Donald Trump never ceases to surprise the world with unconventional ideas. In the short time since he returned to the White House, there have been so many of them that we can barely count them: now he will buy Greenland, now he will turn the Gaza Strip into a Riviera or he will call Ukrainian President Zelensky a "dictator", writes the German public media ARD.
Let's take his vision for Gaza. A 33-second video clip, apparently created with the help of artificial intelligence, has been circulating on Trump's social media channels. It begins with footage showing children walking along a road strewn with debris that leads them to a beach with palm trees, skyscrapers and yachts. The film also features a golden statue of Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump drinking cocktails in their swimsuits, as well as billionaire Elon Musk, ARD reports. The video is a graphic illustration of the US president's controversial idea of the US taking control of the Gaza Strip.
"Trump prefers autocrats"
Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, describes Trump's worldview as follows: "He is a passionate nationalist and feels much more comfortable with autocratic leaders than with heads of government in liberal democracies - that is, he is more comfortable in the company of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orbán and Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. "For Trump, the ideal world looks like this: powerful leaders meet, make deals, and impose them on others, with little regard for the rule of law," Walt explains.
And New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman writes in her biography of Trump: "Trump makes policy as if he were still in the cutthroat world of 1980s New York real estate deals - fixated solely on his own economic gain."
Trump's space is the world of the powerful, says Richard Haas, longtime head of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. "A world in which great powers, including the United States, have special rights to decide the fate of others and get what they want", explains Haas.
None of this has been definitively decided, but Trump's ambitions extend to the American continent - with regard to the Panama Canal, Mexico, Canada. And as for Europe, it seems that Trump is ready to give Russia greater influence there, Haas warns.
Does this mean that Donald Trump is an admirer of Vladimir Putin? Not at all, says Kenneth Weinstein of the Hudson Institute think tank in an interview with the German public broadcaster ARD: "What President Trump is currently trying to do is bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. He wants to end the war and insists on burden-sharing in maintaining peace between Russia and Ukraine," says the expert. By this he means Europe - and above all Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer, who want a European peacekeeping force, but also Friedrich Merz - the most likely future Chancellor of Germany.
"Who is turning their back on NATO - the US or the Europeans?"
Victoria Coats, who was deputy national security adviser during Trump's first term, says the following: "With three Europeans visiting Washington this week alone - Macron, Starmer and Zelensky - no one can say that Trump has abandoned the Europeans." Coats also recalls that at the last NATO summit, an agreement was reached in principle for member states to allocate 3.5% to defense. "But looking at where most of them are now, I can't help but wonder if the United States is turning its back on NATO, or rather, is this true of other members of the alliance," Coats also said, quoted by ARD.
On this issue, Trump's critics and supporters in the United States are of the same opinion: Europe must do more.