Recent shifts in US foreign policy – particularly regarding tariffs and the war in Ukraine – have sparked debate over what is driving the Trump administration’s decisions. Some of those decisions have appeared so odd that media commentators and even some European officials have wondered out loud if the US government may now even be serving Russian interests.
It’s more likely that US actions simply reflect an aggressive pursuit of what the Trump administration perceives to be America’s interests. Such policies may help rebuild US manufacturing and reorient its military for future tensions with China.
Yet former Trump official Anthony Scaramucci, now co-host of the popular The Rest is Politics US podcast and a bitter opponent of his former boss, has a different take. He argues the US president isn’t – as is sometimes claimed – playing “four-dimensional chess” but acting on “whims” and “eating the chess pieces”.
