signed on February 4, 2025, is titled: “Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions and Treaties That Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States.” A presidential memorandum followed on January 7, 2026, “I have…determined that it is contrary to the interests of the United States to remain a member of, participate in, or otherwise provide support to the organizations listed in section 2 of this memorandum.” Of the 66 organisations named, 31 agencies and offices are associated with the UN, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Some are non-UN organisations, such as the Commission for Environmental Cooperation; others are described as “hybrid threats” including the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law.

Among the UN entities listed for withdrawal, the most consequential is the UNFCCC. No country has ever exited the UNFCCC since its adoption in May 1992. Described by many as the “bedrock” climate treaty, it is the parent agreement to the 2015 Paris climate accord.

“The United States would be the first country to walk away from the UNFCCC,” Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Reuters.

What do the 66 organisations have in common? According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on whose report the withdrawals were based, “It is no longer acceptable to be sending these institutions the blood, sweat, and treasure of the American people, with little to nothing to show for it.” He maintained that many of the organisations were “dominated by progressive ideology” and were also “mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty.” 

Indeed, the Trump administration interprets any form of multilateralism or international cooperation as an erosion of the US’s absolute sovereignty. Behind this assertion lies a reliance on raw power in a lawless world. “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff for policy and Homeland Security adviser, said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Miller’s comments echo 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ famous view of human nature, “In the state of nature, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” US National Security Strategy 2025 defined Trump’s foreign policy as “flexible realism,” and stated that the US would pursue “peace through strength”—both of which reflect a disdain for law and a return to a Hobbesian state of nature.

As Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau noted in criticising Hobbes’ state of nature, “Hobbes was taking socialised persons and simply imagining them living outside of the society they were raised in.” Today, we live in a world that is highly interconnected, with many shared norms and values. To imagine a return to a primitive state of nature is historically and sociologically impossible. Even the isolated Robinson Crusoe became socialised when Friday appeared.

Trump’s nostalgia for American post-World War II domination is as unrealistic as his Hobbesian view of a 21st century political state of nature. Hobbes’ hypothetical state of nature was without established governments, international cooperation, treaties, multilateral institutions or mutually-agreed upon norms. There may be failed states, violent conflicts, disaster zones as well as unregulated activities such as much of the new digital world. But this does not add up to a lawless state of nature pessimistically described by Hobbes in his 1651 Leviathan.

Donald Trump must be credited for his honesty. The 2025 National Security Strategy, White House Executive Order 14199 and the January 7 Presidential Memorandum are transparent statements of policy positions that are already being implemented.

America’s post-World War II dominance, absolute sovereignty, and the mythical “state of nature” are relics of the past. None exists today. Clinging to illusions of unchecked American power, or imagining a return to Hobbesian lawlessness before the UN and modern interdependence is folly—strategically reckless, morally bankrupt, and doomed to fail. 

This article was first published on Counterpunch.org on January 16, 2026.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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